Reflection On Group Work: Using Rolfe's Reflective Model

Using Rolfe's Reflective Model

To achieve a certain group activity, it is necessary for the certain groups or the teams to act collaboratively to meet the goal and objectives. These goals and objectives are always pre-determined by the leaders or the managers after various kinds of discussion and decision-making process. In this module learning, we worked as a team for the jet pack simulation which was about working on a project for a company. During the group work, we were able to learn about the theories and process of the formation of the groups along. We got the chance to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the group work. In the following paper the reflection will be based upon the experience that we have gathered during the time of the group work along with the theories and the evaluation of the same.

The method of self-reflection is very necessary in every day’s life. This self-reflection of an individual or even a group can be beneficial to look back and analyse the work as well as performances in order to understand the outcome of the same. Based on this reflection human beings can learn for better performances in their daily activities. For the reflection I will be using Rolfe’s reflective model which will help me in learning from our experiences from the group activities.  

As it has been mentioned in the introduction section or the reflection in this paper, I will be using Rolfe’s reflective model in order to gather the experience and understand the effectiveness of the group work (Rolfe and Freshwater, 2020). This reflective model is known for being one of the simplest frameworks.  Prof. Gary Rolfe and his colleagues came up with this framework which cinists three stages or rather can be said to have three questions in it: what? So what? And now what? These questions can be useful in order to describe a certain situation during the process of activities. From the application of the reflection model, I will also be getting opportunities to put more focus on the achievements (Greetham and Ippolito, 2018). Its consequences, various kinds of responses, feelings or any kind of problem that may have occurred during the time of the group work.

To work on the jet pack simulator, we develop a team with 8 experts of the same domain. This ket pack simulator is a very Sophisticated Management Simulation that can be used in a manufacturing company. For this project, we were working on the development of the simulator that was run in a company. This bulk work like jet pack simulator requires a huge labour and time for the proper development of the entire process. In order to do so, a team was developed for the utmost outcome every one of the individuals can work collaboratively for the development of the simulator. Through effective teamwork, we were trying to achieve the simulator which can help in decision making, developing strategies for performing any kind of execution for the entire organisation. Moreover, we tried to develop a system which can be used as the effective leadership management tools based for the individuals of the executive level.    

Working on the Jet Pack Simulator

The team has been developed by the help of the Tuckman’s theory which clearly explains about the development of the teams along with the maturity and ability of the team, the relationships within the team and lastly, the leadership style which can be helpful for the guidance for the collaborative approach (Kiweewa  et al., 2018). We followed all the stages of tuckman’s theory such as forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. For the formation of the team, we followed the forming stage by which we were able to put the team in a structure (Stroud, 2019). Our main mission was to create a management simulation for a company. In order to achieve the same, we required skilful human resources for the entire operation. As the forming stage states, the team needs to understand in order to proceed with the task. Roles and responsibilities were identified on the basis of the team need such as for the simulation we required human resources from the technology background. The next stage which we followed was the storming phase which helped us in organising all the tasks as well as processes which will be resources for the development of jet pack simulator. It also helps in determining conflict within the team as well. During the teamwork, this storming stage helped to understand the inter and intra personal relationship among the individuals within the teams. The leaders were successful in organising tasks and divided all the roles or responsibilities for the group work. Primarily the group was developed under one leader from use who took charge of developing the strategies and the goal of the task. However, during the process, the leadership changed from one to shared leadership. The norming stage helps in identifying the leadership which can be suitable for the team in order to make progress. While working on the simulation we realised that there are individuals who have special skills in particular such as software skills of different domains, problem solving or decision making for the development of the operation. To execute each of the steps with more accuracy, we decided to share the leadership based upon the expertise fields the share of power and influence has been helpful in maintaining the accuracy of the entire operation. In this way we were able to achieve the primary goal of the entire operation.

The fourth stage of Tuckerman's theory talks about the performance of the team with clear roles and responsibilities. In this stage we were able to find out each other's strengths and weaknesses which has been helpful for us to mitigate with the help of teamwork (Guttenberg, 2020). Every single group activity requires proper team bonding and high communication for the effective performances.

By conducting each of the stages from Tuckerman’s theory we were able to complete the work as well as wrap up the entire process after achieving the goals and objectives about the Jet pack simulation. We personally felt several kinds of emotions and changes in the behaviour as well.

Developing the Team using Tuckman's Theory

In reflection, I personally felt that our team has performed with a lot of potential in order to achieve the required goals and objectives. Each of the members contributed their skills and their strength to carry out the operation developing the simulator for the company. During the process, we witnessed a huge development in the team which has a huge impact on the team and its entities as well. For the proper team development, three of the basic elements are always required which are Mission, commitment and lastly, the roles and responsibilities. Tuckerman’s theory has been useful in developing the team. The involvement of Tuckerman's theory was useful for us to understand how the team should evolve. Through the application of Tuckerman's theory, one individual among us was able to determine the roles and responsibilities based on the expertise (Lacerenza et al., 2018). However, this leadership became shared in order to achieve more accuracy in the process where each one of us played our role in leading the team in that particular domain.

