For this assignment
Reflecting on your experience and whether it confirms or modifies ideas written in academic research.
Reflecting on your experience in terms of:
• Why you did it the way you did it?
• What you’d do differently if you did it again?
• What you will do in future as an outcome?
The academic discussion side – Potential subject areas
• Group Dynamics
• Leadership in self-managing teams
• Project Management (methods and/or strategy)
• Project Scope Management
• Cross-cultural teams
o (Form of South Africa, India, Vietnam, Taiwan & Hong Kong)
• Marketing and Communication methods
• Managing Conflict
o Will inform you more about the conflicts on the 2nd day of the order
• Virtual team working
Reflection on the academic subject
Can begin with a literature review as with a dissertation:
• What kind of issues and questions are raised by the academic work in this subject area?
• For example – studies of virtual organising often discuss whether or not some in-person contact before or during a project is needed for social reasons and to understand the meaning of colleagues’ way of communicating.
Evaluation
Did your experience of the projects confirm or contradict the main ideas in the academic work in this subject area?
• Or – did your experience support some academic writers rather than others?
Why was this? (the reflective part)
• What was it about your experience that led to the support for or contradiction of the academic ideas? The ideas themselves are sound or need amending?
• How representative or distinct is the experience of your projects from the norm? Was there something about your team that was unusual?
The personal development side
Reflection
Why did you do things in the way you did them during the projects?
• Does not have to be completely rational – don’t pretend after the fact
• Hard to judge other people’s feelings, but you know about your own.
• If you used formal models or techniques, how did it go?
• If you just improvised, would a more formal method have improved things?
How did you feel during the project? What do you think about it in retrospect
Keep on the overall subject
Keep a diary to record views, events and opinions.
Assessment criteria
The main issue addressed in the essay is a relevant one for management and its significance for the student’s experiences is made clear.
The secondary literature around the main issue is effectively researched and explained.
The ideas in the secondary literature are discussed and evaluated in the light of the student’s experience of the projects.
The student is properly reflective about the reasons for the projects to have been conducted in a particular way.
The student is properly reflective about what has been learnt from the experience and how it will affect his/her actions in future.