Develop Me

Develop Me 1 - Daria Bokovenko

On Tuesday, 26th September, we had a workshop called “Develop me”. It was made in the form of a game which gives students a sense of security but when you start playing, it doesn’t look that simple anymore. 

First, we were divided into groups so I got a chance to work with different people from different forms. The game includes a lot of planning, teamwork and thinking. 

How well you did at the end totally depends on your decisions at the start, but because we were given a lot of opportunities, we felt like we would already do good, without putting much effort in, which wasn’t completely true. The sense of security was fake. 

All of the teams successfully managed to get till the end but did we make the most of it? Not really. 

My team wasn't as good as some of the others and that’s totally fine because that’s exactly what is learning all about. 

As we found out at the end, the whole purpose of the game called “The Search for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine” is to teach us about the key components of effective project management and teamwork. 

Sometimes we are given much more resources than the others and we can’t make more out of it than the people that didn’t have those resources. That’s where the planning comes in. We have to do the research first, collect all the information possible and only after that, make the decisions instead of rushing into the game as we did. 

It might seem that this is only based on luck, but it really isn’t like that and that was the lesson we were taught at the end of the workshop. 

The whole purpose of this is to teach how to manage our time and get the work done as best as we can. This is really useful as we have a lot of projects this year and it's really important not to leave them till the last minute because at that point we always regret that we could have started on out work earlier or could have done more and better but we won’t be able to change anything, it will be too late. We won’t be able to come back into position a few weeks ago, when he had so much more resources. 

“Develop Me” workshop was a truly amazing experience. We not only had a great time with friends but also learned a valuable lesson that will be useful in our future careers, no matter what we will do. All the skills we developed on that day will help us to become more mature and more responsible and teach us how to deal with tasks we have to complete. 

Develop Me 1 - Hannah Duffy

Title of activity: Develop Me 

Date: 26/09/23

Rating: 6/10

Why? 

I gave this activity a 6/10 rating because I enjoyed some aspects like when we were planning how many resources we needed and when we were trading them with people from different groups. I also enjoyed working with different people in my form group. However, for a little bit of the challenge it was just the same thing like when we were just staying in the mine. 

The best three things in the activity were:

1. We were split into random groups within our forms and I enjoyed getting to work with new people that I wouldn’t usually have worked with. 

2. We were giving certain resources and had to figure out how many of each we needed. I enjoyed planning this and working together with the people around me. 

3. My form was against the form on the other side of the LRC and the little bit of competition made this activity more enjoyable. 

The most important thing that I learnt was: the importance of planning ahead and not waiting until you’ve already met your problem, planning so you won’t have a problem. 

What helped me the most was: we had to work together as a class and being in a group was very helpful as there was lots of people working together not just one person having to think for themselves. 

What challenged me the most was: I found it hard to decide on some aspects of the challenge such as whether or not to stay and get th information. At the beginning it was also hard to fully trust what everyone in the group was saying as we were in teams within our groups. 

The new skills I learned and can use again in the future are: planning - I learned the effectiveness of planning ahead. It leads you into less problems and you are less likely to procrastinate. 

If I were to do this activity again I would do the following differently: I would have a better understanding of the game quicker and would probably have made better decisions with my team. I would’ve listened to the instructor's advice better and took every word they said genuinely.