Introduction
The success of research done by a group of people depends so much on the contribution that each member inputs to the project. This is where management skills acquired theoretically are put into practice or tested. The process of solving conflicts that emerge in a group should be succinct and clear. Each member’s point of view must be taken into consideration to harness success.
Self effectiveness and other team members
I organized the group. In essence, I can term myself as the pioneer of the foundation of our group. In the first place, I am the one that got the people in the group together. The initial meeting of group members was done by me.
The success of our group depended on the effectiveness of contribution to the project by each member of the group. The division of project parts to each member of the group was the best idea we could come up with. The reason that favored the division of project parts among us was to ensure that each member of the group would give his best input with respect to research concerning the assigned part. The approach to tackle the assignment from the perspective of components-to-whole also was to ensure that the timeline given by our lecturer was to be met before its elapse.
Dynamically, the group was well organized in the beginning. If the initial agreement had been pursued, the results would have been better, besides no one in the group would have felt that much of the work was done by self. The only mistake that the group made was it did not elect an interim leadership to oversee the effectiveness of each member of the group. Since the group’s decisions were made based majority basis, they should also have elected leaders to run the project completion. Reduction in conflicts could have been reduced with the introduction of a discipline committee, to deal with members who showed laxity concerning the progress. In my opinion, these would have been more effective than orally making resolutions that did not have a discipline tag attached.
For the future application of individual learning, I realized that in a learning environment and process, a group requires a correct choice of people willing to share and one another’s point of view. In a group, individual knowledge requires total acceptance from an intended audience, with participation notwithstanding.
Project evaluation versus outcomes
In the event of problem-solving, discussions in the group did not yield much. Each member was given a chance to air out feedback. The feedback could not be approved with total certainty since it emerged that group members only stuck to the assigned parts. It was also evident that the discussions were not taken with a resolute critique from the members showed little commitment.
Decision-making process
Decisions concerning issues emergent in the group were made by the majority. As it was turning out, I was an international student with a communication problem since I could not speak or write the English language with acceptable standards, I felt left out. Most of the decisions were done with an edge of countering my contribution to the project. In most cases, acceptance of a resolution was reached after a lengthy discussion, the resolutions were reached at jus for the sake of agreement, but not because they were applicable.
Research methodology
It was not a bad idea to use questionnaires and interviews. However, the lack of participation by my members was a rather disappointing factor. As mentioned, I contacted interviews and questionnaires being sent to the audience at PGL. PGL is a freight company whose market is the pacific islands although it’s expanding globally (Pacific Gate Logistics, 2010). This was an engagingly hard task for me. Nevertheless, I did it for the sake of completing the course work besides trying by all means to beat the timelines given by the lecturer; which carried a risk of losing all the marks. Also, I used these research methods but their effectiveness I did not ascertain. In the first place, there was a language barrier between my audience.
Documents like the project we were undertaking are highly sensitive such that their acceptance by the target company was important to us. The validity of the methods that we used was questionable. Our research design was not familiar to other group members. As a result, it may have reduced their participation in the design of these methods as well as their application to data collection. As a consequence, data collected was limited to one person. The direct implication of this was that only one person collecting information did not have enough time, the number of audience for interviewing was small.
Project management
On average, the project was not managed well. The management style we employed lacked some organization. If we had employed some committee to manage the progress of the project, we would have frequent conflicts in the group. We had resources at our disposal. The resource that was badly mismanaged was time. It resulted from a lack of communication from the group members. Each one of us went their own way. They refused to answer my e-mails. In general, the group was not centrally managed and it is like we did not know each other in the group. This explained the lack of total commitment from the other members. The management of conflicts, solutions, meeting days, research feedback was all not effectively adopted.
Management concepts application
From the perspective of the management of the group, there was no relationship between theoretical management concepts and their application as seen in the group. Each one of us was doing everything according to the self-drive. Cohesion in the group was not there. They were not acting on one accord as a group. In conclusion, we did not apply management concepts in our project
Project process improvement
It was noted that there was diversity in opinions in the group concerning the management and handling of the parts that were assigned to different group members. However, this did not help improve the situation. In fact, it only aggravated the conflicts. This can be justified by the further distance that was experienced in the last stages of the project. Each one of us had taken his own direction, and perhaps, perspective concerning the project.
I recommended that in the future, proper vetting during the selection should be done to determine the right group members. Furthermore, each group member needs to be given time to express his views concerning his point. Pertaining management, a select opinion analyzing committee should have been formed. Each time a member airs an opinion, one of the select members from the committee writes them down. After writing, analysis is done as an after process whereby each opinion is analyzed as an entity. Its validity is agreed upon by the majority rather random airing of opinion that leads to no common resolution.
Secondly, the outcomes of the project were not satisfactorily achieved. In the first place, group members did not have a common voice. Each part of the project was given as an assignment. It is evident that each group member did not achieve the highest level of output as expected. Whatever we presented can be termed as the work of one person. The research process is an intensive involvement, requiring a high degree of professionalism.
In our case, we needed to put to practice management concepts acquired in theory. What was achieved did not reflect professionalism and commitment. The whole process was characterized by dishonesty, self-motivation, and frequent inter-member conflicts. The use of consultative means from the other classmates was good.
However, it should not only have taken place during a conflict solution but also during the research process itself. This is a healthy process for the information collected by the group members. Comparisons about the collection of information, management of the group by other groups formed by the classmates; in terms of problem solution and project management. On the overall, the project was not satisfactorily done due to the reasons mentioned above, with the conflict factor being the main.
On the overall, I can say that I took up a management role that was neglected by others. I had information from the company that we used in our project required for our project.
Concussion
In conclusion, the project that was undertaken by the group was not taken and completed satisfactorily. The members seemed to rather doing a project on conflicts than PGM.
Reference
Pacific Gate Logistics. (2010). Pacific Gate Logistics Australia & New Zealand. Web.