Teamwork and Decision-making in Cancer Research

The provided document is an assignment related to teamwork and decision-making in the context of fundraising for cancer research. The task requires a team to work together to raise funds for cancer research at George Nica Montezuma's workplace. The team needs to decide on a presentation format, assign tasks, and agree on how to handle conflicts or issues within the group. The team must also consider the annual evaluation of cancer disease and how the raised amount will be used to help people in need.

MODULE TITLE: Essential Study and Employment Skills
TITLE OF PROJECT: Study and Employment Skills Audit Report
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TABLE OF CONTENT:
1.0 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………..3
2.0 AUDIT AND EVALUATION OF KEY SKILLS……………………..3
2.1 TEENAGE CANCER RESEARCH………………………………..3
2.2 TEAM WORK..........................................................................4
2.2.1 PLAN……………………………………………………....5
2.3 TEAM MEMBER ROLE…………………………………………..5
2.4 MY INDIVIDUAL ROLE ………………………………………….6
2.5 INDIVIDUAL SKILLS DEVELOPED AND EXPERIENCE………….6
2.5.1 SKILLS DEVELOPED………………………………………7
2.5.2 EXPERIENCE……………………………………………...8
3.0 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………….8
4.0 REFERENCES………………………………………………………9
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
In this report I will write the individual skills and the teamwork skills I developed during the group
activity which was to fundraising for Teenagers Cancer Research working in a group of 4 people. We
had to work in teams to identify fundraising ideas, set targets, prepare to undertake these activities over
the period agreed upon with our tutor. I will describe this report using the Gibbs Reflective Model and
explaining our ideas, our plans, the feelings we had during the event and the actual presentation.
First of all I want to write about which was my colleagues I worked with: Maria Dumitru, George Nica-
Montezuna and Marius Ovidiu Cojocariu. I will describe our main ideas, how we worked, where we
worked, what was our expectations, what was my expectations and of course the skills we developed as
individual and the teamwork development. “This development does not happen by accident, nor does it
happen solely through formal educational processes, although these are certainly par of the way we
continually acquire new knowledge and skills to inform our practice.” (Professional Development,
Reflection and Decision-making, 2011)”.
I will also describe the teamwork activity, the time spent on working together , the individual work we
shared to succeed the targets set.
2.0 AUDIT AND EVALUATION OF KEY SKILLS
2.1 TEENAGE CANCER RESEARCH
First of all I want to write about the Teenage Cancer Trust. Around seven young people aged between 13
and 24 are diagnosed with cancer every day in the UK. They need expert treatment and support. They are
the only charity in the UK dedicated to making this happen.
“The support we provide continues to set the standard. It transforms the lives of young people and their
friends and families – before, during and after treatment.”(Teenage Cancer Trust 2016 Achievements
Report)
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They also fund and build specialist units in NHS hospitals and provide dedicated staff, bringing young
people together so they can be treated by teenage cancer experts in the best place for them.
Teenage Cancer Trust is now piloting post treatment support programs in 4 regions across UK. They
invested millions in NHS and believe a lot in partnership with NHS to ensure that together deliver the
best service for young people with cancer
“Cancer kills more young people in the UK than any other disease and survival varies greatly between
cancer types, from 96% 5 year survival for some germ cell tumours to just 56% in bone cancers”(Cancer
Strategy taskforce consultation response - Teenage Cancer Trust)
2.2 TEAM WORK
It is nice to start with the definition of team, to understand what is a team. “A small number of
people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, a set of
performance goals and an approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.”(Sara
C. , Anoop M. and Forosh U. , 2009 )
As I said in the introduction, I was part of a group of 4 people and the activity we had, was to
fundraise for Teenage Cancer Research. At the beginning was a bit weird because non of us did
something like that. Working in a team is essential for our studies and employment. So the
purpose of this activity was to work in a team, to have the opportunity to develop the teamwork
skills and individual skills.
I think that is not important if we participate in something in which others are involved, but if
working with others will lead to the success of our team and ours. So we had to start with a plan
to see what we can do to fundraise as much money as we can.
To do that we had to have a lot of time to spend with the colleagues to discuss, to plan things
which was quite difficult because everyone has a family who take care of, and is not so much
time.
Specially in my case, because I have a little girl of 2 months and I breastfeed as well and at this
age she had many appointments to the doctor, not too much sleep in the night time. But I had to
do something to manage on doing things right and to complete my task in the team work.
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Someone believes that the key to a team's success is an ethic of work very rigorous. Others think
the big teams are the result of alchemy. In fact a team is builds around a leader, respecting some
important rules or, the steps of the process none of them these rules will not work individually, a
really good result will only give it all rules together. So that’s why we had to have a good plan to
follow. It could be included that team work is one of the key issue which need to be fixed so that
funding work could be concluded on timely bases (Kong, 2018). While working in group it is very
much essential that they are all working together altogether so that their target could be achieved
on timely bases.
