MG408 Graduate Challenge: Reflective Report on Skills Developed

This reflective report provides a comprehensive overview of the Graduate Challenge, focusing on the development of key skills through participation in various challenges. The report begins with an executive summary and introduction, outlining the challenges and objectives. The main body delves into the Apprentice challenge, the Presentation challenge, and the T-shirt challenge, discussing the skills gained in each, such as communication, teamwork, time management, and business skills. The Apprentice challenge, observed in Tesco, highlighted the importance of teamwork, communication, and time management. The Presentation challenge, experienced at the London School of Science and Technology (LSST), focused on presentation and leadership skills. The T-shirt challenge demonstrated the application of business skills in a practical setting. The report includes an action plan with SMART objectives, strategies, and timelines for continuous improvement. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and reflections, emphasizing the importance of the skills developed and the insights gained. References to relevant books and journals support the analysis.

Reflective report

Executive summary
In this report it has discussed about the apprentice challenge, presentation challenge and the
t-shirt challenge by considering the skills like communication skills, teamwork, time
management, business skills, presentation skills and in the end action plan is made involving
the smart objectives, strategies, time.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Apprentice challenge...................................................................................................................3
Presentation challenge.................................................................................................................4
T-shirt challenge..........................................................................................................................4
Action plan...................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Reflective report is that writing piece which summarise the reflection of the student's on a
particular subject. Reflective reports consider, first person accounts. Reflective reports are used
for the practical projects. Tesco is a multinational company dealing in grocery and retailing. The
London school of science and technology is the private college which provide courses for higher
studies. This study will discuss the challenges like apprentice challenge, presentation challenge
and t-shirt challenge along with the skills which are communication, teamwork, time
management etc. providing the action plan.
MAIN BODY
Apprentice challenge
Apprentice challenge is the event which is related to the learning and development with the edge
of competition. It is the approach to know the leaders of the team. It is used for promoting the
team work (Haines, 2019.). It is used to improve the communication skills and also inspiring the
team to bring the innovative ideas. This is suitable for the staff of all the departments. To meet
the business goals task can be done accordingly. It includes delegation of the work. It promotes
collaborative working as well. Apprentice helps in building team and enhanced logistical. It
gives the benefit of confidence. I observe that apprentice challenge in Tesco helped me in
developing the presentation skills and communication skills. It says that communication is the
two-way process and communication can be effective only if two parties are involved in it. It
develops excel skills in me. I become efficient in using excel now.
I learned different formulas and the short keys. It inculcates the team work and hence team
building. Proper team work is essential to achieve the objective (Kalliola and et.al., 2020). If
team members cooperative and help each other than it will help to finish the task on time. It
made me feel that time is the very important thing. It embraces the time management skills. Now
I can manage the time more properly like I was doing earlier. It contributes in the development
of the inter-personal skills when you work with your colleague. It made me learn the social
media management. Managing social media is very important nowadays. If it is managed
efficiently then business can do promotion easily. As doing promotion on social media is cost
effective and time effective as well. It also taught me that how to do the media interaction. It
taught me to how to change with the market trends as Tesco is the company who change their

products with the change in market trends. I also understood that how to fulfil the demand in the
given time period.
Presentation challenge
When talking about presentation, it says that the lead is not the presenter or the company but it is
the audience (Szelein and et.al., 2020). The challenge of the presenter is to give the importance
to the audience or making them the hero so that they can achieve the objective of the
presentation. It is duty of the presenter that their audience should be comfortable and what the
presenter is saying audience are understanding that. Presentation require practice. When I was
there in The London school of science and technology (LSST) I developed communication skills.
I was observing the presenter carefully and notice his communication skills. I learned that how I
can brush my communication and learned the tactics of public speaking. Presentation is by more
than one person, so I saw that how they were doing the teamwork. It made me feel that if you
want to achieve any task in team then efficient team work is required.
I also learnt the leadership skills by observing leader like how he is handling his team and
solving all the problems of the team members. In LSST I learnt the proper way of how to
manage the time. Time management plays important role in the life so if managed efficiently can
make the work easy. Development of the meeting skills. I learnt the etiquettes of the meeting like
how to listen the meeting and what points should be written in the notepad for future references.
My presentation skills has improved a lot. I learnt that how to make effective presentation which
is attractive and gain the attention of the audience. I also learnt excel skills like how to make
excel sheets relevant to the presentation and how to explain those excel sheets. Explaining theory
is easy but if you want to explain numbers then it is tricky, so I had learnt those tricks. I also
learnt that how to cooperative or coordinate with your batch mates. Development of the
emotional intelligence which is the other important thing.
T-shirt challenge
I walked in a super mall and was surprised to see people gather around the centre of the mall.
Some cheering was going on as I decided to see what was in stock. I saw that some people were
taking a challenge to sell T-shirts of different types. Teams were formed while doing the
challenge as to which team gathers highest points. It was a tedious task to perform although I got
to learn some skills while watching the event and later on joining it.

