Reflective Journal: Project Management, Team Dynamics, and Analysis

This reflective journal by Wong Khai Xuan details a project undertaken by a team of six students to build a website for a client, Kelvin, from RTech company. The journal documents the application of project management concepts, including the Agile framework (Scrum) and the project life cycle, from initiation to closing. It covers the author's role as a designer, the team's dynamics, individual learning experiences, and the challenges faced during the project, such as lack of experience in web design and plugin integration. The journal analyzes team dynamics, focusing on effective communication and clarity, while also discussing the importance of empowerment within the team. The author uses Belbin's 9 Team Roles theory to gain deeper insights into their team's dynamics, highlighting their role as a teamworker. The document further provides a week-by-week breakdown of the project, detailing tasks, issues, and learning outcomes. This journal demonstrates the practical application of project management principles, team collaboration, and personal reflection on the project journey.

Reflective Journal
Name: Wong Khai Xuan
INTI ID: J19029509
SWINBURNE ID: 103379211
Title: Reflective Journal
Lecturer: Ms. Pawani T. Rasaratnam
Table of Content
Content Pages
Introduction 3
Project Management Concepts 4
Documentation of Project
Week 1 to 14
5 to 6
Team Dynamics, Composition and
Process
7
Detailed Learning Analysis 8to 9
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Conclusion 10
References 11
Appendix 12 to 13
Introduction
Throughout this project, our team group 4 was required to build a website that includes all
required features for our client which is Kelvin, one of the employees of the RTech company.
There are 6 members in our group including me and I am playing my role as adesigner in the
group. Throughout this project I fulfill all the tasks that assigned by my leader, and I am also in
charge of the performance cache part of the Rtech website. However, the purpose of this journal
is to cover what are the project management concept that used by our team, documentation of my
project journey, learning analysis, our team dynamics and conclusion.
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Project Management Concepts
First of all, the definition of Project Management is Project Management is a process that used to
guide the work of a team as they all can finish all the projects goals in a given timeframe. This
Project Management Concepts mostly apply in a lot of projects as the team can have a better
understanding about their cost, scoped of the project, expected quality of the final product and
anticipate time for each project. The first project management concept that we use throughout
this assignment is agile framework called Scrum in our execution and controlling phase as we
will collect the feedback from the client, discuss and make improvements on our website after
every meeting with our clients. Next, we also use project life cycle concept throughout our
project period, and it worked effectively in our project. There are 5 phases in the project
management concept which is initiating, planning executing, monitoring and control process and
closing. We applied it well throughout our project for instance, when we know about the
requirement of our project from the client in initiation phase, created a project proposal which
falls under planning phase, prototype of our website has been created which falls under
monitoring and controlling phase, and created presentation in closing phase.
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Documentation of Project Journey
Week 1-4
In the end of week 1, we are given a task which is each of us in our group need to generate few
questions so that it can be asked during the QnA session with the client. In this task so far, there
are no problems face by me, however what I had learned is the importance of brainstorming as
we all create a meeting to brainstorming about what question can we ask during the QnA session
with client. This is because, when we all are having the brainstorming session it can generate
more ideas so that we can asked the client more question about our assignment. Next, in week
2there are a task called project proposal and my leader which is Adam he delegated the tasks to
all of us equally. At week 3, I started to do the project proposal which is delegated by my leader
Adam, and I am covering the project description part.
While doing the project description, the process was going smoothly, and all the things are on the
right track. Besides that, whenever I ran out of ideas my team members will always be there to
back up me, providing me ideas and guiding me throughout the project proposal. As a
conclusion, throughout the week 3 and week 4 everything was working smoothly.
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While doing this project proposal, what I had learned is working as a team and keep motivating
each other is important. This is because, we all can be motivated all the time so that everything
can be done efficiently.
Week 5-8
At week 5, I had edited the project description for our project proposal as my leader Adam
requested it. This is because, he told me that it can be more specific to describe the project
description for instance the project background and the problems that faced by the organization.
