Gear Up Prework for FE1810

TiffanyBachmann_Gearupprework.md

Gear Up Relfections

1. What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?
   Empathy plays an important role in the relationships in my life. It affects how I interact with my family and friends. Being able to put myself in their shoes helps me to understand what is frustrating my best friend about a project at work or why my husband is excited about the new snowboard bag he just ordered. Then I’m able to get excited with him or support my best friend better.
2. How does empathy help you build better software?
   Without empathy software can be built, but in the end probably won’t meet all of the end user’s need. How can you design something for someone without understanding how they use it, what need it is meeting for them, or in what way it is a solution to their problem? Empathy helps you to put yourself in the shoes of the user and how they interact with or use the software. Taking time to listening empathetically gives you insight not into just what they say, but also into their actions and reactions. It can shed light and give you directions for opportunities you wouldn’t have considered without putting yourself in their shoes.
3. Why is empathy important for working on a team?
   It is important for working on a team because everyone communicates differently. Without putting yourself in your teammates shoes, you aren’t able to understand how they communicate or how they enjoy working. If you assume everyone does things the same way as you, you’re going to butt heads and have miscommunication issues. By being empathetic and taking time to listen in an empathetic way to your teammates you can better understand them, which in turn will help you communicate with them and build relationships.
4. Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful. I worked on the marketing team for an arts organization. We had a campus with teams working in different buildings across 10 acres. My colleague was the receptionist and took calls for all the buildings before transferring them to different buildings. We were talking one day and she described how her frustration about getting a lot of calls ab out a program she didn’t know was in place and had trouble transferring people forward, which frustrated callers and our colleagues. I knew about the program since my department produced collateral for all of the program materials, but realized how frustrating for her it was to not be in the loop always or to get the information late because she wasn’t in the same building as other teams. I started making sure to get her copies of drafts as a heads up and final copies when they were complete of all program collateral. Being in the loop helped save her and our colleagues time and she helped us to catch some program overlaps on drafts that could’ve caused issues.
5. When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?
   When I am in a last minute rush or under deadline to complete something the same day and a colleague comes over to talk about another project or ask a question about something else. In the future I can work on trying to take a moment to remember that the project or question my colleague is asking me about, may be something they are under deadline for too so we might be in the same shoes. Instead of getting frustrated try to be empathetic to the fact that they might be in the same place I am, ask if they need my feedback that day or if we can connect the next day.