MGT600 Management, People and Teams Report Sample

MGT600 Management, People and Teams

Assessment Task

You are required to critically assess the performance of your team and recommend improvements based on the relevant concepts and frameworks you have learnt in this subject in a 1,500-word team evaluation report. 

Please refer to the Instructions for details on how to complete this task.

Context

Managers are responsible for the delivery of products/services and results whether that be in an operational or project context. This invariably requires not only the creation and development of teams including performance improvement but also the management of a variety of team, organisational, and cultural dynamics. This assessment requires you to conduct a review of team performance and demonstrate and apply your understanding of team processes and dynamics. In doing so, you will review the performance of the group to which you were allocated for the purpose of Assessments 1 and 2. This will help you to demonstrate analytical, evaluative, and problem-solving skills to develop strategies and actions for performance improvement.

Instructions

Review your team’s performance in completing the first two assessments and make recommendations for improvement.

• In reviewing the team performance, considerations must be given to the following:

o How did your team come together and what phases or stages did it go through?
o What roles did team members play?
o What challenges were presented?
o How did individual, team, and contextual dynamics impact performance?
o What would you do differently to improve performance?
o How would you apply your learnings in your current or future workplace?

• Please note that you are not required to review the quality and content of the assessments you  produced as a team. Instead, you are required to review the performance of the team in completing the assessment tasks.

• You are required to specifically apply and discuss concepts from Modules 4, 5, and 6 as well as any relevant processes and concepts from earlier modules.

• The evaluation needs to be supported with evidence from academic research as well as   examples from your own experiences and or observations. You will also find the module activities useful in prompting your thinking.

Solution

Introduction

The paper will share its concern on issues, challenges and management efficiency during team performance. It will share the in-depth discussion about team performance and phases we as a team (4 person)have gone through to reach our goal and to make the team project effective. As per the MBA Assignment Expert By providing a sound background and contextual issues regarding team performance or the team's purpose, the paper will depict an in-depth discussion on the associated factor of team performance. It will even provide recommended strategies or actions for initiating team performance so that the type of issues or problems in future we would not face.

Background of the team work:

Four persons have started the journey as a team to do the assignment and group discussion as per the course structure. In our management course, we have instructed that we need to form groups among ourselves consisting of four persons to complete all our assignments, group discussions, and other associated events to make ourselves more efficient in managerial and team development qualities. At first, forming a group or doing work in a group was easier for us as we were only concentrated over the work division however with time and being involved in the process, we started to realize the exact motto of forming the group. We started to realize that for accomplishing a task in a group, it is very important to understand different issues which can hamper the proficiency and productivity of the team and to evaluate the strategies considering managerial aspect to overcome the issues. 

Evaluation of the team forming journey:

We have started our journey as a team with the consideration that we have a better relationship among ourselves compared to others and it would definitely help us to accomplish all our objectives. As stated earlier, that during the initial stage we were not acknowledged about the main purpose of forming the team (Koeslag-Kreunen et al., 2018). Hence, we have only concentrated on positive aspects which is friendship among us irrespective of other things. Due to the same, initially we have faced several issues as we were not practically aware of the team forming and developing purpose and strategies, for instance we had not implemented any special type of thinking or brainstorming or direction strategy during the team making. Besides, out of the 4 persons among us, no one was very sure about their respective roles including me (Anonymous. 2021). Though, me and my group members were very confident that our friendship would be the key driving force to attract the best team performance which in reality was just the opposite. Due to this, we used to misunderstand each other due to the lack of team working, delegating and communication skills and we always try to dominate others to establish bossism over others in spite of having a proper type of discussion about the to-do list. At first we have faced the issues of finding proper examples like Netflix, General electronics to support our assignment on challenge, change management. After going through the most difficult phase of initiating the work by having enough information and considering the impact of the issues we were facing, we have opted for a team development phase given by Tuckman. Here, we have started the team development phases given as forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Beyond our expectation, in each referred stage we have faced some difficulties which afterward we found that can be handled more easily with proper emotional intelligence. 

This model helped us to formulate the team considering the effectiveness of each and every person in the team. we started with the forming phase. While forming the team and with the goal of accomplishing the assignment of challenges in the organization for a managerial position, I have started to brainstorm about our role. During discussion of week 1 regarding history of organizational development difference of opinion was there. Having a discussion on this matter, we have decided that time is a big factor for us and to comprehend that in the best possible way Pareto principle can best serve the purpose as it would help to offer minimum input to have maximum output(Lunny, 2020). Accordingly, we have decided our respective roles as per efficiency or effectiveness. Among four members two were more concentrated on quality whereas two were more dedicated to maintaining the timeline. Thereby we have divided our roles in a way that one can complement the other where the quality person is asked to do research for the assignment and the other one to maintain the time frame becomes responsible for planning the entire face. Among other two persons who look for quality started to write as per collected data and the last person was responsible for proofreading. Initially as per our quality and understanding though we have planned in this way, however, with passing time and during the storming stage, we have understood that individual work would not serve the purpose, nor can be completed by the time. Regarding discussion of week 1.2, role of project management we, group members were confused. Hence further we have divided the entire work through a work breakdown structure where some persons were more engaged with researching over organizational issues and some were finding for the solution to make it effective in every perspective (Lower-Hoppe et al., 2020). Group Members have confirmed skill and competency are important for project management, not only for professional purpose but for our personal context. 

