Achievements of team goals
Within the entire semester, our team has been proactive in tackling several assignments with the goal of scoring optimal points. The team was called Team Blue and it consisted of five members (2 students (accounting), 1 student (accounting and finance), 1 student (marketing), and 1 student (international business)). The team consisted of two locals and three international students. In order to stay within the schedule and obtain maximum points in the different assignments, the team set the following objectives.
- To promptly carry out research on assignments given
- To maintain regular communication
- To ensure that assignments are completed within the set deadlines
- To foster proactive and better interaction among members
- To achieve a high score
- To offer explicit solutions to clients for the proposed consultancy project
Upon completion of the industrial consulting project and the entire unit, I have to confirm that all the above objectives were addressed and met effectively. Team Blue managed to integrate teamwork, hard work, and proactive research to ensure that the assignments were well done. Among the key projects which Team Blue carried out was the Atlas Automation project. Its proposed benefits included efficiency and energy saving for different processes.
In order to prepare for the meeting, I, alongside other team members, carried out comprehensive research on the need for automation in the proposed Atlas automation project, in terms of the available skills and ease managing different operational processes. The research included the latest manufacturing systems.
In each stage of the project, Team Blue was more than determined to only deliver the best. We could not settle for anything less since manufacturing consultancy is a very important unit which may indicate your ability to effectively work with clients. Besides, the team carried out research on the current operations processes situation at the local university in order to offer relevant solutions that support its short term and long term goals of efficiency through automation. It was essential to achieve exemplary results as a prerequisite for gaining much-needed experience in the career world.
There were a series of presentations that I, alongside the other group members, carried out. The team achieved the intended results in the presentations since we unanimously agreed on each and every part of the presentation despite the apparent weakness in public speaking. Besides, the team of five allocated each member specific responsibility for the whole period of the project as a remedy for overcoming this weakness. This unit was an eye-opener and a bridge for improvement of my public speaking and writing skills as the feedback from the tutors was very encouraging.
Moreover, the team project was important in fulfilling the objective of nurturing teamwork to create flexible, proactive, and global skills as part of the group organizational culture. Among the issues, the team noted as requiring improvement as the meetings commenced included the creation of a systematic team work module to accommodate the different roles assigned to each member.
In the process of developing the atlas automation project, I was very effective in presenting the immediate needs that the team could present during the first meeting with clients. Specifically, I presented a compressive report on the benefits of the proposed manufacturing process project. Team Blue was effective in marking the magnitude of skills we enjoy in terms of operational processes. I was careful to present the demographics of the required skills that will make the university successful in its operations processes, as a leading center of innovation.
I was very confident and interested since the nature of services within the scope of the consultancy module was related to my career interests. Since I had done comprehensive research before the meeting, I was very certain in the responses to different questions raised by the team. The certainty was also a result of past training in the art of public speaking, besides personal mastery of the subject of discussion.
Despite the confidence and deep interest, I realized that the team needed to improve on the intra and intercommunication skills since I noticed that some of the members, especially the secretary and the training and personnel directors, were finding it difficult to keep up with some of the presentations. I made a lot of assumptions that other members were conversant with the different demographics and evidence I was presenting. I am certain that the level of research, intrinsic communication skills, and career interests in the project made Team Blue very successful in the project presentation.
I am convinced that my business skills and a deep interest in consultancy will easily create a healthy business relationship with the client. In order to create a healthy and sustainable relationship with the clients, other team members and I demonstrated knowledge and understanding of the project demands by developing a proactive and consultative approach to different challenges that the group was facing, especially in behavior control.
The local university required an efficient system that would save energy during manufacturing processes. I believe that the Atlas Automation project by Team Blue achieved the demands of our client. At the end of the project, we presented the best alternative for energy saving in the manufacturing processes at the local university. For instance, we suggested that the university should roll out an automation program as an efficiency policy for optimal resource use.
In fulfilling my personal goal of creating a proactive relationship with the members of Team Blue, I was able to create a friendly relationship with all the members of the team within the campus and outside the campus. I realized that members of Team Blue were very nice people and serious in the project activities. This made it enjoyable to work alongside everyone with ease.
Team dynamics
Despite the dynamic nature of Team Blue’s group composition, two locals and three international students, each member became part of the team due to the fact that they share the same interests and have a common view, characterized by the consultative approach in addressing problems through the creation of proactive solutions. Besides, the team was inspired by the need to create viable solutions in the Belbin test, which evaluated the performance of each member. I scored the highest point which was 84 out of 100. As a result, the team unanimously elected me as the overall team leader since my problem-solving skills were confirmed by the test to be very strong.
In order to improve as a team in the meetings, it was necessary for the members to understand personal motivation and self targets, the need for aggressiveness in the discussion, and the development of proper personal etiquette. The discussions were very fast. For instance, the presentations were completed within three weeks. Besides, it was essential for the team to limit the scope of activities to contain only relevant discussions since some members were involved in irrelevant discussions about personal issues. This adjustment shortened the discussion period even further.
However, we experienced some challenges in undertaking the project. I realized that the team could not agree on the scope of the project since each member had his or her own thoughts on the requirements. Besides, some members of the team could not honor the commitment to keep time and address each issue within thirty minutes. As a result, the team spent almost two hours discussing the roles of the training and development director, since some of the roles were similar to those of the training and selection director in the project assignment.
Besides, despite having signed a memorandum of understanding on the need to participate and contribute equally during the meeting, some members were more active than others. For instance, one of the international students had the habit of being passive in most of the discussions. Besides, lack of personal disciple and etiquette might distort the efforts of a team meeting. In order to prevent problems that might arise, it was essential for the team to embrace teamwork, personal discipline, and the need for proactive contributions.
Besides, each member was made to feel appreciated and instrumental in the discussions. As a result, we were able to complete the project a month before the deadline. This was possible because of the proactive teamwork environment we created through constant assistance to members who had difficulties tackling their parts of the project.
As a remedy for addressing the challenge of time management during the meetings, it was important to develop a behavior control module that acted as a guide during a presentation by each member of the team. The module incorporated the following rules;
- Personal discipline
- Teamwork and completing assessments in time
- Systematic contribution and equal work-load sharing
- Timely attendance of all the meetings
- Honesty and professionalism
- Regular report of progress
We created an email account as the main communication facilitator. We followed the group behavior guideline to the latter. To ensure that each member followed the behavior guideline, there was a disciplinary action of reporting a rogue member to the tutor. Fortunately, all the members were active and responsible.
Experience in giving and receiving feedback
We achieved the intended results since they unanimously agreed to adopt a polycentric approach in the consultation process. Through a series of discussions on the best approach to use in the teamwork assignment, the team voted in favor of direct and proactive presentation in order to ensure that the concerns of each member were appropriately addressed. I had to face the challenge of giving feedback to each of the presentations by other members. However, at the end of the project, I learned the significance of logic, attention, presentation aids, and teamwork in making assessments.
The process of feedback tracking from the tutor was the most interesting part of the group assignment. The completed assignment was graded by the university tutor as exemplary and meeting all the requirements. I realized that teamwork makes a very big difference in overcoming personal challenges in group assignments. We were able to effectively improve the project on the basis of the feedback from the tutor. I have improved my writing skills and public speaking from the group presentations. This unit was very instrumental in improving my teamwork skills, analytical skills, and time management skills.