Academic:  Dr Darren Oatley

Librarians: 

SALT Team:  Matthew Allen

Strategic Project Planning is a cross disciplinary engineering module where Masters level students come together to work with each other, in mixed discipline groups, on a variety of engineering issues and projects. It is unlikely that the students will know each other and the module looks at the issues surrounding operating and planning project work as part of a multi-disciplinary team - the norm in industry.

The module is assessed by a team project which the students plan, manage and run themselves. Close attention is paid to the teamwork during the project task and subsequently, each group carries out an “after action review”, using WebPA (a piece of open source peer review software from Loughborough University).

The after action review essentially allows team members to evaluate not only the project but the performance of the team and of the individuals involved. In industry it shows who worked well with who, who contributed and who did not. It helps to decide bonuses and promotions.

Dr Darren Oatley, the module co-ordinator, considers the after action review to be a vital part of the module and of the assessment process as he feels the students need to be made very aware that this is how things are actually done in the workplace and the influence such processes will have on their careers.

The students spent six weeks on the project task. They then completed the after action review on WebPA to assess each others contributions to the success (or otherwise) of the project. This review was then taken into account during the marking for the project. The results were also made available to the students so that they could see how their peers had anonymously rated them.

Using WebPA to run the after action review was simple and the students found the system easy to use. They also got a considerable amount from the process. The students enjoyed using the system and appreciated the opportunity to, in some cases, vent frustrations that they had with their peers and, in other cases, to give those performing well a pat on the back.

Making the reviews available to the students subsequently, demonstrated to some high performing, but overly self critical students how greatly they were valued by their team … and at the other end of the spectrum showed some less active, but more self praising students how they were perceived by their peers.

All in all it was felt that the after action review contributed greatly to the increase in the students’ awareness of the need for strong team working skills and how the after action review process would be used and how it would impact on them.