I personally felt that the theory has made the process easier to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the team as well as the peers. During the formation of the team, we realised about the communication gap as well as cultural differences among the peers. Also, some of the members lacked in some areas of technological skills and knowledge which became a major drawback for the team in the first few days. As for the strengths, the problem solving and decision-making skills or even the time management have been useful in the process of team development.      

To mitigate the weaknesses in the team about the communication gap or the lack in the skills set, we planned to recognise the main problem in order to come up with a new solution for the same. Various training and development were held to help them in learning about the technological gap. As for the communication gap, the shared leadership has been useful in mitigating the gap and establishing the communication among the team members. The training and development were also helpful for the members to conduct the self-realisation process for their own development.   

For the development of the Jet pack simulation for a company, we were required to develop the right kind of strategy which helped us in determining the goals and objectives for the entire operation (Terziev and Georgiev, 2017). With the help of the determination of the strategies, we got the chances to find out the priorities and the goals for the team activities. This alignment of the strategies also has been helpful for us to allocate the resources of both tangible and intangible which were required for the development of the simulator. This decision making about the strategies has been helpful for us in understanding the right usage of the resources while helping in understanding what a strange is and how it can be useful in developing important assets into a professional one.

While forming the strategies for the entire operation, four main challenges that we have faced which were also emerged during the time of team development as well (Morrison-Smith and Ruiz, 2020). These main challenges are such as poor communication, or lack of alignment or slow pace of adoption which hindered the process of simulator development.      

Personal Reflections

As I have previously mentioned, there were many challenges which we found during the time of our team performances. By the help of Tuckerman’s theory, we realised the strengths and weaknesses of our team.

During the development of the strategies, it is important to have communication among the team mates in order to have the right kind of decision-making process. For the strategic development of the team and the objective of the team, we expected to come up with proper strategic planning for the effectiveness of the team performances and good outcome of the result. This communication plays a huge role for strategic planning. Continuous flow of information and communication is useful in establishing multiple other plans to execute each step of the objective, implementation of the plan, sharing every kind of information which helps in keeping the planning and the aim of the plan alive (Tawse and Tabesh, 2021). As for our team the cultural gap between the teammates was a huge communication gap between peers which created a lot of hindrance and a lot of the problems during the formation of strategies. Apart from that, some of the team members were not aware of all kinds of technologies that were necessary for the development of the jet pack simulation. This lack of skills among the team members slowed down the pace of the team for the decision-making process. Through feedback and internal assessment of the members, we tried to find out the root cause of the problems which caused hindrances for the entire operation in the first place. Based on which we were able to decide what can be useful for the mitigation of the problems.        

To mitigate these certain problems, such as communication gaps or slow pace of the adaptation, the shared leadership of our team would benefit from the experts being well aware of the technologies and steps for the process. This continuous training and development process helped the individuals in maintaining the pace of the Simulation development.

As for the mitigation of the communication gap, we took a few steps which have been beneficial for us to solve all the problems in the team. We started the practices of feedback which helped in understanding the certain areas where the lag was found.

In a team work, there is an always an occurrence of conflict among the members who are working in a particular team. The conflict is also known as an antagonist action which has the potential to create obstacles in the decision making or problem-solving process for the tasks of the entire operation (Humphrey et al., 2017). To mitigate the same, it is always important for the leaders or the managers to find out the root cause of the entire problem and conduct the problem-solving process to solve the conflict and keep up the pace of teamwork.

Similarly, our team also faced so many conflicts in every layer of the team development and team work. These conflicts within the team can occur due to the lack of information, the workplace environment, lack of skills, or even differences in the values or cultures.  In our team, the conflict among the members on various occasions which not only affected the teamwork but also created chao that affected the relationship among the employees (Tokakisie et al., 2018). The main reasons behind the conflicts were mainly because of the communication gap and the lack of understanding about the cultural differences.

Conclusion

Our team consisted of people from different kinds of cultural backgrounds with different kinds of values. According to Hofstede's cultural dimension, it is obvious to have cultural differences because of the national practices and beliefs or rather can be said values. Thus, this cross-cultural conflict can arise due to different perceptions about the power, competitive nature or even knowledge of the resources (Beugelsdijk, Kostova and Roth, 2017). Similarly, during the time of team development, various conflicts occurred in the team which slowed down the pace of teamwork and also started hampering the relationship among team members.

To mitigate the conflict in teamwork and team development, the leaders played a huge role in the initial stage. With the help of conflict management, the leaders tried to mitigate the conflicts through collaborating and compromising and the space for understanding the cultural differences.

As for the other factors, the communication gap causes a lot of frustration and poor flow of information in the team which not only causes harm to the team but also causes low morale in the team. However, the leaders applied the communication strategies such as active listening, paying attention to each and every detail about the differences or setting up expectations for the communication has been helpful in the process of mitigating all the communication gap and conflicts which occurred due to the same.  

Maintaining the communication strategies was the first priority for the team development in order to keep the communication conflicts among the members. As for the cultural differences, proper training and discussion about the differences about cultures helped to influence the employees to pay respect for the others.

In future, these strategies and practices will be maintained for the future conflict management.   

References

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