English 420Y - Business Writing Online

My group, group 1, spent most of this week emailing and getting the communication worked out. Beth started out the thread of emails on Tuesday. The rest of us replied with information on how we could all be reached. Based on the communication this week, I think email will be our main form of communication. As we got closer to the end of the week, we decided to make a list of who was going to do what. Each person gave imput on what they would like to be in charge of. I think it ran pretty smoothly and will work out well. The first item on the list was the Gantt Chart.

This week the work load was very light and most of the e-mails involved the group members introducing themselves and explaining scheduling conflicts. Tonight the first assignment was due. I worked from 7:00am to 10:00pm with only a short break in-between. During my break I noticed that we had yet to communicate how the work was going to be divided. I decided to work on a rough draft for the group and e-mail it out to everyone before I went back to work. I let them know that I would be returning late and to make changes as they saw fit.

Here is our Gantt Chart.

-Group 2
Rachel
Keeli
Bill
Suchet

The first thing I did upon receiving the people in my group was posting my email address and AIM screen name so they would have other ways to contact me. Steve had emailed me that the group was to meet on AIM to allocate parts of the project and discuss a plan of action. I volunteered to design the Humane Society brochure because I am an artistic individual and I believe I will do a better job on this part than coming up with the content. One of our members was missing because she had to work late and because of that, she had no way of telling us.

Attached is our Gantt Chart in an Excel document.

On Tuesday, July 10 I received my group assignment by e-mail from my instructor. I e-mailed my three other group members and gave them my cell phone number, AIM screen name, and my work and summer class schedule so they would know when I would be best available. Through e-mails, we figured out that we are in different places and we all have busy schedules that are often very different. We also have to account for differences in time zones when we make plans.

Attached is Group Five's Service Learning Gantt Chart.

This week was a little confusing. The schedules of our group members will be very interesting to watch as the semester progresses. One member is out of the country and the rest of us are traveling and working numerous hours each week. Nonetheless, we were finally able to email each other and communicate somewhat effectively. We coordinated who is going to be doing what and assembled our Gantt chart. I tried to give some different ideas to possibly make our communication process easier, but it turns out that the wiki page and email will probably be the best way.

My group (Team 5) started out this week with communication through e-mail. John started off the thread and we continued from there. We all gave background information about where we are at the moment, major, etc. The group members all gave good ideas of how we should get the project finished. We might run into a bit of a conflict since Samana is in India and his time schedule is completely different from ours. I guess this is something that will keep us on our toes to complete projects ahead of time.

Work this week was very low if you looked only at our team output. However, we spent the bulk of the week communicating amongst the team, introducing ourselves and deciding what would be the most efficient use of our time dealing with not being able to physically meet. Thus, despite a low physical output, our comfort level within the team and our confidence has been raised by the fact that messages from team members have offered great insight into our project as well as being timely in their nature.