might be onto something...

So in our midterm write-up, we talked about how one of the key constraints we'd experienced was related to logistics and timing. But, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that almost all the groups have a similar constraint. We just took longer to be creative about how to solve it. I suggested that, for our final project, one improvement we might consider is the use of a wiki or a google doc, a place where we can have a "virtual whiteboard" instead of (a) trading emails, and/or (b) having to slug out a lot of ideas in our limited time together where people aren't always at their best (because they're tired from a long work or school day). We are trying a google doc - this way people can contribute both when it's convenient and when they have their best thinking going on. We're committing to just getting as MANY ideas out on the whiteboard as we can in terms of "whose life do we want to make easier here?" - there are so many people whose shoes we could possibly step into, and so many ways to solve the problem...in some sense, scope is the hardest part.

The other thing about this whole process is that it's supposed to be FUN. Brainstorming is not supposed to be something that you email 10 times about and set up a time and then get ideas out and then go back into class, not to see each other's faces for another week. It's supposed to be an exercise in which you feed off each other, get into a flow, and allow one idea to be the next idea's foundation. Doing it virtually may hold some people less accountable in theory, because it's more OK to "sit silent" by not posting than it is to do so in person (at least in b-school groups it feels this way) but I think our group is pretty darn imaginative when it really comes down to it and I think this will be cool.

We don't want to do the data collection opportunity in class though. Another surveymonkey of "MBA students' perspectives"? No thanks!