EH 101 Reflective Essay

In relation to the aspect of improvising knowledge, interactive skills, as well as communication skilled, the projects, assignments are assigned within the course modules to enhance these abilities such that student can focus upon wide area rather than just theoretical knowledge (Janiesch et.al, 2012). Within our course module we also have various tasks that we need to complete such as individual assignments and the group assignment based upon what we have studied, such that we can effectively analyse and research data and learn how to do apply theoretical aspects in practical form (Zaslavskaya, 2013). Within the followings section, the discussion has been made in relation to the consultancy project that has been assigned to our group and also coatis various aspects as to how we succeed in completing the projects, the various aspects we learnt, the struggles we faced and possible ideas for improvement.

Reflective based upon the group project

I was very excited when firstly we were assigned to this project as from very starting before I opted for this course I always want to do something as relating to the management such as being manager, lead an organization, the work of data analysing as well as other aspects of management. Management is a planning, decision-making, organisation, leadership, inspiration as well as control mechanism in order to quickly and successfully access the human capital, finances, physical resources and knowledge of the organization ((Zaslavskaya, 2013). For an ordered life and required to operate any form of administration, management is important. The backbone of effective organisations is good management. To manage life means to accomplish life's goals and manage an organisation means to achieve tasks and to reach its goals through other individuals. Similarly, in completing this project, the most important aspect is to manage the things, components, activities as well as the members of the group.

The group was formed by our lecturers who assigned us this project, such that we can excel more efficiently. The main aspect of the group activity is that each and every individual shall take active part to conduct the activities of the project as decided, provide their contribution as per the duties assigned to them such that the ultimate objective of the task can be fulfilled. In regard to the consultancy project that we have to do, we were a group of 10 people having different tasks to do. The foremost aspect in completing the assignment was to select the host organization upon which the whole assignment was based. This is not just limited to the selection of the host organization but also to various areas which includes the study of various elements of the organization such that a comprehensive project is built and all the aspects as pertaining to that organization are collected in conclusive manner providing the in-depth and the key insights of the project. This shall not only enhance our knowledge but also helps comprehending the aspects that we have to incorporate as per the learning outcomes and other instructions so contained therein.

Group projects may help students acquire a range of competences that in the business environment are increasingly relevant. In addition, positive group dynamics have shown to lead to the learning, retention as well as university achievement of the students (Woods, 2014). The aspect of group activities has always encouraged me and quite intrigued me to the core of my heart and I was always curious to experience one such situation, and I feel grateful that I got the opportunity to do this task in this module along with my colleagues. It has been a great experience, so may new lessons that I have learnt, also came across difficulties and overcame them eventually. Group project help from a variety of perspectives working in group enables one to examine topics from the perspective of others. It helps in discussion of topics, negotiations in relation to addressing the same and also we are put in a situation where we have to listen to the people's ideas and that in one way or the other influence our own thinking and horizons. Each one of the group members is not just a fellow learner they are the teachers, one of the important aspect of the project is that it enhances social learning in a significant manner.

Also, it helps in language learning as interactions with others helps in improvising vocabulary learning new terms, words, new subjects, new topics, phrases such that we can speak and explain an aspect with different phenomenon. In a group, each individual has its own role with its own importance and the this process enables one to teach other and at the same time learn from others which is one of the crucial aspects of the group project and I feel so fortunate that I am part of such project.

Apart from these we learn to manage personalities as one of the major reasons where people scoff at group projects is is that they have to work with people they have clashes with or either they have to work against their interests. One of the aspect that carries importance is to challenge one's own mildest and view the group learning scenario as the platform where one can develop the valuable real life skill of management of people and it is one of the important concepts in workplace cohesion and at the same time the same can be encountered during the instances with families within which we have members with competing personalities. Another aspect is to leverage talent from different approaches by putting creativity e in group presentations such that the final product as per the requirement and at the same time it enhances the group’s mission. It is an important opportunity to embrace to learn from peers’ colleagues, see various new talents skills, teach others, negotiation with others, learn from others as well as pick up the strategies for the success of the project.

Well from the very beginning, the foremost task was to decide the host organization and to decide who will perform which task and that was not easy to decide. Everyone has their own preferences but at the same time it was essential that one who can best do the task shall be allocated that function to do such that timely and effectively project can be completed.

Before the task could be distributed it was required to get a little introduction such that we can all know each other and we had an activity before we started the project in which we have undertaken the task to introduce oneself and then depict the areas of expertise and experience one has in that filed. Then, on the basis of that we will decide who will perform what function in order to complete the task. The task requires us to distribute the work among group leader, consultants, researchers as well as data analysts, editors and others.

