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Introduction

In term 2 the class was introduced to the Apprentice Challenge to undertake. The essence of this assignment is to join several learning objectives from Term 1 into practice. Groups were allocated to plan and raise money for a charity event of the group’s choice. This assignment will give a detailed overview of the planning process to the event on an actual day including the challenges encountered and experienced as the day of the event reached closer.

This paper will perform a near investigation of reflection and assessment toward oneself. Methodologies for each will be described, and then an example of each will be provided. Effective consultancy To highlight the steps of each methodology such as the key elements, the theories of a team working, creativity planning and most importantly the execution process, it is very important to analyse your self-reflection and assessment be able to make the most of the situation.

A self-reflection and assessment are individually evocative processes that lead to learning from experience; however, they have different aims and goals. Reflection is a process that involves playing back a period of time related to previous valued experiences in search of significant discoveries or insights about oneself, Effective consultancy one’s behaviours, one’s values, or knowledge gained. Specific criteria for performance are usually not involved.

An important goal in reflection analysis is bringing the focus to an indeterminate situation (Dewey, 1938) by gaining clarity and by fully experiencing what actually happened. In contrast, self-assessment will look at the process used for studying the performance of self to improve further in the future.

The beginning of the event and planning
Theories of working in teams:
When groups were revealed during the seminar we had a mini brainstorming session where we were giving ideas that we had in mind, however we acknowledged that we would need to go and individually do more research into the event and charity we would like to use to be able to see if we were able to do so as a group.

On our official first meeting, we all had ideas however after some time the ideas that were brought forward were not realistic to achieve bearing in mind the £50 budget that was given by the university. Through this experience at the planning process it was easy and clear to identify Belbin (1981) theory and distinguish the category we belong into, surprisingly each of us fell into one of the category “Action, Thinking ,

People” and sometimes in the middle of all three which was great as we were four members each having their specialist area which made it easier to share the workload and the individual that fell in the middle of all three was able to help and clear the tinted view of each other that had that particular skill. Belbin (1981) explains that not a single individual may have all the qualities to accomplish the overall group work totally right.

Team members were assigned role of their own choice which helped them to steer clear of responsibilities they may not be able to fulfil. Reflecting back on the group performance, we succeeded based on the combination of different roles we had as individuals and the fact that we succeeded in them individually contributed to us succeeding as a group.

The roles identified by Belbin are not great and to some extent, shape the individual roles in a team. From which I agree that the nine roles explained by Belbin; all the nine roles are not necessary to achieve success. Referring this to the group tasks, I’m of the view that five roles are sufficient for success to be achieved as some roles are doubled up such as the Specialist Role was also capable of performing the Role of Plant. Therefore Belbin theory allows individual role to play a secondary role in a team.

Strategic Plan

We worked well together as we all had individual strengths and skills, which meant everyone knew their task and responsibly, however, there was a time at the beginning of the process where some skills conflicted with one another which resulted in two different views. For instance, sometimes I found it hard to express myself whereas one of my group members has a strong talent for expressing themselves; which overpowered my ability to try and express myself. To remedy this, I used body language to make them understand what I wanted to say. As an auxiliary means of sound language, the body language plays huge importance in the language communication. As Lurnsden (2000) stated,

communication is one of the essential and important skills and refers to the process of exchanging messages between two individuals. It can either be verbal or non-verbal but in my case, it was verbal as English is not my first language, which meant that sometimes when I was trying to express my views or ideas it wasn’t as clear to the others especially when I was clarifying complex situations. Dwyer (2005:79) emphasises that strong communication

is key for all members of the team to ensure that they can interact and work together to achieve the goal of the organisation. Nonetheless, it was sometimes difficult for some of the members to understand the auxiliary concepts and assumed that if the individual was not able to express themselves properly then it was not really necessary to take it into account as they were unable to interpret it in a way for them to understand. I Learnt to express myself properly as not everyone understands the body language and come to a common ground of understanding where I am able to share and make sure my knowledge or expression are understood.
Gibbs (1988) reflective cycle is used to reflect effectively. The use of this cycle affirms the framework for my use. Gibbs (1988) covers six stages to complete the cycle which improves my personal skills continuously and learning. As Gibbs cycle advances the first stage portrays the circumstance where colleagues cooperate, next stage takes a gander at the sentiments of every part about the work and the third stage includes the investigation of the emotions of every person. The fourth stage is taking into account the investigation to understand the experience,

