Commentary on professionalism team projects in design schools- would like to hear your views

Jesus, typos in my title! I meant, ‘Commentary on professionalism and ethics in team projects done in design school- would like to hear your views’

I’ve recently been through a not-so-great experience in my design school when working in a team. I’ve seen patterns in group work where some teammates will just not work or take any initiative, while the other teammates don’t just finish their work but also overwork to cover for the non-doers to keep up with the progress and assessment deadlines. And in the end, the non-workers get the same credit as the (over)workers in the group. Even more alarmingly, I’ve seen instances where some team member deliberately produces substandard work when working with the team for the class submission, while keeping the better version of the designs with themselves so that their portfolio piece appears better and different from that of their teammates.

I don’t know how common this experience is but it has certainly been my experience in grad school studying design. And I feel that, just like the professional world, there need to be documents created that place certain rules about co-working, the minimum criteria (wrt attendance, producing results, etc.) every member has to meet, right to co-ownership of assets based on that minimum set criteria, the duty to give each team member their due credit on one’s portfolio (yes, even if you’ve iterated on any design since they made it because if they hadn’t created it you would’ve had nothing to take inspiration for your iteration from in the first place). And the consequences of failure to meet any criteria must also be mentioned in the document.

I feel that it’s not just the ability to make good design that makes someone a good designer. It’s about how well they can work with other designers in a team, and their understanding of social responsibility and ethics in the team. I feel if Design is taught to be practiced this professionally from design school itself, the outside world will also value design professionals all the more.

Having said this, I understand design schools are supposed to ‘let kids be and foster an open environment with no constraints for them to make mistakes and learn’ but I do feel there’s potential in finding a balance between that freedom and being taught professionalism.

This is my midnight rant, but I would love to know about what you guys think.

Great design resource

100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (Voices That Matter) Submitted August 23, 2018 at 12:38PM by potato-stick https://ift.tt/2w1GA4L