Brochure Development Project

This report discusses the simulation project of brochure design work for Florence tourism course marketing. It explores the roles individuals play in a corporate environment and the challenges faced. The report also discusses the skills gained from this experience.

Brochure development project
Table of Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................................2
Project background and context.............................................................................................2
Models and Theories................................................................................................................2
Project phases...........................................................................................................................4
Skill development.....................................................................................................................5
Analysis and evaluation...........................................................................................................6
Learning....................................................................................................................................7
Conclusions...............................................................................................................................7
References.................................................................................................................................8
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Brochure development project
Introduction
This report has been prepared for the project of simulation of the brochure design work for
Florence tourism course marketing. The aim of this simulation project was to understand the
roles individuals play on a real project when working in a corporate environment. The
objective was to understand the challenges that are faced and apply the concepts learned from
the modules to real practice. The report explored how student has gained learning and how he
has applied the theories to practice through the simulation project. The skills that student
could gain from this experience have also been discussed.
Project background and context
In this project, a real business situation has been simulated and thus, the project manager and
the team members would have to take important decisions about the project. The project
could be completed in three weeks. The first week was assigned for brainstorming and
creation of the brochure for Florence while following two weeks went into checking, editing
and preparing the presentation on the project (Helyer, 2015).
Models and Theories
A brochure creation work is a creative work that consumes skills of writing, editing, and
designing. These processes require different set of skills and thus, can be challenging if these
skills are not present in a person within the team. The process needs a high level of
coordination and an understanding of the layout by all of them. It also needs an understanding
of the brand that is chosen for this creation as the designer would have to ensure that the
colours are maintained as per the brand. Also, the writer would need to follow a certain tone
and use a style which matches the brand.
For the team to complete this project, a good understanding of how the travel and tourism
system works was required. Also, it is was important for them to understand the needs of the
students or enthusiasts who want to get into the business of travel and tourism so that an
appropriate presentation could be made.
We also researched other brochures created in similar ways for other cities and other courses
and found a pattern of data that was presented in the brochures. They included details of the
city, its transportation facilities, accommodations to be given to students, food and drinking
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Brochure development project
provisions, weather conditions, clothing considerations, health and safety, and the details of
the lessons. The course was not a typical classroom course but more like a field trip where
students could learn on the go through the practice. The structure was somewhat different
from typical learning courses and thus, we followed the research conducted both on the field
trips and on the courses while designing the brochure.
During our research, we found that Tuscany region and Chianti valley were the most
important destination attractions in Florence and thus, we decided to give them focus by
highlighting them in the brochure at the beginning itself. The brochure covered the whole
itenary considering the students coming from London to Florence and accordingly designed
the timeline with activities defined for each day to be followed including the time for
travelling and adjustment of accommodations. We also highlighted the features and facilities
of the accommodations offered including room facilities and food provisions. The total cost
of the course was only presented at the end after all other important information was already
provided.
For management of this simulation project on brochure creation for travel and tourism
learning trip, we needed to carry out some professional activities that not just needed the
technical skills like writing, editing and designing but also other professional skills such as
time management, resource management, and team management. The student as a part of the
project would need to learn to manage the resources available as well as manage the limited
time available to complete the work. Conflicts can arise during the project due to differences
between people that have to be resolved if the project has to proceed smoothly and completed
on time. This would need the stents to have team skills and conflict management skills.
We had studied a theory on team development called Tuckman model. The model identifies
four key stages of team development including forming, storming, norming, and performing.
There is a last stage called adjourning in which the project is marked for completion and the
team is disbursed. In each stage, challenges faced by the project teams could be different and
thus, different strategies are needed to be used to overcome them. The teams must know the
responsibilities of each other and brainstorm on the activities that each should complete
during the project at the storming stage. At this stage, there could be conflicting views. For
instance, in my current project, there were two views on how to follow the project delivery.
Whether the activities should be completed in a sequence or some done parallelly to save
time. To arrive at a conclusion, we decided to take an objective and rational approach and
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Brochure development project
weigh both options from pros and cons perspectives so that a neutral decision could be taken
without hurting anyone. If the conflicts on the team are not managed properly then it could
destroy the project by adding delays and inefficiencies. We used the concept defined in the
drama triangle for understanding the conflicts between team members (Prieto-Remón, et al.,
2014). The theory identifies three key roles that are assumed by people in a team by default
when a conflict occurs. These included the roles of presecutor, victim and rescuer. The
presecutor is a the person who shows aggression and wants others to follow him. A victim is
a person who does not accept the dominant person and thus, shows non-assertiveness in
following. Rescuer identifies the problems and intervenes between the two to solve it. The
solution should come as an option that is win-win for both conflicting members so that they
both are satisfied (Ohlendorf, 2011).