As per this model of team development, certain things are important for organizational context, which include leadership, environment cultures, strategy, reward, control system. Besides, for the team type, it should be formal, self-managed, virtual, or global with different team characteristics and composition to confirm team process and effectiveness of the team (SUN et al., 2020). During the norming stage, due to a differentiated environment, team performance started to suffer as every individual person performed their role and responsibility effectively, still, as a whole it cannot confine team performance. With in-depth discussion over the issue, we somehow found the reason for such concerns where the first and foremost concern becomes leadership followed by strategic misconceptions and finally environment plays a significant role (Ficapal-Cusí Pilar, Enache-Zegheru, & Torrent-Sellens, 2021). In this stage with the  confronted issue we have retained our motivation with the help of expectancy theory. It eventually helps to understand each other's behavior during team performance. With the help of the theory other group members started to realize that I would be much effective to solve any problem with my communication efficiency whereas I have started to understand that they can better accompany me in research skills supported by organizing behavior. Evaluating the entire scenario, we found that as the environment is different for us, hence there is a huge gap in the entire development of the work as we more work as an individual to accomplish our role and responsibility, in spite of taking care of team performance or group objectives.

After accomplishing the entire project of managerial concerns in the organization, when we started to discuss about group discussion, we found that it would be better for us to work on our communication skills as well as communication styles under to the performing stage (Tryon, 2020). Week 2.1 discussion has helped me to discover the things that communication, conflict, negotiation are interrelated as one can remove or oppose another. We realize that in spite of a good relationship among each other, we could not serve the purpose of effective communication due to our limitation in exercising communication styles. We start to think that with effective communication we can better corporate and coordinate with each other which eventually would help us to understand each other's perspective and in spite of having misconceptions or misunderstandings to affect team performance. We even found that effective communication, cooperation, and coordination not only improve performance by alignment of everyone's responsibility rather even confirm better direction.

With the entire process, I have found that learning through the process is really important for me and would be much helpful to confirm employee life cycle being in the managerial position. By the work and after reaching the adjourning stage, we have understood that effective communication is the primary concern which is further associated with corporation and coordination that can lead to effective leadership with the support of emotional intelligence which eventually can help me to create a brand attraction for better recruitment or onboarding confirming development and retention for the employees with justified advocacy in case of employee switching (Gravador& Teng-Calleja, 2018). I think such type of understanding or learning would be much helpful for my future workplace as the concern is the main or primary target for a manager to accomplish.

After completing the team development, we have noticed different complications. During the forming stage, we have faced leadership issues where due to improper leadership we faced difficulties to reach our goals. While we were doing the assignment on managerial issues in an organizational context, we had come across this work team effectiveness model which further makes us more confident to handle later issues. During the storming stage, environmental issues become a prior concern as each individual was performing in their environment which somehow becomes problematic for team performance. During norming phase, strategy becomes the issue as ineffective leadership leads to improper strategies which further makes a barrier in performance during the performing stage. Finally in the adjoining stage acknowledgment and learning during the process somehow helped me to complete the assignment (Shehab, Trytten, & Walden, 2021).

Recommendations

In order to initiate or improve team performance, I think I need to start from the initial stage of forming the team. In spite of going with the concept of friendship, it will be better for me to diversify the team while forming a team to make the team perform better where every individual would be complimentary for another person to make the performance initiated. Secondly, it is even important for me, as I am aspiring for the managerial position, to have effective communication as my learning confirms that effective communication can be the best or worst thing to direct in performance towards betterment or deterioration. Effective communication regularly with the team is very important to comprehend to initiate team performance. It would be further important for me to prioritize work so as not to be messed up with the entire to-do list for which work breakdown structure needs to be formulated initially and that need to be conveyed to every team member justifying role and responsibility for everyone to avoid miscommunication or misunderstanding. Finally maintaining the workflow with time and quality is important as for team performance both the parameters are important to evaluate as a whole.

Conclusion

The paper has facilitated its concern for team performance in the context of organization and management. Through the discussion, it becomes quite clear that the team is been formulated to accomplish assignment and group discussion. As per the discussion communication, cooperation, and collaboration are the most important aspects for team performance which needs to be accomplished by its team members. As per the recommendation, a diversified team is more important to make it effective and performance-oriented.

Reference List

SUN, X., LIU, H., TIAN, Y., WU, G., & GAO, Y. (2020). Team effectiveness evaluation and virtual reality scenario mapping model for helicopter emergency rescue. Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, 33(12), 3306–3317. https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/9359738610

Ficapal-Cusí Pilar, Enache-Zegheru, M., & Torrent-Sellens, J. (2021). Enhancing team performance: a multilevel model. Journal of Cleaner Production, 289. https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/8698657482

Shehab, R. L., Trytten, D. A., & Walden, S. E. (2021). The influence of engineering competition team participation on students' leadership identity development. Journal of Engineering Education, 110(4), 925–948. https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/9279866997

Gravador, L. N., & Teng-Calleja, M. (2018). Work-life balance crafting behaviors: an empirical study. Personnel Review, 47(4), 786–804. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-05-2016-0112 https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/9052034513

Lower-Hoppe, L. M., Brgoch, S. M., Heuett, K. B., & Newman, T. J. (2020). Communication and team performance: a case study of division i football captains. International Journal of Sport Communication, 13(1), 77–96. https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/8587494715

Koeslag-Kreunen, M., van der Klink, M. R., van den Bossche, P., & Gijselaers, W. (2018). Leadership for team learning: the case of university teacher teams. Higher Education, 75(2), 191–207. https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/8086831633

Tryon, E. (2020). Tools for building a successful team. Stone World, 37(6), 18–19. https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/8611243197

Lunny, M. (2020). Pareto principle. National Post, A.13, 13. https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/8866538044

Anonymous. (2021). Brainstorming. The Economist, 440(9255), 12–12. https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/9132080270