Overview
The goal of the BHC project is to center humanities expertise in healthcare by creating an infrastructure through which clinicians, health services and humanities researchers, community partners, and activists can work together to solve key problems facing the U.S. healthcare system, with a specific focus on health equity.
Title: Undergraduate Researcher
Tools: Google Docs, Sheets, Survey
Time Frame: 8 months
Responsibilities: I helped develop grant wide communication plans, develop our website, monitor social media for news trends and promote research grant via social media.
Overview
I used a survey to help team members reflect on a project and analyzed that feedback to help them understand their roles on the project and how they fit in. This demonstrates my ability not only to work with quantitative data but also to get real results: the findings and debriefing increased team productivity and cohesion.
Process
As the student researcher, my role was to locate where on Michigan State's campus humanities and healthcare were being discussed together, use social media to promote the grant, and help to create the projects website. Several months into the grant, disagreements began to arise between members of the team. Most members of the team had never worked on a research grant before and were out of the state which made it difficult to strengthen the team. This caused a major roadblock and made it very difficult to advance.
Acknowledging my middle ground role on the project, I created a plan to mediate the problems without overstepping boundaries. I designed a google form that was advertised to get content for social media, but the real goal was to see where disagreements lie. The form consists of questions such as “summarize the project in your own words,” and “what are your goals for the grant.”
Photo 2: Section 2 of survey
My goal was to get into the mind of each of the team members and evaluate where I saw diverging perspectives. After creating the google form, I created a google document that summarized where the answers varied and how I believed we should meditate on it. After sending out this google document, many of the team members opened up about their concerns for the project and how they felt we needed to change to increase success.
Photo 3: First page of summary document
Reflection
I used my skills as a UX Researcher to mediate internal conflict within the grant team. My work on this project is an excellent example of my “connector” approach to working with diverse teams. I value connection because it ensures openness and honesty, two things that are needed to successful teams. Being a connector helps me to take control of my workspace and not waste time on bumps in the road. My work on the BHC grant shows that being a connector when working with diverse teams helps to increase workflow and team culture and I will bring this value to any team I am on.