2.2.1 PLAN
We started this activity by choosing a leader which was George Nica Montezuma and to share equal
tasks. We will organise a presentation in a propose of raising funds for cancer research at George Nica
Montezuma work place.
We agreed and decided, that through our presentation, to inform the participants of the annual evaluation
regarding this disease, and ways of being exposed, and how the raised amount will be used in helping the
people already in needs.
We also decided to hold a weekly meeting two times and that everyone must be present at the meetings
because is really important to discuss about every stage of the activity.
“Most relationships, whether at work or elsewhere, are based on talking and listening. If you are really to
learn, rather than merely accumulating ‘book knowledge’, you need to discuss ideas with others.” ( Sheila
C., 2009). This being said we really wanted to be a great success this activity and to learn something from
it, specially that, as I mentioned before, it was the first time for all of us on doing fundraising.
Besides the weekly meeting, we decided to be available on Wednesday’s and Thursday’s evening for
whatsApp chat and also to use our university VLE group discussion board.
Even that we made a good plan to follow, unfortunately everything has gone wrong. Before the actual
event, we have been informed that do to some personal issues, that event can’t take place at George’s
work place. We were extremely upset and disappointed because everything we worked so hard for was
gone.
We couldn’t give up so easy, so we announced Catherine Lamb from the Gateway to reserve a table for
us as well at the University so the activity to take place.
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Because of this “disaster” and because our activity wasn’t advertised we couldn’t get out set target.
2.3 TEAM MEMBER ROLE
As I said we shared equally tasks, so George and Marius had to buy t-shirts and print our logo and Maria
and I had to create flyers and poster representative to our cause and to buy cookies, juice and all
consumable for event.
“Part of your ability to create a high-performance team will be to understand better the roles that people
take in the team.”(Sarah C., Anoop M., Firosh U., 2009)
A team must not be a bunch of people that are used by a single individual like tool for earning personal
gains. Team members must have common goals, which all benefit equally. People who build successful
teams never forget that everyone a person in a team has to play a role, and each role has its contribution to
making a bigger picture, which in fact is the perspective, purpose. Teamwork has many advantages: first
and foremost are associated with the positive affective climate that is supposed to be a team. Team
members know very well, working to overcome current difficulties. Additionally, the variety and variety
of solutions offered increases at least arithmetically with each member (Burke, Feitosa and Salas, 2015).
Teamwork can be extremely motivating, because this activity brings with it the experience of contact with
others and the joy of benefiting from their support. The role which each team member is planning should
be regulated accordingly to their responsibilities so that they could be dealing with things in more
relevant and clear manner. It is very much important to interact with each of the team members of group
and then listing out to their issues and problems. It would be helpful to give them feedback about what
need to be done well and what they are doing is not up to mark so that there are no misconceptions that
are left.
2.4 MY INDIVIDUAL ROLE
“For almost everyone, work means working with others and therefore involve communication and
collaboration” (Sheila C., 2009). So no matter what is your role in the team, we need to do it right.
Even that all my colleagues I worked with were Romanian and it suppose to be easier, it wasn’t easy at
all. Communication, dialogue and the ability to interact effectively, to respond to the operational
challenges of others, to be able to take creative ideas from the group and at the same time without giving
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support to others are the main requirements and qualities of a good team worker and to do that is not easy
(LeCun, Bengio and Hinton, 2015).
My role was to buy drinks and cookies and, as everyone, to promote healthy food inform people about
the risks.
The first part I had to do it wasn’t easy as I expected, as normal shopping, because I had to choose what
was the best. The other part of my role was more difficult as the first one because it involved
communication with the people which I am not good at all. “Communication is not just verbal, it’s about
how you present yourself, the accuracy of your written word, your body language and your attitude.”
(Frances T., 2012)
2.5 INDIVIDUAL SKILLS DEVELOPED AND EXPERIENCE
During this activity I developed so many skills, I didn’t know that activity it will be so efficient.
Reflection upon my role and all the worked we had, I learned so many things. Learning is the key element
in developing skills. There are different ways, types of learning.
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Using the Honey & Mumford theory I found out that I am more of Activist and a bit of Pragmatist
learner.
“Observing someone else succeed at challenging activities provides a forceful impetus for other to believe
that they, too, can succeed.”(David A.W., Kim S.C., 2015). I can say that this motivated me to go on and
succeed with the activity.
Because of the big failure of the event location we looked at our colleagues how they did and succeed and
we did the same.
“Vital skills are learnt and honed during assessment, which will not only develop essential skills for the
workplace but also for the interview process to secure a graduate role.”(Frances T., 2012). That’s why I
think is very important to be involved in many activities, to develop all the necessary skills we need.
