Blog 3
I think the feedback we got on Gate 2 was very useful. I don’t think there was anything that I disagreed with personally. We didn’t find that the instructions were very clear. It wasn’t really specified what was expected to be included in the presentation, like a more detailed sales funnel. The presentation was also supposed to be 5 minutes, which we didn’t think was very forgiving with the amount of detail we wanted to include. We also had to give up detail in certain aspects of the write-up of Gate 2 because we were limited to 5 pages when there was so much potential detail to explore. In the end, it’s not a big issue because I think part of the reason the descriptions for the gates are vague is that there are so many different business models and structures. Therefore, a detailed description might not be very inclusive to all ideas and make it impossible for specific teams to include what is expected from them. I guess another part of it is that in real life, you’re not given a roadmap to what is required for a business to succeed; if there was one, we wouldn’t be seeing as many companies failing. In the end, it’s not a significant problem for my team, we were planning on resubmitting Gate 2 either way since we submitted our resubmission of Gate 1 so late, and we would like more feedback on that before going further. Overall, I don’t think I have any suggestions on how to improve Gate 2, other than maybe put more focus on the report and increase the page count to make it easier for students to explore further detail.
Our teams continue to work really well together, and I haven’t had a single issue with any of my team members. It’s not very often you have a complete and engaged team which makes it much more pleasurable and fun to work because you don’t have to carry dead weight or make up for someone else’s lack of effort. The only change I would make is that we try to resubmit Gate 2 sooner than later, compared to our Gate 1 resubmission. There wasn’t much we could have done to resubmit Gate 1 earlier due to midterms, other group assignments, etc. However, there were still things we could have improved nonetheless, whether it be time management or research. One parallel I’ve noticed between classes and work is that it’s almost like having several bosses and working in a completely different team of the company. One week it might not be that bad, but the next week there might be too much work for what is humanly possible to complete, which is because there is no coordination between the teams. Contrary, universities appear to coordinate to have all the equivalent assignments at the same time, whether it be mid-terms, group assignments, or final exams.
Our next steps are to resubmit Gate 2 using all the feedback we have been given, which involves a lot of research and calculations of numbers. Once we receive the feedback on the resubmission of Gate 2, we will start working at our Financials and Gate 3, which we have not had time to discuss as a group yet.
