BMM3003 Reflective Essay: Business Operations and Management Learning

This essay provides a reflective account of learning in a business operations and management module (BMM3003). It covers key concepts learned in two semesters, including project management, SWOT analysis, teamwork, and leadership skills. The first semester focused on the fundamentals of ...Read More

Reflective Account Of
Learning

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
Semester 1..............................................................................................................................3
Semester 2..............................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
Books and Journals.................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Reflective learning includes the thinking of students about what they have read, learned
and done (Gould and Taylor, 2017). It involves abilities, assessing the knowledge, actively
monitoring and performance during learning process (Brockbank, McGill and Beech, 2017). It
helps to developing a better understanding, building stronger connections, critical thinking skills
as well as increasing self awareness. This report includes the reflection of first semester and
second semester as well as the learning to improve the future performances of the students. In the
first semester, learner understand the meaning of SWOT Analysis and project management also
how to implement both of these in order to a better understanding of an organisation. In second
semester, learner studied about team work and role of a leader for enhancing the motivation
among team leaders. In this report, the learner define about the learning outcomes of both
semesters in brief which has discuss below :
Semester 1
In semester first, I have learnt about the basic of project management then its advantages
and disadvantages. I have learnt that Project management is defined as the process of planning,
managing and organizing a project in order to achieve project goals. The project management is
very important for an organisation because it brings leadership and direction to projects
(Harrison and Lock, 2017). It provides motivation, leadership , vision as well as inspiring the
entire team to do their best work. After that I understood the advantages and disadvantages of
Project management. The advantage of Project management is that it helps the company in
developing managerial qualities in the talented individual .They first assign them small projects
and after big projects which creates a pleasing atmosphere in the company. It helps to develop
more efficient communication among leaders and employees who involves in this project.
Projects can open up products & services and deliver new features to please customers. It can
also contribute to reducing the costs for customers. While the disadvantage of project
management is that it is a complex process with multiple stages. Some experts have a tendency
to complicate every process, which may confuse team and cause delays in project delivery.
They can also creating a stressful environment within the organization.

This gave me a general knowledge about business and project management which I never
understood before. It is important to have a project plan before starting a new business it helps to
understand the various methodologies, tool and techniques to achieve success for your company
(Gardiner, 2017). Moreover, having the knowledge about project management give me a overall
brief to look into and to managing the projects. I can use these types of tools & techniques to
build my critical thinking and improve my learning process. Learning about the professional
environment and the business will increase my confidence in my learning. Furthermore, my
teacher taught us a case study which allows us to have some hands-on experience after leaning
the theory. For example, a case study on a supermarket and how they set up their planning skills
to attract the customers also the strategies for achieve the growth of company.
In the beginning of the semester, when I started to learn about the project management
and their benefits , it was a little hard to me to understand about the topic. I tried hard to
understand this topic , after that I took help of my class teachers, they were very supportive.
They use different easiest ways and try to help me out and taught about project management.
After some days, when I started to revise the lectures again i was able to understand the concept
of project management effectively. I decided to know more about the business environment of an
organization. For this, I have learnt that SWOT Analysis is a framework which is used to analyse
the external and internal factors of a company. SWOT defined as the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats of an organization. Strengths and weaknesses are the internal factors
while opportunities and threats include the external factors which may affect company (Teoli,
Sanvictores and An, 2019). It helps the company to overcome challenges as well as determine
what new leads to engage. It is evaluated that the strengths of a company plays an important
role to achieve success and strong competitive advantage. The company's strength is the main
reason that attracts the customers towards their products and services (Forleo and Palmieri,
2019). I have learnt that in case of weakness, it is essential to analyse the weakness of the
organization as soon as possible and start working on it. The teacher also explained opportunities
in effective manner and I am able to understand that the opportunities are the external factors of
company. They can take advantage from the external factors and seize the opportunity to
maximizing the profit which includes technology, social, political, economical etc. At last, I have
learnt that threats includes anything that can affect businesses in a negative away. It is not
possible to be completely get rid of threats because they are not in our control. But we can try to

take action against them before it may create difficulties in our way and stops to achieve success.
Threats includes supply chain problems, shortage of recruits and shift in new markets etc. This
approach and knowledge helps me to continue my studies for second semester. A basic
understanding of project management and SWOT Analysis became a strong foundation for my
next semester studies including how to manage projects, how to improve the external and
internal environment of a company. My classmates are very well and supportive, we worked
together and help each other during the entire group project. We really worked hard on our
project and also shared notes. We learned how to communicate with our group mates and these
skills helped me to handle my semester project much more easily and strengthened my ability to
communicate with others. All teachers support our class and help to carry on the assignments,
which will assist me to learn effectively in my next semester as well.
Semester 2
In second semester, I started a deep study on the topic of teamwork theoretically as well
as practically. I have learnt that Teamwork brings people together and it creates a strong bond
between them. It also motivate them to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in most
efficient and effective way. Teamwork is a crucial part of any project, business or an
organization success (Wong and Law, 2017). It is often necessary for colleagues to work well
together and trying their best no matter how the circumstance is. The teacher gave us a
assignment as well as deadline to complete it. The teacher also announced me the leader of team
and guide team members for that assignment. We create a group for complete the assignment
project. At first, we face difficulty to understand that assignment but our teacher helped us and
taught in easiest way. Teamwork helps us to better problem solving, enhances personal growth,
increased potential for innovation as well as it is beneficial for more opportunities for growth. As
it was a teamwork so it is essential that a team should be lead by a leader in order to support and
motivate the team members. So as a leader, I was responsible to manage the entire team and
guide my team members to achieve success in the completion of that assignment.
I used effective communication and motivation techniques to encourage the entire team. I
have learnt the role of leadership and also how can I use the leadership skills in future. These
leadership skills will help me in organization because leadership is the action of leading people
in an organization to achieve the target or goal. A leader's responsibility is to influencing

