When the competition for the egg contraption begun, our group was not very well organized from the start. As a matter of fact we completely forgot about the idea of planning. Instead we immediately jumped into discussing the best way to build the egg saving device. A few minutes later I paused, looked around the room, and saw chaos in almost every single group. It hit me then and there that the way we went about this whole thing was wrong. Our planning phases were pretty much out of the window. We skipped step 1 and even though the goal was clear to all of us, we didn't really define the objectives. We did, however, spend a few minutes on how much resources we had. The fact that there were only 9 straws did catch our attention, yet the fact that we only had a limited amount of tape didn't bother us. We thought two feet was way too long, only to find out later that we were completely wrong.
We did consider step 3 but not in as many phases as we should have. We took notice of any ways that our contraption might tip over or fall the wrong way thus breaking the egg. However we didn't really come up with anything to actually fix those pitfalls.
Step 4 was probably the worst of our planning phase because we did not implement any strategies or tactics on how we were going to actually build the device. We also didn't assign any roles in terms of who's in charge of the tape, the straws, or even the egg itself. Thus when the actuall materials were distributed, the building process was hectic.
Since we pretty much skipped step 4, step 5 of actually implementing our tactics was rushed and unogranized. It seemed as if though 10 minutes went by way too quickly. Since we didn't really think of any alternative just in case our first one didn't work out, we had to just go with the flow..resulting in the breaking of our egg.
I definetly see now that planning plays a HUGE role when it comes to completing a certain task. I could read all the textbooks in the world and they wouldn't teach me even half of what I actually got to experience in terms of planning. This was definetly a very fun and learning exercise.
You are right all the teams were in disarray. The problem that I faced was half my team the girls were busy talking to themselves instead of focusing on the team. they weren't even paying attention to the ideas of us guys(where I found we were being cooperative. I didn't even know what they were planning(maybe how to cook the egg sunny-side up) joke... But as time throbbed up the pressure they realized talking to themselves was no point. so they joined in the group. the only thing is if everyone tends to be the leader thats the recipe of disaster. sometimes you have to step down and let others take up the task. but do voice your opinions about any success/calamities.
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