Douge 1

Emmanuel Douge
Professor Wang
HCS 100-19

Bonus: Small Group Analysis

The objective of the second meeting was to get more comfortable with each other and get
an idea of what we were going to do with the speech since the first meeting was just organizing
the questions. I was the second to arrive and I looked around for my group and saw Anna. I
thought nobody else was going to come, but everybody showed up a few minutes later to my
relief. We decided to go use a computer in the library to start an outline. We did not want to start
one from scratch. So, I pulled up the outline I used for the introductory speech. We began to talk
as I filled the outline with our ideas and organized them.
Even though we worked on the objective, much was left to be desired as I realized our
questions on the survey were qualitative rather than quantitative compared to the groups we saw
on presentation day one now that I look back on it. However, we did get partially done what we
set out to do since some of our group members had to leave for their next morning class.
The major turning point that led to the achievement of the objective was Annas attempt
to lead the group which ended successfully with the help of Kristopher. However, I took the
leadership role in the beginning since no one else had any idea how an outline should look like.
I played the information giver. Kristopher and Anna switched between the contributor
and recorder roles. Jonathan played the encourager role. Sarang played the orienter role. I kept
pulling from my knowledge of previous tests and readings that lead me to become the primary
information giver during that meeting that contributed to the bulk of the outline at that time.

Douge 2
Kristopher and Anna would sometimes direct the path our outline should take so that we did not
go off course in our topic. Sarang would challenge group ideas and make sure that we would
consider all possibilities before proceeding with the popular vote.
We negotiated the order in which we would present the speech as well as the organization
of the information and interpersonal talk took place in between the work. However, we quickly
switched to group talk when I presented the matter at hand after thinking of more information to
contribute. This process occurred multiple times throughout our meeting, but it did not impede
our progress a little.
We should have been more conscious of time. As our presentation date nears, I realize we
have less and less time, so we should have made more productive use of our time as group when
we had class time to do the assignment. However, I also believe that this may be an effect of our
short meeting times because we never established our identity as a group to distinguish ourselves
from others. Although, I understand this was difficult considering most of us had early morning
classes afterwards and did not want to stay longer than was necessary. However, I believe we
should have scheduled at least afternoon sessions to work on the project.
More importantly, I cannot help but compare this group to my history project
group. We had a lot more work to do, but we finished it relatively early with a lot less time. I
think as a unit we were not worrying about the project as much as we should have and put it as a
lesser priority compared to other things we had to do. All in all, I believe this meeting was our
most productive of all. We had an outline ready and interpersonal talk was kept to a minimum as
we focused more on the project and less on ourselves. However, there is much room for
improvement in how we handle working in groups. Next time, I should take more charge or at
the very least handle communication matter between myself and the group.