Encountering this activity, I realized the importance of each and every role as played by the team members and everyone has to contribute with respect to the work assigned to them such that the ultimate success of accomplishing the project is done and it can be evaluated. Though, I was not quite happy with the task allocated to me as it was quite contrary to what I expected and really wanted to do but then I understood the importance how we should explore each and every aspect such that experience can be gained in all fields and effective portfolio can also generated.

I realized the importance as to how each role has its importance and how we all contribute equally in significant manner considering it as individual project that is what the most important aspect of management that I like. Whether it is management in any organization or any other aspect, people work towards achieving towards one common goal taking into consideration the individual goals also; similarly that is what we have been doing in this project. We came across various challenges but our team lead has successfully led us to the door of victory by taking us all together in common spirit to complete the project in timely and effective manner such that we can develop a conceptualised project as expected by our mentors. It is our responsibility that we deliver to them the best of what we have gained from our study, lectures and how their inspiring sessions has proven to be of so much help.

Moving further, I would firstly like to describe the important roles that we have undertaken in order to complete this project. The first and foremost role was to elect the team lead such that we can work effectively for the common goal, who can lead us to the destination of completion of the project, who can keep the group together, and can address all the problems and find solutions, provide guidelines, praise when effective work is done by any member such that a sense of belonging is there within the team members. The work of team leader is very essential. A team leader provides an outline, motivates, teaches and tracks results.

It can be a formal change of title or a delegate from your leadership, but becoming a team leader, as a trustworthy individual, distinguishes you from your colleagues to lead a project or company. The titling indicates that you have worked tirelessly to win responsibility and maybe to earn an improved pay if you would like a career in management (Tabassi et.al, 2016). "The first step in the management hierarchy is team leaders." They must step in at a moment's notice to substitute for an absent boss, while still ensuring that the rest of the staff performs and meets its objectives, all without authority." The significant part of a joint project team is a team leader. This person or organization is responsible for the preparation, implementation and promotion of the activities undertaken in a project (Liu and Liu, 2013).

My team leader has always been motivation during the entire project; he has undertaken so many different tactics and strategies such that we can work together for a common goal. My team leader has been successful in fulfilling all the responsibilities that were allocated to him, he had been able to successfully coach our team members and constantly urged them to use appropriate methods and development of necessary skills for getting the desired results. He has motivated each of our members, and had been there as our support system during the entire project. A team member has been our strength and at its stage of our project he had continuously help us to improve our weaknesses. Seeing him like this motivated me to seek for much better work even though it was not my favourite part but he help me at achieving the desired targets in a much faster manner.

He completely identified a team goals that were required as per the team progress and he had done all this by evaluating the action plan that we have decided set forth before we undertook this project and he ensured that we all achieve the milestone as per the time set. As we all know during any group activity there are high chances for conflict to occur but he made sure that each of these conflicts are addressed and did not affect the working of the entire group in any manner. He organized team initiatives for us all on daily basis and seek updates from us for the requisite work that is allocated to us to ensure that the evaluation of completion of work is done correctly and if any lack is there then it can be made correct. It had truly been inspiring experience for me working with him and all the traits that I have learnt from him as these are some of the weaknesses that I have to work upon myself being at such a level of team leader, we have to get past of all our weakness and find the positives in ourselves for the success of our group.

Then there comes other roles such as researcher, consultants, data analysts and others, each have its own separate functions. The task of consultant is equally essential, as it involves ensuring that each and every member’s queries are resolved, tasks as regard to the project are managed within times and all other specific activities are being undertaken. Consultant has to ensure that all the aspects are carried out as per the schedule, scope and costs being reasonable and coordinate functions and conduct periodic reviews and helping the team leader in management of the projects. In regard to our project, consultants have effectively completed their work in time and as per the action plan (Yacob et.al, 2018).

Apart from this, researchers' tasks include linking methodologies to analysis objectives, the use of a variety of methods for acquisition of knowledge and interpretation of results, the preparation of reports and the presentation of observations and schedules to managers and other stakeholders, the identification of trends and patterns, fieldwork and testing as necessary. I have been assigned to this task, which is one of the most important parts in managing the project.