2.5.1 SKILLS DEVELOPED
• Team work skills
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• Communication skills
• Planning skills
• Time management skills
• IT skills
Working with the colleagues helped me improve my communication skills, specially that we had the
presentation as well. Helped me being more confident and proactive. The presentation itself was
extremely challenging, besides the fact that I wasn’t so confident in what I had to present, I had
appointment at the doctor. And I was in such a big stress being between a good presentation and being on
time at the doctor. It wasn’t easy at all. But I managed to have them both with my tutor’s help and
understanding. It is very much important to develop all these above stated or listed skills within myself so
that I could be able to deal with major things in more appropriate manner (Haydt, 2018). The
development of time management skill by listing out all priorities within me will be helping me to timely
finish my work with helping or motivating others as well. With the better communication skills within
myself I could be able to deal with all situation and different types of group members by convincing them
for working as well. Communication is very much important and dealing with interaction between people
so that they could be sharing their skills and knowledge so I need to develop my communication skills.
Team working is the most important skill which needs to be developed within myself which is done by
doing work and task together into group (Willis, 2017). This skill will help me to work with any type of
people as I will be having skills to deal with them and motivate them to conclude or do their work on time
as well.
2.5.2 EXPERIENCE
• Understanding time, how important it is and how you can manage time properly
• Planning in advance, help me to do things right and achieve goals
• Working better as a team instead as an individual
• Learning new words and correct pronouncing
Working in group and present our work in front of the class made me more confident in what I have to do
and achieve goals.
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3.0 CONCLUSION
As a personal opinion, working in a team was extremely pleasant for me, not only that helped me
improving skills and helped achieving the target we had set, but also made interact with people, knowing
them and having a good time while working for the event and for the presentation. Even that we had
misunderstandings during the work, we managed to perform and achieving our goal
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4.0 REFERENCES
David A Whetten, Kim S. Cameron-Developing Management Skills, Global Edition, 25 August 2015
Frances Trought- Briliant Employability Skills, 02 November 2012
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=honey+
%26+mumford&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidjL6NpKncAhWIW8AKHccbBnYQ_
AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=613#imgrc=e4tE324mj8fftM: (accessed 22.07.2018 )
https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/sites/default/files/2.%20Cancer%20Strategy%20taskforce
%20consultation%20response%20-%20Teenage%20Cancer%20Trust.pdf (accessed 11.07.2018)
https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/sites/default/files/Teenage%20Cancer%20Trust
%202016%20Achievements%20Report.pdf (accessed 10.06.2018)
Melanie Jasper ; With Contributions From Georgina Koubel, Gary Rolfe And Paul Elliott-Professional
Development, Reflection and Decision-making, 8 December 2011
Sarah Cook, Anoop Mangla and Firosh Ummer-Building a High Performance Team : Proven techniques
for effective team working, 27.01.2009
Sheila Cameron- The Business Student`s Handbook:Skills for study and employment, 9 July 2009
Kong, M., 2018. Capsule Commentary on Misra-Hebert et al., Implementing Team-Based
Primary Care Models: A Mixed-Methods Comparative Case Study in a Large, Integrated
Health Care System. Journal of general internal medicine. 33(11). pp.1958-1958.
Burke, C. S., Feitosa, J. and Salas, E., 2015, August. The unpacking of team models in GIFT.
In Generalized Intelligent Framework for Tutoring (GIFT) Users Symposium
(GIFTSym3) (p. 49).
Haydt, S. M., 2018. Politics and professions: interdisciplinary team models and their
implications for health equity in Ontario. International Journal of Health Services. 48(2).
pp.302-327.
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Willis, P., 2017. Learning to labour: How working class kids get working class jobs. Routledge.
LeCun, Y., Bengio, Y. and Hinton, G., 2015. Deep learning. Nature. 521(7553). p.436.
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APPENDICES
Appendix A: Our logo for the Teenage Cancer Research fundraising
Appendix B : Team agreement
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Team agreement for ‘’MGSM Team’’-Cancer Research Trust -
Informal communication
We have decided:
To be available on Wednesday and Thursday evening for weekly WhatsApp chat.
To use our university VLE group discussion board.
Meetings
We have decided:
To hold a weekly meetings two times.
That everyone must be present at the meetings- if anyone can attend should inform us in
advance if possible.
Making decision
We have agreed:
We will choose a group leader and we will share equally tasks;
We will organise a presentation in a propose of raising funds for cancer research at
George Nica Montezuma work place;
We agreed and decided, that through our presentation, to inform the participants of the
annual evaluation regarding this disease, and ways of being exposed, and how the raised
amount will be used in helping the people already in needs;
We will choose someone to edit our work;
If the case we will vote and majority will be taken.
Sanctions
If individual have problems working in a group or on the task, we will try to sort them
out promptly by talking to each other.
We will seek advice from our tutor- if we cannot resolve ourselves.
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