individuals behaviours in many ways (Owen, 2017). Through the working process, leader should
motivates, guide team members and build their morale. That teamwork helped all the members
on work on building communication skills. When we began the team work, we supported each
other when we started working together. We worked hard on our group assignment also we
learned team work skills and how to communicate with our group.
However, I faced challenges in maintaining the teamwork. The members of my team took
a lot of time to complete task and I always remind them that we have to complete the assignment
before our submission deadlines. Different people have different learning styles (Reichard,
2017). So we have faced conflicts in taking decisions because some of them are organized while
others get anxious when things don't go according to them. To overcome with these challenges, I
decided to make the team more effective and I follow theses steps which are given below:
 Build trust and respect
 Be true to your word
 Organize a meeting for all team members
 Take advantage of conflict
I build trust with in the team members and scheduled a meeting to solve their queries
effectively. In that meeting I clearly define the role and responsibilities for every member. It
gave teams the autonomy on decision making and learning skills. We also took break if it is
required. It makes a positive impact on the entire team. We all started working together with a
proper understanding of the tasks also make changes and add innovative things to make
assignment more attractive. Finally, we submitted the assignment to our class teacher before one
day of the deadline. The teacher check the assignment and praise all the team members for their
efforts and dedication to complete that assignment. We learned a lot of things from second
semester and it will gave us a chance to build leadership skills in future.
This is an excellent approach for us to manage the assignment in critical situation without
taking any stress. It was really a great learning for us. We also implement these leadership skills
to manage and support the company, we are going to work in future. The role of leader in any
organization is very essential. Recruiter seek good leadership skills in an individual before hiring
them in the organization (Dirks, 2019). There is the requirement of a good leader who can
include the idea of motivating, evaluating, team working and appraising to retain a good
relationship between all the team members. This helps to achieve success of an organization and

maintain good relationship among the employees. Teamwork should be encouraged to support
the company and we can also use many methods to improve teamwork such as make
communication a two way process, have a clear purpose or vision and set clear team goals etc.
This will help to support and join working groups together from forming to adjourning which
supports and motivates members to share ideas and experience.
CONCLUSION
From the above study and knowledge of different topics , I can start my L4 study without
worrying. Having a good knowledge of Project management and SWOT analysis which I studied
in my first semester that how SWOT can influence and helps the company to overcome
challenges as well as determine what new leads to engage. It is evaluated that the strengths of a
company plays an important role to achieve success and gain competitive advantage. In my
second semester I mainly focus on teamwork and played a role of leader in my group team. This
study and experience helps me in decision making skills, communication skills and leadership
skills. It also develop self confidence in me to for doing things without any fear. I am happy to
learn in this kind of atmosphere and with the support of my teachers and staffs. I think I can
handle my L4 study very well next year. Carrying out case studies, team works, exercises and
assignments have allowed me to become a well-prepared person who can face L4 study anytime.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Brockbank, A., McGill, I. and Beech, N., 2017. Reflective learning in practice. In Reflective
learning in practice (pp. 18-28). Routledge.
Dirks, J.L., 2019. Effective strategies for teaching teamwork. Critical care nurse, 39(4), pp.40-
47.
Forleo, M.B. and Palmieri, N., 2019. The potential for developing educational farms: A SWOT
analysis from a case study. The Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension, 25(5), pp.431-
442.
Gardiner, P., 2017. Project management: A strategic planning approach. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Gould, N. and Taylor, I., 2017. Reflective learning for social work: research, theory and practice.
Routledge.
Harrison, F. and Lock, D., 2017. Advanced project management: a structured approach.
Routledge.
Owen, C., 2017. Leadership, communication and teamwork in emergency management.
In Human Factors Challenges in Emergency Management (pp. 125-148). CRC Press.
Reichard, R.J., Walker, D.O., Putter, S.E., Middleton, E. and Johnson, S.K., 2017. Believing is
becoming: The role of leader developmental efficacy in leader self-development. Journal of
Leadership & Organizational Studies, 24(2), pp.137-156.
Teoli, D., Sanvictores, T. and An, J., 2019. SWOT analysis.
Wong, C.S. and Law, K.S., 2017. The effects of leader and follower emotional intelligence on
performance and attitude: An exploratory study. In Leadership Perspectives (pp. 97-128).
Routledge.