Prior to this session, we arranged a day to Skype our client, to run over the questions we had about the brief. The questions we had formulated were:
In the session, I learnt about Project Management, delving into the facets of what it entails such as risk management and project planning. I found this interesting, as before this session I was not aware of the importance of a project plan, however I now know we can use it to show tasks that must be completed over time, and highlights documents to be monitored or reviewed. It is important that our group considers that tasks depend on other tasks, and ensures that tasks are completed by set deadlines so that the project completion time is met. In this session, my team and I created a Gantt chart (using TomsPlanner) and risk analysis. I already knew the importance of using these, as risks must be identified so we can avoid these and risk seeming unprofessional to the client. Furthermore, our Gantt chart shows key milestones of the project and assists in understanding the progress of the project.
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Prior to this week’s session, my team and I ensured that we had contacted the company for our project, introducing ourselves and acknowledging we had received the brief following the success of our presentation.
Furthermore, we went over the feedback our tutor had sent us regarding our presentations in the previous week. She explained that we had a ‘good understanding of the charity’, and ‘acted confidently when dealing with the questions from the group’, however needed to ‘improve our strategy’, and ‘pin our focus onto B2B markets more,’ which we took on board before beginning our project by researching the current B2B market finding out their competitors and the sector they operate in. I arrived to the lesson on time, and we clarified as a group that we understood our brief, and took the opportunity to ask any questions we may have about this, when having a one to one with our tutor. We discussed the types of companies Toilet Twinning are interested in, and prepared questions to ask our client when speaking to them in the upcoming week. We wanted to understand if they had done any work like this before, and what companies they had approached, so that we did not approach the same business’ and act unprofessional. Furthermore, we wanted to clarify how they currently communicate with their target audience. Our completed review of our brief can be seen below. Today, we presented our projects, aiming to persuade our 'colleagues' of the agency we should be allowed to take our project ‘Toilet Twinning’ on.
We first researched what Toilet Twinning does as a charity, and then considered what skills they valued and how we fit as a group into those skills. One point we raised, was that Toilet Twinning look at cost effective ways to reduce poverty, and our group also acted as 'innovators' therefore could think of imaginative ways to reduce the costs for the charity when creating awareness of it's presence. We felt the first presentation we created, lacked detail into what Toilet Twinning stood for, and this may distort our comparison of their objectives to our skills. Therefore, we placed more emphasis on Toilet Twinning’s main objectives and directly compared these to our group skills with the use of visual aids to gain clarity. I felt in our final presentation, we acted persuasive however kept the charities best interests at heart. I found the best presentation was ‘Home Community Café’ as they proposed detailed actions they had planned such as a coffee morning, and described in detail how they will do such events. I felt like my group could have learnt from this, as they proposed an action plan, and allowed the agency to see how they were going to take the project forward. In today's session we placed ourselves into groups and in these groups we chose our project to create a presentation for next week. My group chose the 'Toilet Twinning' project, involving corporate social responsibility as we felt we had the most background knowledge on this due to previous assignments in our first year. We then undertook the Belbin test and completed a SWOT Analysis of our results, as some of our members received the same results as others from the Belbin Test, and Belbin found a group works well with a mix of attributes. It is important that we enhance our strengths and work harder in our weaker areas, such as ‘executive’ by organsising ourselves more using project plans to allow our project to be efficient. These are the results of my Belbin Test, showing my main trait is a ‘driver’. I felt this was accurate to what I already knew about myself as I often take lead when working as part of a team and describe myself as ambitious and energetic in daily life. However, I learnt that my weakest role was ‘Executive’. I believe this is inaccurate, as this describes someone who is generally disciplined and eager to get the job done, which I believe is similar to a ‘Driver’ and this applies to myself. Therefore, it could be said that I must improve my disciplinary skills, which I believe I already had.
Today was the fundamental session of my new unit ‘The Big Agency’, where we were introduced to the unit by our tutor. I learnt that the unit endeavors to engage students in workplace practices and develop employability skills in the context of modern organisations. The assignments will contribute to my professional development within the marketing industry for my up and coming placement year, furthermore, developing my research skills for my final year dissertation.
The main discussion point of the session was Motivation, ‘The process which encourages and guides behaviour’. I believe what motivates me in life, is the desire to be successful in my career. The penultimate part of this session was learning that employers want employees that require little supervision and direction to get the work done in a timely and professional manner. Prior to this session, I believe I required supervision when completing tasks such as assignment or work tasks, as I felt I needed approval on the work I carried out to be the best it could be. However, now knowing this, I know I must enhance my initiative and trust my own instincts when moving forward in my placement year. Moreover, we discussed theories relating to motivation such as ‘Satisfaction Theory’ which overall I found to myself more than the other theories, as I work harder, and stay in the same organisation due to my loyal attributes. Furthermore, I do not require a reward to increase my efforts, like the Incentive Theory suggests. |
Lottie Kempl Archives
March 2017
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