MBA600 MBA Capstone: Comprehensive Portfolio of Leadership Activities

This MBA capstone assignment is a portfolio reflecting on activities and learnings from a 12-week course. The portfolio includes reflections on workshops covering strategic mindset, competitive advantage, marketing, operations, problem-solving, knowledge management, research methods, communication, leadership, presentation skills, performance metrics, and employability. The student reflects on their experiences working in a team, using Gibb's reflective cycle to analyze their feelings, evaluate the experience, and identify areas for improvement such as time management, conflict management, communication, and coordination. The portfolio aims to demonstrate the student's ability to apply theoretical knowledge to practical situations and develop essential leadership and management skills. The student recommends improvements in problem-solving techniques, creativity, practical understanding, agility, decision-making, and presentation skills.

Running Head: MBA Capstone 0
MBA Capstone
FEBRUARY 14, 2019
Student name

MBA Capstone 1
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Part A – Activities Completed.........................................................................................................3
Part B...............................................................................................................................................5
Part C...............................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

MBA Capstone 2
Introduction
The best learning for an individual is through its own experience and could be helpful for others
to learn from others experience. For this, reflection through experience would be helpful, which
will provide insight into the experience in order to gain learning from the same and
understanding the criteria to improve. The course was inclusion of 12-week study or experience,
which the report will focus further. Moreover, the understanding of aspects learned from the
activities, where the main purpose would be to understand the ability to work in a team, and area
to improve for a better experience in future in case the similar situation occurred. For the
reflective part, an appropriate structure would be used, which can make the presentation better
and easy to understand the learning part out of the same. For this report, the reflection would be
presented with the help of model that is Gibb’s reflective model, which include five stages for a
better understanding of the learning from experience (Dosser & Nicol, 2016).
Figure 1: (Source: (mindtools, 2018)

MBA Capstone 3
Part A – Activities Completed
Initiating the competition of activities through the first week, it includes the workshop for the
understanding of strategic mindset and four capstone skills, which include the theoretical skills,
applied skills, practical skills, and reflective skills. This included the theory of knowing, doing
and being in order to improve the reflective practice and effective management and ability to
manage the competitive advantage. Moreover, this included the study of the major difference
between strategic thinking and linear thinking. There were three major components of strategic
mindset that is system thinking, reflection, and reframing (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000).
Week two workshop was the focus over the competitive advantage, this includes a model of
competitive advantage, which includes the transformation of resource and individual capabilities
through distinctive competencies along with the differentiation or the cost advantage to create
the value which is said to be value creation. Moreover, it included the competitive strategy to
study, corporate capabilities, distinctive capabilities, and eventually the competitive advantage
(Betton, 2017).
The third workshop focused on the strategic knowledge through marketing and operations. From
the strategic marketing, the major learning was the creation of product strategy, its portfolio,
advantage, and disadvantage to the large portfolio, new product development, branding strategy,
differentiation strategy and much more. The relevance of the marketing, and learning new terms
and concepts has assisted the knowledge building (Bailey, 2018).
Through week four, the major understanding of the competitive Advantage through growth and
innovation was gained. Innovation is key to the competitive advantage, and since the
environment change, the need for innovation increases (Ahlin, 2014).

MBA Capstone 4
Workshop five was more concentrated over the understanding of the problem solving models
and the business models. The tools for instance business analytics and business models are
applied together in order to increase the ability to take better decisions and in order to become
better managers (Cotton, 2016).
From the six weeks, knowledge management concept was understood through the guest speaker,
which included the understanding of data, information, and knowledge. This also included the
understanding of the modern organization, which are full of complexities, increase the need for
knowledge (Birasnav, 2014).
The seventh week was, more about the research methods, data, and analysis. This included the
types of data and other theories to tell the relevance of management research and the concept of
problem solving. The eighth week was the crucial one because this included the communication
and leadership understanding in theoretical and practical, behavior, which could be helpful in
being a better leader in the near future. This included the relevance of change and its strategy in
the organization, the leadership style to be selected, and the reason for failing change (Brenner,
2015).
From week nine, it was understood the relevance of presentation, that is the creation of business
reporting, and presenting the solution to the analysis in the organization. This included types of
report, data analytics, and the way to improve the prostration of the work and increase the
learning through the reporting. However, the tenth workshop was to discuss the performance and
metrics and measuring better practice and performance well (Aravamudhan & Krishnaveni,
2015).