Communication: People earlier while forming a team were not clear about how to go about the
challenge and not familiar with each other.
Second stage came when they started keeping their ideas but were not able to form a
unison.
Third stage an agreement about how to go about the sale process came into picture and
responsibility of each type of T-shirt was given.
Next stage came when people started selling with a certain target in mind and vision to
achieve the same.
At goal completion all were satisfied and departed on a good note.
Team work
People in the team were delegated responsibility according to their skill sets. Financial crunchers
were given responsibility to maintain accounts, people with extrovert personality were deployed
in customer interaction and sales promotion.
Time Management
Time taken in selling one T-shirt was taken as KPI and it was targeted to sell at least 6 t-shirts of
three different ranges i.e. two t-shirts per brand in an hour.
Business skills
The most important part was the analysation of the whole exercise. It was a pre-planned strategy
to promote three ranges of the t-shirts before their actual arrival in market. The company wanted
to get feedback from customers. The operation department had decided to keep a fixed target at
this sales promotion while managing the expenses of the whole exercise. The strategy to generate
curiosity and awareness was aptly achieved through this exercise (Akter, S. and et.al., 2016) .
Action plan
Skills Objectives Strategies time
Communication skills It is achievable within
one month.
I build the listening
habit because effective
communication
Less than one year.

happens only if the
other party is listening
carefully (Carpenter
and et.al., 2020). For
building the
communication skills I
started reading
newspapers, novels
etc. I started reading
articles, blogs etc.
confidence plays a
vital role in the
communication. So I
develop confidence in
myself so that it will
add advantage in my
communication skills.
Teamwork It is achievable if
performed effectively.
By observing the team
members I learned
how to do the
teamwork. I learnt that
if the task is clear than
no one can stop from
the effective
teamwork. I gain the
knowledge that if you
do the good work then
that is recognised by
everyone. It shows that
hard work pays off.
Teamwork help to
1-2 years.

achieve the objective
of the organisation.
Time management It is done if your task
finish on time
I had learnt to do the
time management by
making a to do list so
that my time will not
waste. I make sure that
in my free time also I
do such activity which
enhance my skills. I
my to do list firstly I
mentioned that work
which I have to do on
priority basis. Time is
considered the most
important asset. If time
once wasted cannot be
achieved so now I
properly manage the
time.
1 year
Business skills It can be developed
with time.
I had learnt the
business skills like
how to give the
presentation etc. I had
made rough
presentations and
practice public
speaking by seeing the
presentation (Crean,
2020). I am also
2-3 years

seeing the videos on
internet of how to
develop the
presentation skills. I
had learnt the excel
formulas and even the
advance excel skills.
Now I do the regular
practice on excel so
that I can brush my
skills.
CONCLUSION
From this report it can be concluded that three challenges are discussed. Apprentice
challenge in respect of Tesco, presentation challenge in respect of The London school of
science and technology. Presentation challenge is related to presenting project skills and T-
shirt challenge by considering the skills like communication skills/emotional intelligence,
team work, time management and meeting skills and business skills which include the
presentation skills. Further it will tell that how I inculcate those skills into myself.
Mentioned every development in detail. Preparation of the action plan by including skills,
smart objectives, strategies and time.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Akter, S. and et.al., 2016. How to improve firm performance using big data analytics capability
and business strategy alignment?. International Journal of Production Economics, 182,
pp.113-131.
Carpenter and et.al., 2020. Perceived benefits and challenges of physical educators’ use of social
media for professional development and learning. Journal of Teaching in Physical
Education 39(4) pp.434-444.
Crean, M., 2020, October. Minority scholars and insider-outsider researcher status: Challenges
along a personal, professional and political continuum. In Forum Qualitative
Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Vol. 19, No. 1).
Haines, A., 2019. Personal and professional experiences of suicide (Doctoral dissertation,
University of Warwick; Coventry University).
Kalliola and et.al., 2020. Methods of Promoting Professional Agency at Work. Challenges11(2)
p.30.
Moktadir, M.A. And et.al., 2020. Critical success factors for a circular economy: Implications
for business strategy and the environment. Business strategy and the environment.
Szelei and et.al., 2020. Professional development for cultural diversity: the challenges of teacher
learning in context. Professional development in education 46(5) pp.780-796.
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