Being a researcher I had to find out all the relevant material and relation to a project with reference to the host organisation. I had to do this in effective manner so that the objectives at set for the project are achieved and we could really get the outcomes as we have desired in relation to our host organisation. I had to use a variety of methods for searching the correct data and requirements, though it was very cumbersome at the starting as it was against my interests but later on i felt comfortable doing this. It not only helped me to acquisition of knowledge but also helped me to form presentations based upon the observations. I had to prepare reports, form schedules, identifiable of trends and patterns.

I had to learn some of these aspects from other team members and also seek for help to my leader; they had provided me a great support in completing my task. Also, I realised that why it is important to take part in other activities and not only move towards the one which you already have done earlier. The data analyst work though is one of my expertises and I really wanted to do that but later I realised that I got to learn a lot. I am good with numbers so I was always interested within this project to work for the data analyst as I love to bring together theory and practice such that identification communication of data driven insights in relation to the project that is host organisation can be easily formed and effective decisions can be made. This is why I was interested in analytics parts earlier and when I could not get the opportunity to do that.

I was disheartened but my leader motivated me and urged me to really take a step forward and like really adapt to the new openings in life and this is why I am thankful that I could really get into the research part and excel my research segment in relation to project management also it will definitely help me in enhancing my portfolio management in future. I not only understood things in form of theoretical knowledge, but could also excel in research segment and could learn new ways of reporting, scheduling, which shall further help me in future. I am very thankful to my team leader for this opportunity that I could connect to so many people, I am not very expressive but with this role I had to interact with other members and get past my boundaries and could really enhance my communication and interactive skills. Also, I could really connect and learn from others and also help others to learn amidst these challenges.

Another important challenge that I came across during accomplishment of this project is the conducting of group activities through online communication channels such as Whatsapp video call and MS teams. Amidst the Global pandemic it has been very difficult for the people across the globe to really connect with each other within the purview of constant lockdown quarantines as well as restricted movement across the boundaries and same has led to the shutdowns of various businesses and ventures. This has been a global pandemic and an event of economic downturn for organizations, institutions, all across the world. All this has paved the way for the online communication technologies to evolved where people within the organisations can really connect,  conduct meetings and  interact with each other over a common platform such as WhatsApp video calls, vimeo, Google meet, ms teams and others channels (de Miranda Mota and de Almeida, 2012).

Universities have been using online platform to conduct classes and similarly, we also undertook the use of video calls for keeping track upon the status of our project and really connect with each other. Though we have successfully completed our project but it feels challenging to connect with each other through video calls and discuss important aspects of the project as there is a lack of communication and interactiveness. Sometimes due to the disturbance in the online connectivity, we really could not connect with each other and not everyone is comfortable in interaction over video calls, specifically me as I found it very challenging. But eventually, all we have to do is to adapt to the situation surrounding us so that we can really conquer for which we have been working so hard. There is so much to learn in group activities and that is why I love them.

Conclusion

I finally realized that there are various aspects where I alack and I need to work upon them based upon the personality tests and by indulging in various group activities so that I can one day lead my team not only for this project but also in other aspects of life, keeping focus on individual as well as group goals. This pandemic has brought so many lessons for us all to learn, and similarly, this project has helped in understanding where I lack and where I need to work harder so that I can become an excellent leader one day. This project has been in wholesome an amazing experience for me.

References

de Miranda Mota, C.M. and de Almeida, A.T., 2012. A multicriteria decision model for assigning priority classes to activities in project management. Annals of Operations Research, 199(1), pp.361-372.

Janiesch, C., Matzner, M. and Müller, O., 2012. Beyond process monitoring: a proof‐of‐concept of event‐driven business activity management. Business Process Management Journal.

Liu, X.Y. and Liu, J., 2013. Effects of team leader emotional intelligence and team emotional climate on team member job satisfaction. Nankai Business Review International.

Tabassi, A.A., Roufechaei, K.M., Ramli, M., Bakar, A.H.A., Ismail, R. and Pakir, A.H.K., 2016. Leadership competences of sustainable construction project managers. Journal of cleaner production, 124, pp.339-349.

Woods, D.R., 2014. Problem-oriented learning, problem-based learning, problem-based synthesis, process oriented guided inquiry learning, peer-led team learning, model-eliciting activities, and project-based learning: what is best for you?. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 53(13), pp.5337-5354.

Yacob, R., Saruwono, M. and Ismail, Z., 2018. A Review of Leadership Qualities among Building Refurbishment Project Managers. International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7(4.22), pp.126-131.

Zaslavskaya, O.Y., 2013. Components of teacher’s management competency: knowledge and skills, activity, functional areas. American Journal of Pedagogy and Education, 1, p.13.

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