In week 6, I managed to finish my project description for our project proposal, and I also
completed the team contribution assessment and the peer assessment. Next, in week 6 our project
proposal has been done and submitted, while in week 7 we started our next task which is the
prototype. During the prototype project our leader Adam had delegated us the task. I will be
taking care of the performance cache part while some of my team members will be designing the
webpage and some of them will be doing other plugins. Next, our team decided to use an
application called “Hostinger” to develop our prototype.
Throughout this these 4 weeks there are some issues that faced by me and my team. The
problems that faced by me and my team is lack of knowledge on designing our webpage and
applying those plugins.This is because, we all never have any experience in designing webpage
and using the plugin in “Hostinger”.In order to resolve those issues, we all decided to do research
on how to use the “Hostinger” together during our meeting and exchange our ideas to each other
so that we can have a better understanding.
In this 4 week, there are few things that I had learned from this experience which is there are
quite convenient to get information using the webpage nowadays since we all are the millennial
generation. Next, it is more efficient if we do research together with our team instead of
individually. This is because, we all can exchange our ideas and understanding based on the
research topic to each other.
Week 9-14
Throughout this weekme and my team are preparing the user guide, final solution and do some
improvement on our webpage after the presentation with our client. I started my parts on the user
guide and final solution in week 10 and I managed to finish it in week 12. In week 13 I submitted
it to my leader which is Adam and he do a final checked for the user guide before submitting it.
We managed to submit our user guide and final solution before the deadline which is week 14.
During these few weeks, the issues that faced by me when doing the user guide is i managed to
complete my user guide in week 10 but I did not explain the user guide specifically therefore, I
need to redo and be more specific when doing the user guide. However, the issues that faced by
me when working with my team on the webpage is there are some requirements does not fit the
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client meets during the presentation day therefore, we all have edited and added some plugins in
the website.
Throughout these few final weeks, what I had learned from my experience is how to manage my
stress. There are a lot of assignment submission and presentation as well therefore, it is important
to release your stress and managing your time. For example, I will do exercise such as cycling
and playing basketball to release my stress.
Team Dynamics, Composition and Process
There are two keys of the team dynamics that worked well and have a positive impact on our
teamwhich is the clarity of the team and good communication. It worked well in our team
performance is because our group has a clear project goal and we will communicate with each
other first before we start the task. Therefore, when communication worked efficiently and
everyone in the group have a clear goal, things would not mix up and everyone know what is
their own rolein the group.
However, one of the team dynamics that did not work so well in our group is empowerment.
This is because, in order to formed a strong team dynamic as a leader need to be giving their
team members the right to make decisions on the task that they are doing. Although our group
leader is good at communication but sometimes, he did not give us the empowerment when we
are doing our task. For instance, we need to go through him about every single small thingthat
we faced when we are doing our task. As a result, we will feel that we do not have the right to
make decisions during our tasks.
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Detailed Learning Analysis
Chosen Aspect
I will choose good communication and clarity of team as the topic to be discussed in this section.
As mentioned above, our group have a good communication and clear project clarity. This is
because, the best examples to reflect this aspect in our group is before starting the group project.
Before the project started, we already set a clear project goal during our first meeting. We all
listed out all the tasks that are available and our leader assigned it based on what are our
expertise area. Next, we also have a two-way communication with our team members and leader
during the whole project period.
Academic Theory
The academic theory that can help me in having a deeper insight based on the situation that I
pickedis the Belbin’s 9 Team roles. Belbin’s 9 Team roles is identified by Dr. Meredith Belbin
during his research at Henley in 1981. Research that done by him shows that, a high-performing
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and successful team it needs to consist a mixture of roles that found in the Belbin’s 9 Team roles.
All roles are vital in building a high-performing team although there are different strengths and
weakness between the team members. Therefore, we can use the Belbin theory to know what are
the aspect that they lack in and it will be easier and efficient when delegating the task to the team
members. There are 3 main categories in Belbin’s 9 Team roles which are the task roles, social
roles and thinking roles. Monitor evaluator, plant and specialist fall under the thinking roles.
People who are more suitable for this category will be the people who are good at generating
ideas, ability to analysis or good at making judgments. Resource investigator, teamworker and
co-ordinator will be fall under the social roles. This category is normally suitable for the people
who are good at leading or working with others in the team for instance team leader. Sharper,
implementer and complete-finisher are fall under the task roles. This category is mostly suitable
for the people who are seek for perfection and will keep motivating themselves all the time.