Once storing stage is over and most conflicts are resolved, then comes the normimg stage in
the team formation in which the teams start to understand each other and gain acceptance.
They become more comfortable working with each other and thus, are ready to perform in
coordination for the next stage. At the performing stage, the team members work in
coordination and the focus set on goal of the completion of work and thus, perform at their
best.
The project manager of the team at this stage must have skills needed for resource
management and team management which also requires one to practice leadership so that the
team could be guided in the right direction and is kept on track. In this context, a theory on
situational leadership could be very useful as it gives the freedom to the leader to assume a
leadership style based on the situation and the need of the project (Burke & Barron, 2012).
The project manager would need to take decision on when and how each resource on the
project must be utilized. For this the decision making model of Howard was used which has
three steps to decision making. These include objectives, evaluation, and appraisal of selected
alternative. With this application, the project manager used the team work by presenting
alternatives and discussing selection between the team members such that final decisions
were not individually taken but were the result of mutual agreement. With mutually agreed
on terms, no one could cause a problem or raise concerns (Tiainen, 2014).
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Brochure development project
Project phases
This project is managed using the methodology defined in the PMBOK guide which
identifies five stages of project management including initiation, planning, execution,
monitoring, and closure. Each of these stages would be managed in following ways:
Initiation: This is the first stage of the project in which the project needs are discussed
between team members, resources are identified and responsibilities are assigned. This would
involve identification of the project performance goals and the evaluation of skills that
project team members need to have to be able to successfully complete the project. In this
stage, we examined the need of the brand and the content that was to be included in the
brochure and also assigned the roles for writing, editing, designing, presentation, and
management.
Planning: After the team is clear about the requirement, a project simulation plan is
developed which is to be followed by all the team members. This included details of project
activities, timelines, monitoring, and ways to record the lessons that the project team would
learn from the project experience. This plan was mutually discussed and formed. In this
stage, a Gantt chart was also prepared reflecting upon the timelines assigned to the brochure
making activities.
Execution: In the project execution stage, actual activities planned are carried out that
included ideation, writing, designing, editing, and presentation. At this stage, the team was
able to gain a practical understanding of work and learn how a project work in a real
organization. All he lessons gained were also documented by the team members for their
individual as well as group learning in this stage (BIS, 2010).
Monitoring: The project activities were monitored at the time of execution itself and their
performance was recorded and evaluated using tools like Gantt Chart. The chart would record
the activities needed along with the timelines that were assigned for project activities. The
student would record the project progress and learning from them in the documents that
would work as the evidences of learning such as the learning contract and the project report.
Project Closure: Once all the project activities were completed, a closure was reached that
involved sign off after the presentation being made on the brochure development. The lessons
from the project activities were recorded and presented in the form of a project report at this
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Brochure development project
stage. This report submission would mark he completion of the project and serve as a point of
closure (Clements & Gido, 2006).
Skill development
This project needed the team members to have certain skills related to the profession of travel
and tourism marketing as well as some skills related to the project management. The core
idea of the project was to learn more of the project management so that the students could
apply them to any organization and any project situation. The skills the students needed as
project managers or team members included resource management, team skills, time
management, conflict management, decision ,making and problem solving. With the
experience from simulation, these skills could be gained as they had to be applied in practice.
Theories related to these could also be applied by the team for learning and practice (Helyer,
2015).
The student got guidance from tutor who helped in identifying his weaknesses as well as
opportunities for improvement through the use of appropriate methods or strategies. The
student found himself lacking in making decisions, performing in teams and managing
conflicts. It was suggested to the student by the tutor that he must apply principles of various
theories to application areas to improve upon his skills. This would help in gaining some
practical understanding of the project work as well as of the challenges and how they could
be dealt with for managing teams and conflicts as well as taking critical decisions (C, 2009).
The professional skills that were gained by the student through this exercise included time
management, team management, and resource management. This skills could help him
become a better professional and prepared him to deal with situations arising in an actual
organization when at work. The student gained an understanding of how differences are
created between people because of differences of opinion of role conflicts which can affect
the project performance. Thus, clarity is needed in roles and responsibilities so that conflicts
can be minimized (Goh, 2012).
Analysis and evaluation
As a person actively working on a project, there are many instances or situations where the
student had to take some decisions and these were challenging. The decisions had to be
mutually agreed upon between the team members so that the views of everyone could be
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Brochure development project
accommodated a decision that is acceptable to all could be arrived at. For the team to perform
with coordination , this is important as it would ensure that all are satisfied with the way their
views are respected. Some decisions were easy to make as they were decided on the basis of
poll such that what majority thought was agreed upon. This method was used for taking
decisions on the theme for brochure and the choice of project. Other decisions were taken
based on practical evaluation between the team that discussed pros and cons of alternatives.
