By reviewing our decision process through the design model, we empathized right off the starting line with incoming college freshmen, as we were in their position this time last year. We know what students are looking for in a college, and we made those the center of the models we selected. Once we selected our individual models, we each made the storyline about something to which we could relate. In my case, I know numerous transfer students who underwent the woes of thinking they can enjoy a college only because of friends attending the same place, when in reality it cannot alone improve someone’s overall college experience. As a team, we defined our focus question as how we can portray our four selected models in such a manner that prospective students will be able to relate to them, thereby increasing the likelihood of them utilizing them in their own college decision process. My own focus question was how can I help prospective students recognize team decision pitfalls and ways to avoid them. My team ideated, yet, as earlier stated, we could only think of the solution of assigning each model to a student of a different background; the benefit to this was it gave us four varying means to connect with prospective students through our commercial by increasing their chances of identifying with a background. For example, my solution is about a transfer student who wants to look at different options for the future after attending a school with his friends; this portrayal for the team decision making pitfalls will not only establish a connection with transfer students, but also anyone who is making the college decision with a group of friends. I believed this to be the best solution through my individual ideation. I developed this s...


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..., rather than just go with what I had written. As for the Abilene paradox, each individual teammate should interest in moving forward with our selected course of action, rather than just going with whatever they believed the other two wanted to do. Our group size again prevented this from occurring, as it is much easier to tell if someone truly wants to move forward with a solution in a small setting rather than a large one where people and their opinions can get lost in the group. Group polarization was not a major issue, but it very well could have been. Since we only developed one course of action, the group would have been in a tight spot had that one solution crumbled; in this case, we were taking a large risk, but luckily we did not deal with any negative effects. To avoid this, we should have created more solutions to fall back on, thereby reducing our risk.