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Revision as of 03:21, 18 October 2018
Let's Talk About This
Your aid for raising difficult but important conversations
Working in a team can have its challenge and sometimes be difficult. Opposing opinions, misunderstandings, lack of communication and personal issues can cause stress and conflict within a team, which is detrimental to the teams’ health and to the team’s success with regards to their project.
These kinds of issues need to be addressed as early as possible, otherwise allowing such negative factors to fester in the team can have dire consequences, such as members outright fighting, or wishing to leave the team.
One of the most effective methods for dealing with internal team pressure is simply to talk about them in the open. By speaking out loud and listening patiently, many conflicts and unnecessary stress can be avoided, improving the wellbeing of the individual, as well as benefiting the whole team.
However, starting these kinds of conversations can be quite awkward and difficult, especially in the beginning of a project where everyone is new and the team members do not know each other very well. This lack of communication can lead to issues being bottled up, causing stress and frustrations that lead to arguments and loss of productivity, which is unhealthy for the individual and the team.
To help initiate conversations about issues within a team, we decided upon our solution, Let’s Talk About This (LTAT).
There are two key elements to LTAT:
Human Resources
We thought that each team should have their own Human Resources (HR) person, who is elected by the team. The HR’s role would be to act as a listener and mediator of issues that are raised in the team. They would help solve issues where they can or involve more appropriate parties where they see fit.
The LTAT web application
communicating one’s issues can be awkward, even to someone dedicated to listening to these kinds of things. It can also be difficult to break down your own problems and think of them objectively. Also, having to use a personal communication channel (such text or email) to raise an issue can be intimidating, especially if the user is unsure or nervous. We decided that a level and unbiased platform for specifically communicating issues is needed, on which a user is assisted in objectively breaking down their problem, and they should be able to access and use the platform with ease. Furthermore, we want the HR to receive the message in a way they can efficiently and effectively understand the problem.
The LTAT web app is a tool to raise an issue in a discrete and orderly manner. It is up to the user and the HR to meet in person, with other relevant parties, to discuss the issue further and resolve it in person.
But first, is LTAT really needed?
Before going into making our LTAT app, we needed to confirm that something like LTAT is needed in the real world, and whether other teams would find it useful. We contacted several iGEM teams from all over the world to fill out our survey, in which we asked individuals general questions about their team management system and about issues they have within their team. Through our survey we wanted to confirm two key things. First, do
The app is to be used by individuals to communicate issues with the team, therefore it is best to get an idea of issues faced in other teams from an individual’s perspective. Furthermore, this allows the individual filling our survey to be more comfortable about honestly answering the questions, rather than feeling pressured into choosing answers that creates a false-positive image of their team.
Do other team's have communication issues?
How often do you perceive communication issues within your team?
How often do you feel you have communication issues with your team?
These confirmed to us that individuals in other teams do perceive challenges and difficulties when it comes to communication. One fifth of the respondents believe that issues occur regularly is a considerable amount, and a total of 61.8% believing that there is at least one issue a week. Furthermore, slightly over half of the total respondents believe that they themselves have at least one communication issue a week. These data suggest that other iGEM teams also have communication issues and so LTAT could potentially be used by others.
Would other teams be interested in LTAT?
Would having a dedicated Human Resource person improve communication within the team?
Would a tool that allows members to voice issues and encourages the team to sort them out together improve team communication?
These results showed some promise, as majority of individuals do agree that a dedicated HR could possibly be useful, but most of them are sceptical about how well it could be implemented by the team, which is a reasonable thought to have. However, one participant commented “We've implemented this [HR] role this year and it has helped immensely, especially because our team is very large”. This particular response was encouraging to hear and supported our belief that a dedicated HR in a group would be beneficial to everyone. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t contact this individual further, as we the responses are recorded as anonymously.
In Summary...
