Business Environment: Reflective Report on Group Presentation Task

This report reflects on a group presentation experience within a business environment context, utilizing Gibbs' reflective model to analyze the process. The assignment involved researching and presenting on Primark, an Irish company. The reflection covers various stages: description of the task, feelings experienced before, during, and after the presentation, evaluation of positive and negative aspects, analysis of learning outcomes (communication, collaboration, time management, analysis, and decision-making skills), and a conclusion outlining potential improvements for future projects, such as expanding the scope to include financial data and implementing a more structured approach to group work. The report concludes with an action plan for applying learned skills in future endeavors, emphasizing effective communication, structured workflow, and time management.

Running Head: BUSINESS AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT 0
BUSINESS AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
STUDENT NAME
1-14-2019

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Reflection...................................................................................................................................3
Stage one – description..........................................................................................................3
Stage two- feelings.................................................................................................................3
Stage three – evaluation.........................................................................................................4
Stage five – analysis...............................................................................................................5
Stage five – conclusion..........................................................................................................6
Stage six- action plan.............................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The report will be based on the previous assignment that is the presentation that I have
experienced recently. The reflection of the previous task would be included in the report, this
is to learn out of the experience and give it some meaning, so as to rectify the mistake or
enhance the skills to avoid the mistake in future, for a similar task or situation. For this
purpose, a reflective theory would be used, that is Gibbs reflective model. This is taken into
account, for better presentation, and molding the experience into learning (Fook, 2018).
Learning from doing is the best way an individual can improve themselves. The Gibbs
reflective cycle is propounded in 1988, it bifurcates the reflection of an individual into six
stages (University, 2018).
Figure 1: Source: (mindtools, 2018)
My own experience will be reflected in the report further

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Reflection
Stage one – description
This is the first stage of this reflective cycle, which focus on the actual experience which I
had while completing the last group task. Initially, the group was formed, and the task was
assigned to us. The group had to design an organization, on which the whole project will be
based on. The organization that group reached out after a long decision, and analyzing the
pros and cons was Primark, a company from Ireland (primark, 2018). Moreover, the task was
to create a presentation, in which every individual of the group has to participate. For this
purpose, we decided to distribute the subtopics and allocate one to each individual or member
of the group (Akkermans, et al., 2015).
The presentation needs to have large research on a company and create a power point
presentation, and present in the class. For this purpose, we needed to enhance our presenting,
analyzing and communicating skills. Various other group was to present in class with a
different organization. My role in the presentation was to research and create slides for the
introduction part and the size and scope of the organization. I created the slides and presented
in the class in front of my fellows and authorities. While doing the work in a group, there was
conflict happened in the group while deciding of various topics, as all the members are with a
different perspective. Although the work was bifurcated, the presentation has to be in a group
which was one of the major reasons for the conflicts (Carvalho & Junior, 2015).
Stage two- feelings
This stage of this reflective cycle represents the reflection, of how it felt before, while
experience, and after the same. For this, I would like to mention that I was not sure if I would
be able to complete this task effectively or not because I am good with the individual task,

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but due to the difference in opinion and perspective, it becomes difficult to work in a group
and complete the task effectively and on time (Cottrell, 2015).
When I was experiencing this, I started feeling confidence, because we reach out to the
organization selection after a long discussion and I was able to keep my point in front of my
group, and all were very collaborative in nature. As we move forward with the work, the
company selected was a popular fashion retailing company or Ireland, on which searching
information was not very challenging. Although in-depth research was required. The
presentation went quite well, although I hesitated while presenting my part to the class, but
the experience teaches a lot may things (Hebert, 2015)
After this experience, I was not knowing that the presentation went well according to the
teachers or not, but the feeling of accomplishment was there. We also observer others
presentation, and I learn many things from others presentation as well. After seeing others
presentation, I would like a bit change in my presentation from next time. It would be
including more facts and figure for better shown of analysis of the report. The financial
aspect was missing in our presentation, which could have improved the scope of the study
(Johns, 2015).
Stage three – evaluation
This is the stage where both positive and negative aspect if the experience would be included.
This is done so it can be clearer what is to be avoided in future and the positive ones can be
continued and added in future as well. The positive aspects included, the research we
conducted were from authorized scholars and websites or Primark (primark, 2018).
Moreover, the analysis included the understanding of the company product range and scope
for expansion. The negative aspect was the conflict and delay in decision making in the
organization choice and the allocation of work among the team members. I felt that the