5th stage takes a gander at the result of cooperation and the last stage includes the activity arrangement for the circumstance if it somehow managed to emerge once more. Such type of reflection generates the knowledge which supported me to work with my team members and adapt to every new situation during the work task experience. Our collaboration urged me to gain from my missteps and conduct and take a gander at the points of view of different individuals in the group. It was imperative to construct the colleague association with one another so as to create a shared comprehension and trust.

Challenges:-
Nonetheless as stated before, we encountered challenges while working within the team. Watson (1995) says that teamwork is never a smooth way of individualistic conduct. Aggression, identity awkward nature and social, philosophical, sex contrasts are all dangers that influence the teamwork atmosphere. This occurred when some workload was shared and there were times when one of the group members would like to take responsibilities such as doing the effort and research to find the data so we knew who to speak to and what he can do but then there were individuals who had connection or knew people already and take on the task on.

top of their task which from my point shows sometimes a reluctant trust that the other member may have which made the individual feel unvalued as we may not require their effort when someone already knows how to get in contact and take the lead. The sense of control and knowing things better does cause conflicts even if it wasn’t intentional, which clearly shows me that when working with others I must give others the opportunity to do their task and maybe offer tips or information that could assist them but not overtake their role as if they are not capable of doing the role themselves. This shows some sort of respect to the individual doing the task or role.

The positive purposes of teamwork were tremendous similar to a colleague I have imparted the assets, saw eminence and troubled disappointment. Toward the beginning of the venture, group members settled upon the group targets and empowered us to make accord on the points, and minimized diversion from different issues.

Planning and creativity:-
We came up with the idea of having a Red Nose Day event. The Aston University RAG team always had the 24-hour walk around the lake and we believed as a group that it was a fantastic idea as people would like to make memories while taking part in the event and providing such services was to allow friends Effective consultancy to come together and take pictures. We arranged the meeting with RAG to discuss our idea as we wanted to implement it.

They seemed pleased and we made the arrangements that when they buy the Red Nose, give us a fraction of the makings so we could collaborate and sell them while we take pictures of them. We weren’t able to buy the noses ourselves due to the funds were given by the university. We tried to spilt work equally but more or less in regards to their strengths. For example when we had to do the risk assessment we each took one task to execute as it sped up the process and therefore would not put a lot of pressure on any one of us because we all had other modules to study for. After this was completed,

we individually did research on the costs associated with the products but it didn’t turn out to be as effective as we thought it would be. By doing individual research we ended up looking at products that Effective consultancy were not really necessary but would be nice to have and other did not have the time. So 3 of the members met up and went into each store that was comparatively cheaper and see what they had, however by just entering the stores without having specific things in mind,

our focus was diverted. So after visiting various stores we sat down and realised that we need to write down all the things we would like and after that prioritize the list of the things based on their importance. By doing so, Effective consultancy we made it much easier to check for the specific things and negotiate like when we went to the market to look at the wigs, we managed to negotiate with the store owner that if we bought more than 5 items we could get a discount as we were raising money for charity which was very good to know as she accepted it. This was more of our back up plan in case we went to the charity shops and couldn’t find anything, after having an overview of the things we would need and how much it costs.

We still decided to go to different charity shops in Birmingham from where we met a lady who was willing to provide us with free two wigs as she found our idea very unique and interesting. Effective consultancy While returning back to meet our other members of the group we came across Claire store where they had very interesting products for the Red Nose Day. From there, we came up with the idea that instead of spending money we could create those arrows and face masks ourselves and use barbeque sticks to hold them. Soon after we made the lists and shared it, it was easier for each member to see if they could get some fancy dresses or even get them for friends. We made a lot of stuff ourselves to make it personal and fun, making memories in the process.
Methodology

Checkland (2010) methodology is a very useful tool and we made sure that we create one to gather an in-depth understanding and threats that we need to be aware of so that we plan for the unexpected. Effective consultancy It proposes the representation to be used at the beginning of any process. Rich pictures are generally constructed by interviewing and looking at potentiation drawbacks. Our Rich picture drawn illustrates places where we need to find apparent contradictions from the conclusion drawn. However, after considering this system,

it came to my attention that even though we had drawn and planned everything using the soft system approach, we had to acknowledge the fact that in run-time, subjects or plans are meant to change. This nullifies the purpose of Checkland methodology as there would be really no point of using this strategy if there is a chance that subject may change.

