JOHN W. COCHRAN JR.

University of Michigan – Flint

Group 1 Project - Reflection

Project Debrief

Our assignment was to work together in our groups to create a

technical document of our choosing in a format or mixed format as agreed
upon and approved by our professor. Our group decided initially thought of
using some of our prior writing assignment ideas to give a bit of a head start
on the workload. Following our first group meeting, we collectively decided
to go with a project idea of creating recipes. This idea then grew into a more
structured path of creating a daily meal plan. Each of us took on a different
portion of the meal plan as our individual contributions.

The next step in the process for us was to determine the appropriate
delivery format for this technical content. Our group began to research
different platforms for delivering this content and finally decided on a blog
style format. This format was chosen, because it seemed to be the most
readily available format used for this type of technical content delivery.

Group Participation

As usual are group worked very effectively together. We had little to no

delays or problems in determining what we should do our project on or how
the project should be formatted. The group worked well at determining what
tasks needed to get done and then self selecting for those tasks. Individual
writing contributions were done in a timely, manner and delivered in the
necessary format for us to efficiently pool our works together in one team
document. This really felt like what it would be like to work remotely with a
team of technical writers preparing a project. Communication was utilized
through social interface and email and proved to be an effective an efficient
way to understand tasks, negotiate and meet deadlines, as well as share
ideas and thoughts on the project as it progressed. I was extremely satisfied
with the professionalism of this group.

Technological Challenges/ Format Selection

While our group worked very well together, the format that was
selected for delivery of the end document posed some significant challenges.

For our document we chose to use a sit called BLOG Post. This site was
primarily chosen due to other similar content documents to what we were
proposing and for what appeared on the surface as ease of formatting. The
ease of formatting is what proved to be the significant challenge. What we
were attempting to do was merge 6 documents into what gave the
appearance as one post for the day. This would have given the appearance
as a daily meal plan for the collective work.

The first challenge that was encountered was that the posts could not
be readily ordered. This meant that being able to make the post appear as
breakfast through dinner would require that the posts be created in reverse
order. Our posts were received and added randomly throughout the week
prior to the assignment being done. Because reordering was not an option all
of the posts needed to be removed from the site and recreated in reverse
order to accommodate the desired ordering affect.

The next challenge that we had was adding content to text. Most of the
group submitted word documents formatted as discussed with pictures
included in the documents these pictures become an embedded part of the
document that for some reason BLOG post did not recognize, nor did it
match the formatting style of the documents submitted. After, several
attempts of inserting formatting and pictures directly to the compose tool of
the blog site, I finally gave in and used the HTML editor tool within the site. I
have some experience with using html editing and have even taken an
introductory class in this. This limited experience did not bode well for my
editing efforts of such a large document. The formatting became very
laborious and if we had more time, I would have recommended to our group
that we use a different site.
 Following the initial challenges and after hours spent editing and
manually inserting pics, I was actually quite pleased with the finished project.

Closing Thoughts

Given more time I would have liked us to have collectively worked on a

couple of items for the site itself. After reviewing the finished work, it
seemed like a better intro to the collective post may have helped the reader
to understand what they were getting into. It also would have been nice to
have provided a couple of different summaries for the post: a collective
shopping list for the meal plan day with expected pricing, and a summary of
the daily collective nutritional values.

Overall I was very pleased with the amount of work our group
accomplished and I believe the end work looked very professional and
matched or exceeded the look and content of other sites that do this work
not as a school project but as a profession.

This was a good project to exercise or ability to work in a group on a

technical writing piece that felt as if it could be a real project in the business
world. This project brought a sense of realism and understanding that
perhaps would not have been as easy to realize had this just been a writing
assignment.

Finally, I would like to thank each and every one of my group members
for their efforts and contributions. I believe that I was truly fortunate this
semester to have drawn such a great group of professional students!