From our survey we received confirmation that other teams also have communication issues and many individuals felt that they personally had some form of communication issue with their team. Furthermore, the responses to having a dedicated HR and a tool to communicate team issues through were positive, encouraging us that LTAT could be successful at helping initiating conversations about issues within a team.
Demo of Let's Talk About This
With the help of the iGEM community we were able to develop a beta of our web application Let’s Talk About This
The application is coded in HTML, JavaScript and PHP, and the app is hosted on a Raspberry Pi model 3B+ server. Our team has a personal account that is active at all times and can be accessed by every member through this web address: “www.icigem.com/LTAT/LTAT.html”. Our personal account is password protected, therefore only members of the Imperial iGEM Team can access it, however a demo of the app as it were to be used in a web browser can be found at this web address: “www.icigem.com/LTAT_demo/LTAT.html”.
How the web application works is that the user can access the app through any web browser (also including mobile devices) by typing the web address for the app into any web browser. When the app is opened, the user is asked a series of questions regarding their issue. These responses are recorded and at the end an email is sent to the appropriate person with the responses collated as a letter.
A fully functional demo of the web app is available for you to explore below.
Let's Talk About This: Demo Web App
11:22
Let's Talk About This
Welcome to LTAT, your aid for raising difficult but important conversations
Press the button below to begin
Let's Talk About This
Welcome to LTAT.
Even though this is the wiki demo version of the LTAT web app,
it still has all the functionality of the full web app and represents it quite truly.
Press the button to begin the demo.
Submission page
All the inputs have been collected by the app, however they have not been sent to the mediator yet.
This is done only when the user presses the submit button,
allowing them full control over if they wish to raise their issue.
MailBox Of Recipient
- Search
- Inbox
- Sent
- Spam
- Deleted
- Priority
- Updates
- Social
- Work
- idt: Your IDT order has been shipped
- upv valencia: We've sent over your parts
- igemhq: Wiki freeze deadline is approaching!
- t.ouldridge: Order Approvals Needed
- i.mullor-ruiz: I thought you'd find this paper useful!
- neborders: Your High-fidelity Q5 will be arriving soon
- ucl_igem: What time is the meet-up?
- oxford: IDT parts order?
- oxford: New Scientist Live payment receipt
- benchling: T-shirts are on their way
- sue: regarding agarose and missing brush
- t.ouldridge: Don't forget the pub quiz this firday!
To refresh the demo, click here
The program files and documentation for the LTAT web app can be found on our GitHub directory. There you can also find the documentation on how the Raspberry Pi Model 3B+ server was set up to host the web application.
How has the app changed the way we work?
The LTAT app has on a few occasions been used to raise issues with the HR and PI of our teams. These mediators were informed in good time and were able to respond to the situation quickly and with discretion. Knowing that we have a tool with which to communicate issues clearly and easily with a body responsible for dealing with such kinds of things has allowed us to be more open with things that make us unhappy. More importantly, this has allowed us to communicate more about solutions on how to resolve such issues and negotiate appropriate compromises where needed.
With the aid of the app, we were able to work together more coherently, and in fact found that after a certain time it was no longer needed as the main platform for raising issues, and people felt more natural talking about it to one another in person. By working more coherently, we were able to dedicate our time and energy to developing our project and taking it further to completion, rather than dealing with internal stresses leading to lack of productivity and hurting the team’s mental health.
Giving back to the iGEM community
After making the beta, we distributed copies of the app to other teams. However, as the app will be used for communicating personal and often sensitive material, we drafted a terms and conditions document for the app (hyperlink to pdf) to which the users and the developer must agree to.
In summary the document reassures the client (the iGEM team) that their account is secure and independent from Imperial College London, that the developer has access to all the information however they will not and cannot use this information in any way and doing so will put them at risk of serious prosecutions. And finally, the document also protects the web application from distribution without the developer’s permission.
An account for you team can very easily be created by the developer, you would just need to download the terms and conditions document, follow the instructions on the document and contact the developer.