Execution

On the day of the event, we felt confident and we were at the stage known by Tuckman as the performing stage. We met very early in the morning to go to the market and stores to buy the remaining products that would be needed on the day. As we met them the day before to finalise the spot we would be located on for the fundraising photo booth as they were running some of their own activities. However as soon as we reached the venue,

we were faced with a problem. The venue of the event was being held at a place where the windy weather was creating a havoc in terms of the setup. We saw confusion amongst the Hosts especially. Effective consultancy The tents that were set up kept on flying off the ground and everything was being reduced to shambles. There was a sense of stress amongst them which prevented us from starting on time, as a group we had to help them and get things back on track as we needed to know where we were located so that we could start our own thing. Once we got it going,

the place that we agreed upon the day before had changed so the arrangements we made for the event included the tent and tables. People were not that aware of the rag event as we were expecting and got to know about the event because of the marketing we did use the big screen on campus and sending out our promo pictures Effective consultancy to all the students and staff. Rag believed that Marketing through advertising would be enough and did not put up enough effort to exploit other channels of communication, hence, as a result, fewer people turned up on the day of the event. So we had to collect the tents left in the

store not knowing that they were too small for the casino and set up the stand for pictures to be taken. However, we still set up the stall to get people coming in and take pictures. As the event continued, more students kept coming in when they saw our promo shoot. During the course of the event, the weather changed unexpectedly and it became very cold and windy of which the foot flow of students reduced. Effective consultancy I came to the idea of increasing prices so that we could make the most of the situation as people were willing to pay more for the pictures. The Red Nose event eventually had no nose per se left so, therefore, we used our own noses we bought ourselves from the stores and allowed people to use it for the pictures. However, not having the noses defeated the purpose of the day and the event.

As the day continued the number of people coming in to our booth kept reducing so we switched to plan B as we weren’t making any money. The photographer and two members of the team started working around the place where people were doing the 24 hour walk on the lake. They approached them with the Picture Frame we created with some of the costumes such as the wigs and glasses, Effective consultancy and took pictures of the people walking around. We were pretty much demotivated as we weren’t getting the results we wanted and tried other options but to no avail. Hence the standard we wanted to meet was not being delivered. From that point onwards, we turned to plan C which was knocking at the door of each apartment with the costumes.

So before we set off for the apartments, each of us including the photographer wore an item of the fancy clothes that we had got for ourselves for the sake of the event. The reason for this was to show how it would look like in the costumes before the pictures wearing costumes were taken. This little act would persuade some of the students to either take pictures or alternatively just donate. Effective consultancy We went to all the blocks that we had access to with our student card. After knocking on many doors with no luck, it came to the point that as soon as someone opened the door the whole group jumped at the door, which from my point of view was very intimidating if I was in their position.

After this happened 3 times we came to the conclusion that if the whole group knocked at the door people were not willing to respond, so what we decided to do was that on each floor there were 6 doors so three of us would knock at two doors while one member of the group would be standing in the middle with the customers. Therefore in regardless of what door would open they would see the costumes we had available. By doing so we noticed that people were more relaxed and willing to open the doors to speak to us/take pictures or just donate.

Overall what we learnt from this is that regardless of the situation, it’s foolish to believe that things will work out as planned and also how important it is to ensure that always has to be a team leader to lead the team when the team feels demotivated and confused. It was a shame that we did not meet our target but this activity proved to use that we could go all way to try and get as close to our plan. We underestimated the depth of the task at hand and the amount of work that goes into perfecting the execution bit of successfully carrying out an event. Even our contingency plan should have a contingency plan….