Over the entire course of this project we took a long-established model for team building which is Forming, Norming, Storming and Performing (Tuckman & Jensen, 2010). Each section is described in detail as follows.

Forming

You may already be aware we were not a group formed by choice but joined by circumstance. As students, we were all enrolled in the of PGDip Innovation through Design Thinking at UCC.

Our formation was a result of being in the right place at the right time. And it was our lecturers who had carefully selected us as individuals to complete a group project. It was essential we work together in order to progress in the course and earn our credentials as Design Thinkers.

Storming

The Group Project for our first semester involved a Design Challenge which looked at how our college campus performs against the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We were tasked with finding a problem, or complex issue that we, as a team would solve. The SDGs were used to inform how and what our project will eventually look like.

The goal of our studies was to apply a Design Thinking strategy to our preferred SDG, and the success of our research project formed the basis of our learning, assessments and subsequent grades as part of a formal educational process.

With this in mind, we began our tentative steps in what would eventually become a very rewarding experience for us. Our first obstacle came during this storming process.  We were a group of very different personalities and our first individual choices for an SDG project couldn’t be more thematically opposing.

The image below illustrates this blockage but we did come up with an unusual solution to this problem.

On October 2nd 2021 the team met in person. After a lovely afternoon discussing our individual ideas, we had to acknowledge we were getting nowhere fast. Although we were encouraged and energized by each other’s ideas, we could not make a final decision on which SDG to work on.

But as enthusiastic and ambitious as we were, we collectively agreed that we were all up for a challenge. So, we picked an SDG number out of a tweed hat. “SDG 14 Life Below Water” became the overarching topic of our work from then on.

Norming

With our topic identified, we turned our attention to how we could approach this seemingly enormous task. Given we are experiencing an extraordinary moment time against the backdrop of an ongoing pandemic, it was imperative for us to understand how we can communicate and share our findings.

Unusually we all were familiar with the very same communications tools so we created a group chat on WhatsApp and identified a clear timetable for our virtual team meetings. These typically occurred one day over the weekend and one early Wednesday morning meeting for Team updates.

With these scheduled meetings in place, the team normalized a routine for our collective approach to the group project.

Performing

As the weeks progressed we learned more about the SDG project, our colleagues as individuals, expectations regarding our coursework, and of course the Design Thinking process. As individuals, we naturally took ownership of our own areas of expertise and fell into our own roles within the group. Consequently, as a team, we took full advantage of these strengths and the team began to perform.