The Team's Monthly Reflection

After our first month on the project, the team decided to share our individual thoughts and reflections of the experience so far:

Jamie

The experience of being the team lead for the inter project can only be described as interesting so far! From the lectures provided by Napier and SGN to the numerous workshops that I have participated within. However, the most valuable experience has been through the position of responsibility and working within a team. As a Business Management student when I enrolled on to the WBL (work based learning) module during a pandemic, my hopes of obtaining a valuable position, virtually, felt relatively slim. I never expected/anticipated being in a form of a management position and therefore, have never been so glad to be wrong.

Initially, it was nerve racking with the level of uncertainty surrounding the elements such as methods of communication, operating platforms, team meetings, identifying the strengths of team members, identifying deliverables and recognising internal stakeholder needs. Which were all necessary in establishing a foundation that we would work off throughout the project. The uncertainty is spoken about within the business school when starting projects, but experiencing it is another thing altogether. I am still getting used to the feeling of others coming to you for a sense of direction even though I don’t always know myself (tried to limit as much as possible!).

Although there have been times of uncertainty, the models and lessons taught throughout my university experience has allowed me to find a sense of direction within the project, which has boosted my self confidence in my abilities. While it has been important to refer back to the theory I have been taught, the process has definitely been a lot easier knowing that my team members can be relied upon through the individual strengths that we all bring towards the completed tasks. From the pre-existing knowledge provided by our experiences/programs to the creativity shown, the process of forming our own identity was made a whole lot easier, which has naturally allowed us to create some promising concepts!

As time has progressed my expectations have become clearer on the responsibilities that I am to carry out. My biggest challenge from a personal perspective so far, has been establishing a clear work/life balance, working/researching/planning late at night instead of taking the time to re-charge. However, going forward I am going to start establishing some boundaries for myself as others had mentioned within the leadership workshop that was carried out.

I am excited to see how the project helps me develop as an individual and what the next month has in store for the team and I…

Jasmine

I have learnt a lot over the first month of this project regarding the environment and the state of our planet. If I did not already have ‘eco-anxiety’ I certainly do now, but it’s eased by solution-based research: in my case creating a proposal to help in some small way to do the right thing with a design degree. It has been great hearing from and working with different disciplines to gain alternative perspectives on the project and our team works well together. I am most excited for the next phase of the project, once we have a firm idea of what we are going to design!

I am still struggling hugely with the concept of creating a sustainable and eco-friendly design proposal for a gas company, but I understand that Rome wasn’t built in a day and I am undertaking the challenge of trying to have more of an objective view towards the project. Regardless if SGN is using this project as greenwashing or not, what we have researched and created thus far is separate to SGN and is our own teams' best effort to address some of the issues the planets facing; and really that’s all anyone can do at the moment - try their best to make a little difference.

Jennifer

I have really enjoyed the first month of the project; it has certainly been different from what I had imagined it to be, but I have enjoyed being challenged to work in new ways. Particularly, it has been interesting and gratifying to be given so much freedom within the project and to be completing the research and ideation process in whichever way we chose. This has been a great opportunity to put what I have learned at University into practice, and it has been great to interact with the residents of Irvine as we begin to understand the ways in which our proposal could benefit their community.

It has also been great to be working with students from other disciplines. I have found that having members of the team with different areas of expertise has been not only interesting but has been extremely useful, as often their knowledge covers topics which I would have had to do a lot of research on individually in order to reach their level of expertise. This has made team working very successful as we are able to bounce off of each other’s skill sets in order to come up with more unique and informed ideas. I have found it interesting to see how the role of a designer is utilised within inter-disciplinary teams and have found that my role has covered many aspects, some, such as research methods and design ideation, are tasks which I am already deeply familiar with and others, such as website and branding design, are skills which I wanted to take this opportunity to develop. Of course, the pandemic has influenced the way that we work as a team and although, I am sure, it would be a very different process in person, I think that the team have handled the situation very efficiently and I believe we have been working really well together!

I have also really enjoyed the lectures and workshops which have been delivered to us by SGN and Edinburgh Napier over the past month. Not only have these been very helpful in the context of the project, but I have found each experience to be very rewarding and informative and feel very grateful to have had the opportunity to take part in things which I may not have otherwise been able to over the course of my degree. Overall, I think our first month has been very successful and I am looking forward to continuing with the project.

Hazel

Over the past month we have come up with three concepts for our unused space in Irvine. Firstly we carried out research on and around the site to get an idea of what we could do with it. This helped me to gauge what kind of projects our area would be useful for. We explored ideas such as PE pipes and a greenhouse, and looked into the measurements of the area and the wildlife present, which offered an insight to aspects that we’d have to consider to move forward with our project. We attended various informative lectures and workshops and presented our initial ideas and research to SGN, who gave feedback. The feedback was very valuable and gave me motivation as well as improvements to work on. We are now working on developing and solidifying our concepts in preparation for our next presentation.

Rory

This project has been a really good opportunity to explore the practical applications of the subjects I've been studying since starting university. Having a chance to put theory into practice serves as a reminder to myself why I chose this subject in the first place and the benefits of regenerating land. For me the first two weeks, which were filled with insightful talks and seminars proved to be so motivating. Not only illustrating how to creatively approach a given problem, but also fully encouraged us to think big and bigger still. This combined with the large scope involved and enthusiasm from other team members has led to a really rewarding experience.

I feel we have a really great dynamic, working efficiently, with each of us bringing something different to the table. In other words, I feel that if our team were a legitimate consultancy we'd never be out of work.

I can't wait to see what the future holds and I'm sure whatever it is will be bright!