MBA Capstone 5
The eleventh workshop focus over the employability and the trends that would be useful to
prepare oneself for the work in the future. It included the employees and the skills essential to
sustain in the organization. However, the last workshop which only included the review
discussion, for revising what have learned from the course (Abdulraheem Sal, 2016).
Part B
For the reflection from the activities, this part will include the major areas that I have learned
from them and recommendations for improving the learning from the courses. For being an
effective manager, there have been much learning through the course and workshops. For
instance, through the leadership and communication, when I was understanding theoretically,
although I realized that there are major areas in leadership styles, that I need to improve for
myself for being an effective manager in future. In my opinion, the things I conducted well were
understanding the concepts and tried to apply to team management. For instance, for marketing
decision, the various scenarios were considered like understanding of the environmental changes,
the dynamicity of the environment. There were the thing that I didn’t take well like solving the
problem, and activities were not able to go well related to the idea generation. Moreover, the
leadership skill I observe in myself was autocratic leadership style, which I felt would not be
helpful in the future, and I need to improve to change the leadership style adopted.
The major recommendation for the same include:
 Problem-solving technique – the major recommendation for the improvement was
understanding the problem solving technique for solving the issue for the team I would be
leading

MBA Capstone 6
 Creativity and innovation – the need for innovation and creativity has to be understood
and must be implied not only in the product development, but through people, and
process (Betton, 2017).
 Understanding the practical aspect – more than the theoretical aspect, the practical
understanding would be more approachable and helpful for implementing the techniques
and model for being better manager and leader in future
 Implementing agility – the agility is necessary, this can be through the team, the smaller
the team the more agility can be observed, which would be helpful for the organization
and management as a whole
 Decision-making process – the decision has to be taken after thing strategically and well
in detail, in order to make a better decision, and the quick decision making has to be
improved.
 Improvement in presentation and reporting – the presentation is important, and there is no
use of analysis if it is not presented effectively. Therefore, the recommendation would be
to improve the writing and reporting skills (Abdulraheem Sal, 2016)
Part C
This section would include the self-reflection, from working in a team. As already discussed, the
Gibbs reflective cycle would be used for this part. The five stages of the reflective model include
Description – the experience included working in a team for completion of twelve-week
workshop, it could be easy working individually, but it is difficult working in the team while
maintaining harmony and provide better productivity and complete the project on time.

MBA Capstone 7
The problem occurs when the team has to make a decision regarding the roles of the individual
in a team, this arose the conflict in the team, which hampered our performance. It took time, but
it was resolved. In one of the workshop, we were unable to manage the time and decide which
work is to be done first. Eventually, and gradually we were able to complete the tasks and the
workshops
Feeling – before going for the workshops, and performing in the team, I was not sure if I would
be able to work in a team better and understand another point of view or able to keep up my
point in the team.
As the experience begins, and we star with the first week, it was going with the flow, and we
were introduced to each other and initiated to build relations among the team members for better
work performance. As the conflict arise, it seemed like it’s a never-ending conflict decision,
where everyone was explaining their point of view and were unable to reach to a common
solution.
Evaluation – the good part about the experience in a team was the major areas where there could
be a problem in a team, and how to solve that problem. The understanding of the team was
increased gradually and till the last week, we all were able to perform better and learned the
reporting skills well.
The bad part about the experience was the conflicts and the time lag that happen due to poor time
management. Moreover, the decision making should be quick and effective, which I felt we lag
as a team.

