Individual Report, Exams of Communication

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10/12/ MANG

Individual Report

Student ID: 28502655 Team Number: 6B Word Count: 745

Introduction

The aim of the individual report is to reflect on teamwork in the production, preparation, and delivery of the presentation. The report assisted me with identifying where we worked well as a team, did not work well as a team, and reflect on my contribution to the team while linking the experience to teamwork theories.

Reflection on Teamwork

In the “forming stage” (Tuckman and Jensen, 1977) of our team development, we offered ideas about which presentation topic to select. We eventually all agreed on price fixing cartels and collusion. Forming also took place virtually (Furst et al., 2004) as we began to form friendships, utilising Facebook Messenger – a means of communication I put forth due to its accessibility and it being instant. An issue the team had was an argument regarding which presentation topic to select, but this argument was resolved with a vote in which the majority selected Cartels and Collusion. This argument took place during the “storming stage” of our team’s development (Tuckman and Jensen, 1977). Dividing the workload was a team issue. The “norming stage” (Tuckman and Jensen, 1977) took place at our first meeting, which was organised virtually and initiated by me. I resolved the team issue by constructing the presentation’s structure and aiding the delegation of topics and examples among team members. Organising our first and second meeting as well as establishing the means of group communication illustrates my group role was mainly an “implementer” (Belbin, 1993). However, delegating the presentation structure also exhibits behaviours of a “co-ordinator” (Belbin, 1993). I felt I delegated well and naturally fit into the role of co-ordinator so in future I will try to adopt this team role. At our second meeting I felt disappointed as a group member, responsible for stitching our individual slides into a collective presentation, failed to put the presentation together prior to the meeting. This issue resulted in valuable rehearsal time being halved, as we had to put the presentation together. On reflection, I should have made it clear the team expected this to have been done before the meeting so we could focus on synergistically (Kathryn, M., 1998 ) delivering the presentation. In future, I will ensure expectations are more clearly conveyed as a part of my action plan (Gibbs, 1988). Upon analysis and conclusion of the presentation (Gibbs, 1988) I felt I presented well by explaining collusion clearly and engaging the audience with eye-contact. However, after analysing the tense presenting of some team members, during the “performing stage” of team development (Tuckman and Jensen, 1977), I feel I should have taken on more responsibility. I spoke for less time than some less confident team members. In future, as part of my action plan, I will take on more responsibility to stretch myself and relieve some responsibilities from other team members enabling the team to perform better. Another issue our team had was a disagreement regarding storage of the presentation. Google Drive was used to store the presentation. My concern was the presentation would be more difficult to access – on presentation day - via Google Drive than a PowerPoint file

Reference List

Belbin, R.M. (1993) Team roles at Work, Butterworth/Heinemann, Oxford. Furst, S.A., Reeves, M., Rosen, B., and Blackburn, R.S. (2004) Managing the lifecycle of virtual teams. Academy of Management Executive, 18 (2), 6-20. Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by Doing: a guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford: Further Education Unit. Kathryn, M., Bartol, and David C. Martin (1998) Management, 3 rd^ ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Inc. pp. 57 - 58. Tuckman, B. and Jensen, N. (1977) Stages of small group development revisited. Group and Organizational Studies, 2, 419 - 427.