Principles of Interviewing - Reflection and Analysis

Communications 1010
Colby Batt

Our group for the Principles of Interviewing project was outstanding. We

came together because of the random groups we were put into when we practiced
our speeches with the class, as this was really the first interaction we had with our
other classmates. Because of this pre-formed group, I felt that we had more of a
comfort level with each other and had an idea of each other’s work ethics based off
of the speech assignment. Once we formed our group and picked the Principles of
Interviewing as our topic, we quickly realized that we had some restraints and could
only meet Friday nights on campus as a group. Our meeting constraints added some
stress for everyone, but we were able to accomplish all that we needed to because of
great communication, quick development of roles within the group, and a team
effort on decision-making. Each of these played a large role in the success of our
group project and resulted in a great presentation on the Principles of Interviewing.
Working as a group for the first time can be tough on some or all members of
the group. There are often miscommunications on the materials each person should
be working on or meeting times to work on the project. However, our group did not
run into any of these issues. As soon as we had our topics picked out we made sure
that we all had each other’s contact information and created a group message to
communicate about the project and meeting times. This allowed us to communicate
effectively as a group in a setting that we could all see what was being said, leading
to no miscommunications and allowing us to always be on the same page
throughout the project. As we started communicating and reading the materials for
our presentation, roles quickly started to develop within the group. Daeton was
great at communicating and making sure we were all on the same page of where and
when we were meeting. I felt I took on the design role of how we wanted the
presentation to look; flow and transition, while Shaye and Norma did a lot of the
deeper research into specific topics and talking points. As a group, we all agreed that
we should each read the chapter contents rather than pick specific portions to read
so that we could all speak to any and every part of the presentation. Once we read
the chapter, we came together and picked what topic or section each of us would
“own” for gathering the most important information and putting it on that specific
slide. Utilizing Google Slides was a huge help to communicate and work together
while we were not able to meet. We were all able to access and edit the same
document without having to keep sending the updated version to everyone. Once
we had our specific points and information down on the slides, we met and weeded
out any unnecessary information and used a group think method to decide what
was most important for that slide and what we could do without and speak to from
our note cards. I feel that coming together as a group to think through our
presentation about what information would be used was one of the biggest helps for
our group and the success of the project. Brainstorming like this as a group made
sure everyone was involved and doing his or her part while also making sure

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everyone’s opinions and thoughts were heard and applied in some fashion to the
presentation. Once we had a version we were all confident with, we were able to do
a brief walk through of the presentation on a Friday and then met one additional day
the week of our presentation to find a classroom and time our practice run. Our
timed run was 32 minutes, the same length as our actual presentation and I thought
that was pretty cool.
In conclusion, this was one of the best experiences I have had working on a
group project in school. Everyone did their part for the project and contributed with
different ideas and personal stories of interviewing that brought different
perspectives in to our presentation and made it feel more complete. Our
communication as a group was excellent, utilizing a group message to stay in contact
and Google Slides so we all had the most recent version of the project so we could
work on it outside of meeting. We developed roles within the group very quickly,
some picked and others developed as the project went on, such as a communication
leader, design and presentation leader and research leaders. Lastly, we worked
together and made all decisions as a group, making sure everyone’s thoughts and
opinions were heard and considered before moving forward to the next slide or part
of the presentation. I feel that our group did well together, but there is always room
for improvement. If we were to do this project again, I would want to utilize more of
our time meeting to actually put all our thoughts down together, to where we spent
a good amount of one meeting editing and formatting our information we had
gathered and putting it on notecards. We also could have done a better job with
using the rule of sevens on the presentation slides. Most of our slides abided by this
rule, but we did have a few with too many lines and too many words in those lines.
All in all, I felt that this group project was extremely successful and showed us the
most important aspects of working together in a group.