Reflective Journal on Group Work

This assignment presents a reflective journal exploring the author's experience collaborating in a diverse team for a project. It delves into the Tuckman stages of team development (forming, storming, norming, performing) and utilizes Belbin's Team Roles theory to analyze individual contributions and roles within the group. The author reflects on their leadership role, communication strategies, and the importance of respect and recognition in fostering a productive team environment.

REFELECTIVE JOURNAL

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PART 1...................................................................................................................................1
PART 2...................................................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................2
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Reflection is considered as a practice of getting engaged in the process of continual
learning where it also reflects upon the carried thoughts of an individual about a particular
subject or several number of activities. These activities are either attained or required to be
achieved by the individual where it also depicts the comments or writings that tends to express
one's own set of idea. Also, reflection signifies an important presence in the thesis statements
where it states about the experiences gathered by an individual while addressing the thesis by
together providing a detailed understanding regarding the same.
PART 1
In this report, I have discussed about my experience of working in a group of 5 people to
make an academic research assignment based on the situational analysis of McDonald's with
reference to its internal factors. It is a global chain of fast food industry which is mainly
operating in UK with a widespread business, all across the world. Tuckman models of team
development has been used over here to describe the process through which we have developed
our team. This model involves five leading stages that includes forming, storming, norming,
performing and adjourning (Tuckman forming storming norming performing model, 2017).
Although, the group participants were decided by our superior who has assigned us this activity
of making a presentation based on the SWOT analysis of McDonalds. This group however
consisted of members belonging to different socio- cultural backgrounds with their own set of
opinion, values, education and interest of working within a group. At forming stage, a meeting
was arranged for group members where I, along with 3 more members have participated to
discuss about the project. At this stage, the roles and responsibilities of the individuals were not
clear. In this, I performed as a leader and have prepared a strategy to effectively distribute the
work by together discussing the same with other members.
I hereby prepared myself to address the queries of all other members about the tasks
required to be completed. Another stage of storming, the undertaken decisions were not clear to
everyone due to some impeding factors such as cultural difference, educational background, and
thinking process, etc. In order to resolve these issues, I have suggested the remaining members
other than me to work in a group of two people. Further, one of our team has not participated in
the group discussion as one of them was engaged in some other work of his own and thus, I took
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the initiative of participating with another member and decided to accomplish the task. At the
third phase of norming, all the roles and responsibilities were clear to all after making an
effective communication with all group members. We have thereby decided to continue to
perform the task. While partaking in group assignment, it is important to provide recognition to
the opinion of all participant members (Harrison, and Fopma-Loy, 2010). At the time of
performing the task, all members were clear about the strategies that were required to be adopted
to undertake a situational analysis of McDonald's. Herein, the members have effectively
researched the topic to complete it in an effective way. At the final stage of adjourning, I have
created a presentation and tried to complete the allotted task before deadline.
PART 2
This is to analyse the factor of production after the presentation where I am required to
present my feeling at the time of presenting myself in front of the audience. Herein, I found
myself to be enough confident while interacting with other participants and connecting well to
the audience. I basically performed as a leader over here and thus required to coordinate well
with all (Belbin, 2012). This is mainly in order to confirm that each of the members are clear
about the goals and knows well about the plan that we have intended to achieve the stipulated
targets of the group. For this, I have set clear responsibilities for all the group members by firstly
clarifying their roles that will be played by us for a successful completion of our stipulated
objectives. I have hereby referred to incorporate a well-known strategy by using a theoretical
model called Belbin’s team roles.
Although, I was having only 5 team members in my group, whose specific roles was
required to be allotted on the basis of their identified characteristics. I firstly identified my own
set of skills and accordingly choose the though oriented and action oriented role to perform as an
implementer to put a collective set of ideas into action. Also, I picked yet another role of a
specialist to provide specialised skills as and when required. Along with which, I together
identified another individual enough capable to perform the role of chairperson to accompany me
and a team worker to promote cooperation. The 4th individual was enough competent to perform
as a resource investigator within people oriented roles found in Belbin’s theory. Lastly, the 5th
individual was allotted the role of plant to come up with newer set of ideas as well as methods.
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CONCLUSION
Further, this reflective has given me an opportunity to reflect upon my experience while
working with a group consisting of diversified people from different culture, experience and
background. It has also analysed that communication has a major importance in developing
supportive relationship with team members and performing the task in an effective manner. It is
necessary for the team members to respect and give recognition to each other which directly
results in the resolution of conflicts while working in groups.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Belbin, R.M., 2012. Team roles at work. Routledge.
Harrison, P.A. and Fopma-Loy, J.L., 2010. Reflective journal prompts: A vehicle for stimulating
emotional competence in nursing. Journal of Nursing Education. 49(11). pp.644-652.
Online
Tuckman forming storming norming performing model, 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.businessballs.com/managing-teams/tuckman-forming-storming-norming-
performing-model-234>.
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