MBA Capstone 8
Analysis – from the situation it could be analyzed that there were various points which can be
improved to be a better team member or team leader in the future. The mistakes conducted do
not have to repeat in the future. The major learning from the experience was
 Time management – one of the major issue was poor time management, which can be
learned and apply well before the initiation of the activity in near future. This includes
prioritizing the task to be conducted first and need urgent assistance to manage the work
according to the time provided
 Conflict management – the conflict may arise in the groups or team, but they need to be
resolved quickly for better productivity and not wasting time over the conflicts. This
could be done through using conflict management in the team like cooperation
 Effective communication – communication is very important for better performance in a
team. This included expressing the information in the correct way. For instance, my
statements could be used for better work done in a group
 Coordination – the coordination is very important to maintain among the team members
for better flow of work (Dosser & Nicol, 2016)
Conclusion - This part included the things that could be done for better work. While working in a
team, it would be better to adopt a proper decision-making process, which I think we could have
implemented and avoid the conflict occurred. This included listening to one another,
understanding every point by every member of the team and then decide. Moreover, the effective
listing must be included in the team, for more coordinated and better flow of work.
Action plan – in case the similar situation is occurred in the future and for being a better team
leader. The major things that I will imply in the group would be the applicability of democratic
leadership style while listening every individual and then taking a decision, conflict management

MBA Capstone 9
techniques, to either avoid the conflict to occur and if it occurs then earlier possible technique
must be applied to resolve the same. Moreover, the task would be scheduled well before and time
management would be done by me before initiating the activities (Fook, 2018).

MBA Capstone 10
Conclusion
From the report, it can be concluded that reflection through experience would be helpful, which
will provide insight into the experience in order to gain learning from the same and
understanding the criteria to improve. For the report, the experience from the twelve activities
was considered to be understood and reflected using Gibbs reflective model, for better and
structure form to understand the experience and gain the major learnings. The activities
conducted in each workshop was understood, for instance, the first week included the workshop
for the understanding of strategic mindset and four capstone skills, Week two workshop was the
focus over the competitive advantage. One of the crucial week which could be helpful in being a
better leader or effective manager in future was understanding of leadership and communication
in week eight.
While understandings the learning through each activity, the major recommendation for
improvement include problem solving technique, creativity, and innovation, the practical aspect
Implementing agility, decision-making process, and improvement in presentation and reporting.
Moreover, while working in a team the major learning from the experience include Time
management, Conflict management, Effective communication, and Coordination.

MBA Capstone 11
References
Abdulraheem Sal, M., 2016. The Impact of Training and Development on Employees
Performance and Productivity.. International Journal of Management Sciences and Business
Research, 5(7), pp. 2226-8235.
Ahlin, B., 2014. Entrepreneurs’ creativity and firm innovation: the moderating role of
entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Small Business Economics, 43(1), p. 101.
Aravamudhan, N. & Krishnaveni, R., 2015. Establishing and reporting content validity evidence
of training and development capacity building scale (TDCBS). Management: journal of
contemporary management issues, 20(1), pp. 131-158.
Bailey, C., 2018. Strategic human resource management. s.l.:Oxford University Press,.
Betton, P., 2017. Competitive Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. Macat
Library: s.n.
Birasnav, M., 2014. Knowledge management and organizational performance in the service
industry: The role of transformational leadership beyond the effects of transactional leadership..
Journal of Business Research,, 67(8), pp. 1622-1629.
Brenner, S., 2015. Leadership style and the process of organizational change. Leadership &
Organization Development Journal, pp. 2-16.
Cotton, D., 2016. The Smart Solution Book: 68 Tools for Brainstorming, Problem Solving and
Decision Making. UK: Pearson UK.
Dosser, I. & Nicol, J., 2016. Understanding reflective practice. Nursing Standard, 30(36).