In this Customer Insight’s class, I was very excited to learn that the group project we would be working on all semester would actually be interesting and fun (most of the time). I loved how Professor Walls let us take the reins for the bulk of the project like choosing who are segment is, what our prototype would be, and how we wanted to present it. Most other classes have such structured group project that it takes not only some of the fun out of it but also so much of the learning. In most classes in the business school, professors encourage group projects because that is a lot of what we will be doing in the future in our careers but then they put so many guidelines on the group project that you forget about how it actually pertains to a real business group project. This is not the case with Professor Walls’ Customer Insights class. From day 1 we were, my group was a little apprehensive because we wanted more guidelines and instructions on picking our segment that we would use the remainder of the semester. However, Professor Walls just told us to have fun with it and explore any options we had in mind. Finally, we decided on Stay-at-Home Dads, and while it was difficult to find several to interview later in the semester, it ended up being a worthwhile segment that we learned a lot from. Towards the end of the semester, we were given a project update where we had to organize and analyze our data collected from interviews and surveys we performed on our segment. Given the template in class, our group sat around and tried to fill in the questions but kept having difficulties. Some of our data just did not seem to match how Professor Walls wanted it organized on the template and this was very frustrating to us. After we kept asking what certain terms meant and seeing our frustrations, he told us that we did not have to organize our data exactly the way it was written on the template. We all let out a huge sigh of relief until we realized that we would have to determine how to organize all of the data ourselves and this seemed to scare us a little bit. We were so used to following the templates exactly that we were pretty nervous about having to make up one on our own. However, as a group we sorted out all of our data and found a sufficient way to organize the data for our segment that was different that Professor Walls’ template. We then created our presentation that was very informative of all of our findings and in return received an A on the update. Ultimately, I think it is not only helpful and beneficial that Professor Walls gives us minimal guidelines, but it is also fun and exciting.
Another skill I learned in this group project is the willingness to be flexible. At the beginning of the semester, our group decided to target Stay-at-Home Dads as our segment, and we all felt very confident about this unique group. However, later in the semester as we were researching we found it difficult to find this target segment. Our group had written out specific guidelines that we wanted to follow such as must be between the ages of 30-45, live in a city or suburban area in Texas, have a household income of $100,000+, and not work at all. This proved to be almost impossible to find for our group. We had to learn to be flexible by knocking down these guidelines and letting ourselves be open to anyone who qualifies as a Stay-at-Home Dad regardless of income, age, location, and even if they work from home or part-time. It was difficult at first for us to realize this, but in the end made it much more worthwhile as we were able to receive lots of helpful data. This is definitely a learning skill that I need to take with me not only in group projects but in other areas of my future career also. I may have a set list or a way I want to do things, but I need to be open to flexibility to allow certain things to change if it will result in a better outcome. Overall, my group was wonderful in allowing flexibility in our project when it was needed. We saw the need for flexibility not only when trying to research our segment but also when organizing times to meet and trying to build a prototype.
Several emotional reactions took place throughout the semester regarding our group project. Our group experienced an emotional high at the beginning when we first decided on our target segment of Stay-at-Home Dads. We felt this was a creative and interesting segment that was growing rapidly and one that we were sure no other group would have. Later as more and more updates were due we started getting overwhelmed trying to finish them on time. It was difficult trying to coordinate meeting times because everyone was in so many other group projects or extra-curricular activities. At the end of the semester, we were definitely stressed trying to decide on a prototype and then how to build it. However, on the last day when we were creating our prototype and making our power point presentation all of the stress seemed to go away because we all felt confident. We knew that this was the best prototype for our segment, we built it in an efficient and inexpensive way, and our power point summed up the whole semester. I have never had a group project run so smoothly where we were not up until 3 am trying to finalize last minute details. Professor Walls was also helpful throughout the whole process by letting us bounce ideas off of him for our prototype and as I mentioned earlier by letting us explore with minimal guidelines. Usually, I am not a fan of group projects, but in this class, I feel it was very beneficial because we could use our creativity and our ideas for almost the whole thing. It was also fun to see the process of finding a target segment, researching them through various means, and then creating an actual new product for them. I know this will be very helpful in my future, not only in other classes with group projects but also in my career.
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