Reason that I will choose Belbin’s 9 Team roles as my academic theory is because I believe that
a group or team project are formed by a lot of team members with different personalities and
abilities therefore, we can use the Belbin’s 9 Team roles to classify them in different roles based
on their personalities and abilities. Team leaders can use the Belin Team Role inventory which is
a behavioral test to determine whether which roles are more suitable for their team members. As
a result, the team leaders can have a clearer picture on what are the strengths and weakness of
their team members and delegating the tasks based on each of their expertise.
Insight
I have a deeper insight into my chosen event after the Belbin’s 9 Team roles theory that I had
chosen. This is because I believe that I am a person who are good at teamwork and
communication therefore, I use the Belbin Team role inventory to measure what kind of person
am I and I falls under the teamwork category. The reason that I will think that I am a teamworker
is because I always willing to send support to my team members whenever they have faced any
issues. However, the weakness of a teamworker is they always like to avoid confliction and
whenever any conflict issues raised up, they will try to escape from it. This weakness I totally
agree with it because everytime when there are some conflicts occur, I will try to avoid it. Next,
the second insight that gain from the Belbin’s 9 Team roles is I am a completer-finisher which I
partially agree with it as I will always ensure there are no mistakes on my task before submitting
it. For instance, everytime before I submitting my part to my leader I will checked twice and if
there are something that are not satisfy by my leader, I will redo it again until it is correct.
Besides that, another insight that I learned from the Belbin theory is it is very vital know the
team members working habit and personalities. As I mentioned before we can use Belbin to
measure what kind of personality of our team members in the group therefore, we can know
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what category does they fall in. For example, by using the Belbin theory I can know that my
leader is falls under specialist category in our team as he is always the first one who initiate to
start the project. Next, he is also a good teamworker in our team as he is always cooperative and
willing to support us during the whole project period. Lastly, our website developer and
presentation presenter are an implementor as they can generate or providing a lot of ideas and
they are also very creative when designing the website. For instance, they are really good and
creative when using the plugins in our website although they are first time on using it. In a
nutshell the reason that I think our team is well-structured and clear is because our team consists
of several different roles and everyone have their own strengths and weakness.
Key Learning
There are few new concepts that I had based on the detailed learning analysis above and I felt
that it can be very useful in my future workplace. This is because, I can have a better
understanding on the strengths and weakness of myself so that I can enhance it. Besides that, the
next key learning that I had learned is I can apply this concept into my team or I am in a team
with others. This is because, in the future we are working as a team with the others instead of
individually therefore, I use the knowledge that I had learned from this concept to introduce an
effective way of working together based on the roles that are available in my team. As a result, I
believe when I apply this concept in the team or workplace it can definitely boost up the team
efficiently.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, Belbin 9 Team roles is a useful and interesting concept as it is used to help us to
analysis our team members by identifying each of their strengths and weaknesses. As a result,
they can have a better understanding on what roles are more suitable for them. In order to formed
a high-performing team we need to consist of different roles that will complement each other
therefore, it is vital to know your team well to achieve a productivity and efficient team.
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Reference List
Belker, L., McCormick, J. and Topchik, G., 2019. Team Dynamics. [online] Amanet.org.
Available at: <https://www.amanet.org/articles/team-dynamics/> [Accessed 15 June 2022].
Belbin. 2022. 9 Team Roles - Belbin. [online] Available at: <https://belbin.scot/about-belbin/9-
team-roles/> [Accessed 14 June 2022].
Indeed Career Guide. 2019. The 9 Belbin Team Roles (With Examples) | Indeed.com. [online]
Available at: <https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/belbin-team-roles>
[Accessed 11 June 2022].
Mindtools.com. n.d. Belbin's Team Roles: Finding Your Team's Balance With Belbin's Model.
[online] Available at: <https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_83.htm> [Accessed 7
June 2022].
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Harned, B., n.d. What is Project Management? Definition & Terms | TeamGantt. [online]
Teamgantt.com. Available at: <https://www.teamgantt.com/project-management-guide/what-is-
project-management> [Accessed 3 June 2022].
Appendix
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