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organization we selected was very good, but another organization which I felt was a good
option that another group selected was Woolworths (humancapitalreview, 2017). It was better
because the size of the company is very large, and the information is very easy to find on the
internet and various other stores due to its popularity and brand image. Moreover, the
strategies that the company follow were the reason for its success and must have been
interesting to study (Libert & Gibon, 2015)
Stage five – analysis
At this stage of the reflective cycle, the situation is given some meaning and give a direction
to learn from. From the experience, it can be said that performing a task in the group is one of
the challenges in itself. Over this, it is important to understand the relevance of selecting the
best organization according to the requirement of the project and analysis. Moreover, the
importance of collaboration can be included while conducting a task in the group. Other than
this from this experience, various other things can be observed and understand from your
own experience and observing others work as well (Mann, 2017).
The learning from this experience was
 Communication skills – this is one of the most important skills, which I enhanced
while experiencing this because it includes the presentation of the analyzed task. For
this, communication plays an important role, as we have to communicate in the group
and with the class and authorities for better presentation of work (Libert & Gibon,
2015).
 Collaboration skills – while working in a group another important aspect is
collaboration, which is important for a smooth flow of work and timely completion of
the project (Puccio, et al., 2014)

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 Time management skills – managing time is very important, this will make you
prioritize your list of action while experiencing the project competition. This will help
to learn the relevance of completion of each set of subtask in the project
(Skillsyouneed, 2018)
 Analyzing – this is very necessary for better understanding and working for the task in
a better direction. For this, the research and analyzing the findings are very important,
for which one must study every aspect in detail (fosteredu.pennfoster.edu, 2018)
 Decision making – this is a very crucial step, especially in this project. The reason
being the decision making is still easy when a person is performing individually, but it
becomes more crucial as the group is involved, the opinion of every member is
different and reaching out to one decision after analyzing all the members’ point of
view becomes important. For instance, in my experience, we decide to choose the
organization to best of our perspective that was Primark, but I felt that Woolworths is
a better option. Although there were some companies, from which I felt that our
decision for selection of organization was better like one of them was wiser, a London
based organization dealing in recruitment and talent acquisition. The reason being it is
the service company, whose information was difficult to find and analyzed. Moreover,
this company was a small scale company. Therefore, this makes me feel that our
decision for Primark was better (primark, 2018) (Puccio, et al., 2014).
 Conflict management – we faced conflicts in our group, but from this experience, we
talked and considers the collaborating strategy of conflict management better
according to the situation. This makes the conflict management and their strategies to
be learned to avoid such situation in future (Procter, 2014).

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Stage five – conclusion
Conclusion stage is where an individual learned from their experience, and plan the another
course of action which he or she could have done in the project for more effective project
completion. From my experience the things I would like to add or change would be as
follows:
 Scope – I would like to increase the scope of my study. As already discuss, the
inclusion of financial aspect of the organization, can provide more relevance to the
research and the product. This can be done by adding the financial statement like
profit earnings of the company in recent years and in coming years plan (Snow, 2015)
 Structure – it is important that the work is done with the structure and a proper
process. This include my group to understand to conduct every course of action with a
structure. For instance, we could have built relation through introducing and
understanding each group member, then comes the decision making effectively for
selection of best organization according to the project and its relevance (Schon, 2017).
Then comes the planning task that is to plan what all has to be cover and how it has to
be done. Next comes allocation of work to the members according to their knowledge
and ability to complete the task. After the task of every individual is completed the
integration of work is important. This will make the presentation structured and
quality of work could have improved (Dosser & Nicol, 2016).
Stage six- action plan
This is the last stage, where the individual decide on which attribute skill, or learning
would they apply in future for better result. In my perception, the learning from the
experience that I have already discussed, some of them are something that would
definitely apply in future activities, in a similar situation. Those include, time
management techniques, so that all the activities in future are completed on time.

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Moreover, another thing that would be applied by me in future were effective
communication within the group and while making the presentation more attractive. This
is because I understand the important of effective communication, can make the work
very much easy to manage and interaction make the presentation more attractive and
helpful in better understanding of things and topic and making other understand in the
same direction as you are communicating. Another thing that I will apply in future is
structured and conducting the work in more processed form. This will help to manage
things better in a more organized form (mbaskool, 2018).

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Conclusion
To conclude the report, it can be said that the learning from the experience is a good way to
learn and apply it in future to avoid further mistakes, and adopt the skills and strategy that
work well in the situation and for completion of the task within time. Moreover, for
presenting the experience and giving the experience some meaning and learning from the
same, Gibbs reflective model of reflection was used. The experience was to select an
organization and work on the same in the group of people and present the same in the class. I
was not sure if I would be able to do the task in-group or not, but from the experience I learn
many skills and things, which would be helpful in future to apply.
From six stages of the cycle, it was observed that the major learning from the project
included effective communication skills, collaborating skills, conflict management, and time
management skills. Moreover, from the experience I realized that wools worth was a better
option to go for this project due to availability of information and scope of the business to
study. However there were selection of organization, where Primark was a better choice to
work with.

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Carvalho, M. & Junior, R., 2015. Impact of risk management on project performance: the
importance of soft skills. International Journal of Production Research, pp. 321-340.
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International Higher Education.
Dosser, I. & Nicol, J., 2016. Understanding reflective practice. Nursing Standard, 30(36).
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models of John Dewey and Donald Schön. Reflective Practice, 16(3), p. 361.
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