For taking these decisions, theories were also studied and applied. The project has certain
dependencies of work between different team members that could cause delays if not handled
properly on time. Thus, the team members needed to have proper time management skills.
However, limited time did put pressure on team members who could it challenging to
complete all activities on time yet the team was able to complete the project on time by
devoting extra time to finish work (Mishkind, 2014).
The challenging situations that students faced during the project were tackled in following
ways:
Team Building: It was important for the project to have the team roles and responsibilities
distributed in such a way that everyone could utilize the best of there skills and perform
efficiently. Our tutor at start suggested to do some icebreaking activities to get more familiar
with each other and build a rapport to get higher acceptance of each other before starting the
project. This could help in better understanding of each other and avoiding conflicts. We used
this opportunity to have a healthy discussion just to know each other, our ambitions, and
goals. We decided to keep everything interactive and take project decisions only on mutual
agreements. No one was given aby authority to take decisions about anything alone. This
helped us take note of each other’s strengths and overcome weaknesses with collaboration
(Fapohunda, 2013). This was useful in understanding a work environment as well as how
teams work and get themselves aligned to the goals of a project. Motivation was found to be
important factors that affected the performance of the team and their ability to achieve goals
(Purohit, 2015).
Conflict Management: There were points where conflicts arose between two people in the
team one of which was more dominating, taking the role of the prosecuter. The other person
was victimized and was pushed to do everything. One of the team members was assigned the
role of an editor who would push comments to the writer and keep on asking for the changes.
The writer was not very happy with so many changes required and felt that instead of making
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Brochure development project
him do everything the editor could have taken care of edits himself. At this point, the student
decided to have a discussion between the team members and convince the editor to take a
leading role and give less burden to the writer.
Learning
The student could learning the following from the simulation project experience:
 The effectiveness of the project management depends on how teams performance and
thus, to bring coordination in them, it is important that efforts are taken to align them
and make them familiar with each other (Teague, et al., 2015).
 A project needs people to do many things and thus, have many skills other than the
technical skills such as time management, people management, and resource
management. All these skills can only be learnt through practice and thus, more
projects must be done if the person has to get better at them
 It is very important that the roles, responsibilities, and timelines are well defined at
the beginning of the project so that conflicts do not arise due to these factors.
Conclusions
The report is an evidence of my learning from the experience of simulation of a real project
that involved development of a brochure for a tourism field trip course. In have learnt a few
project management skills from the experience that include time management, conflict
management, and team management. These skills would help me make a better candidate for
a real job and I am expecting to have a smooth transition from education setting to job
environment.
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Brochure development project
References
Helyer, R., 2015. The Work-Based Learning Student Handbook. 2nd ed. s.l.:Palgrave
MacMillan.
C, S., 2009. Human Resource Management Functions: Managerial, Operative and Advisory
Function, s.l.: Your Article Library.
Goh, S. Y. W.-K., 2012. Managing human resources toward achieving knowledge
management. Journal of Knowledge Management, 6(5), pp. 457-468.
BIS, 2010. GUIDELINES FOR MANAGING PROJECTS: How to organise, plan and control
projects, s.l.: BIS.
Clements, J. P. & Gido, J. .., 2006. Effective Project Management, s.l.: Thompson.
Mishkind, A., 2014. Evidence-Based Professional Learning, s.l.: State of California.
Teague, P., Roche, W. K., Gormley, T. & Currie, D., 2015. How Should Workplace Conflict
Be Managed? Contrasting Pathways in the Literature, s.l.: Queen's University.
Fapohunda, T. M., 2013. Towards Effective Team Building in the Workplace. International
Journal of Education and Research, 1(4), pp. 1-12.
Purohit, B., 2015. A case study on processes in team building and performance improvement
at Government Health Centers in Rajasthan, India, s.l.: Indian Institute of Public Health .
Ohlendorf, A., 2011. Conflict Resolution in Project Management, s.l.: MSIS.
Prieto-Remón, T. C., Cobo-Benita, J. R., Ortiz-Marcos, I. & Uruburu, A., 2014. Conflict
Resolution to Project Performance. s.l., 28th IPMA World Congress.
Burke, R. & Barron, S., 2012. Leadership Theories and Styles. s.l., Wileys.
Tiainen, A., 2014. Decision-Making in Project Management, s.l.: Allianz Managed
Operations and Services SE.
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