Reflective Journal: Team Performance Assessment BUS30009 Analysis

This reflective journal analyzes a student's experience within a group project at Swinburne University of Technology, focusing on the challenges and failures of team performance. The student, assigned to a team for a research report on Cobb Lane, details the lack of cooperation, communication, and commitment from team members, leading to a significant workload imbalance and personal stress. The journal highlights the failure to assign roles according to the Belbin team role model, along with the lack of effective leadership and the withdrawal of key members. The author reflects on the negative impact of these issues, including the student having to complete a large portion of the report independently, and the resulting emotional distress. The journal also discusses the importance of team composition, communication, and leadership, and concludes with lessons learned from the experience, emphasizing the need for improved team selection, communication skills, and the utilization of individual skill sets within a team setting. The student's reflections offer valuable insights into the importance of team dynamics and effective collaboration in academic projects and beyond.

Running head: TEAM PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT
Team Performance Assessment
Student’s name
University
Author’s note

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TEAM PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT
The purpose of this reflective journal is to assess the performance of our team to
complete a given assignment for the semester. To this end, I will hereby analyze my overall
engagement with the team, examining the efforts and contributions of each of the team members
including myself. For this purpose, I will first present an overview of the team, analyzing the
team roles following Belbin’s team role model. Further, I will evaluate each of our roles as per
the team charter and commitments made prior to the project. However, I wish to state in the very
beginning that I have a very disheartening experience while working with the designated group,
as none of the members fulfilled their assigned job roles or responsibilities within the deadline.
This is highly unlikely, since the team members, especially Sophie, Daniel and Ezekiel were
great at their academic performances. Considering their expertise, I had high hopes for our
project, and imagined that I would get a wonderful opportunity to match up their skills and learn
new things while collaborating. Instead, I felt let down, as I never had to worry about failing in
my whole academic career. However, I lacked the necessary resources and cooperation from my
peers. As a result to which, I had to work way more than what was required to me in order to
save my grade before the final semester.
As the students of Business Management of Swinburne University of Technology, I was
paired with 6 other students of my class to complete a group project on developing a research
report on the organization Cobb lane regarding their imminent challenge of space crunch. In
order to complete the task, Sophie Poualion, Ezekiel Mirabito, Emma Callander, Daniel Newell,
Matthew Kalinikios and I, Hassan Reda R Ujaimi, formed a group called “The Early Risers”.
Among us, Sophie had natural leadership skills. Her character also reflected commendable
qualities such as judiciousness and honesty. Ezekiel, on the other hand, has strong social
intelligence. He can usually understand others’ problems and emotions quite accurately, and take

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necessary steps to resolve conflicts among people. Apaprently, he is a team player and a very fun
person to be with. Matthew, although a little shy, also is very hardworking and works well within
a group setting. We valued his judgments and honest opinions. Emma is vivacious, creative,
curious and committed. She has a very pleasing personality. To this group strength, I also offered
my contribution with utmost hard work, commitment and creative ideas.
According to Meredith Belbin, being part of a team presupposes a tendency to contribute,
behave and interrelate with other members of the team in a designated manner. Following the
Belbin team roles model, the potential success of a team depends on the assignment of specific
team roles and cooperation and equal contribution of each member. Hence, our team also should
have specified particular roles to each of us. As per the Belbin model, Sophie could be shaper
and Ezekiel should be the implementer and completer finisher. Emma could have been the
coordinator, while Matthew could be the plant. I myself could be the resource investigator,
whereas Tim and Daniel were perfect fit for team worker roles. However, this was the primary
failure of our team, as we did not divide our tasks accordingly and could not assign specific
roles. We all took the tasks of researching, writing and editing together, without utilizing our
skills to advantage.
We decided that getting high distinction and high performance were our desired end
goals. This was nothing beyond our capabilities or skills, as almost all of us had a good academic
performance so far. Although, the goals seemed realistic in the beginning, with time I realized
we went haywire and probably would not be able to deliver our promises. Initially, we prioritized
on time completion of assigned tasks and communicating on a daily basis as our objectives goal
to ensure the achievement. However, none of our plan worked through. For some reasons, we
could not coordinate as expected, and many of the members did not show adequate commitment

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and responsibility. First of all, several of the team members failed to keep up with the
commitment of communicating in regular intervals. I kept trying to reach them throw
WhatsApp, Messenger and voice calls, although none of them responded on time. Consequently,
we could not have any consensus or necessary inputs required for the project. Upon reflection, I
feel we lacked an effective leadership, who could motivate and coordinate the team, aligning
them with the set objectives. However, I do not think any of my team members realized the
responsibility themselves. Conflicts of personal interest got in the way of our task, as a result to
which nobody devoted their best.
None of the members stuck to the initial plan or timeline either. We were supposed to
begin our work well ahead of the deadline, so I insisted them to start working since the beginning
of January. However, they only started working only 1 week before the submission. It may sound
self-obsessive, but I finished my part almost 3 weeks back, to which I had been ridiculed and
criticized by my peers for my over-eagerness. This attitude of the group really upset me, as I felt
alienated, targeted and completely betrayed.
I was assigned with writing some of the parts of the assignment, namely the executive
summary, the introduction and the conclusion. Not only my team members did not finish their
tasks on time, 3 of them withdrew at the last moment. Tim and Daniel were first to back out, and
Sophie, who was supposed to lead us, withdrew with only 1 week before the submission. Her
decision cost us deeply as a team. Not only because she was supposed to coordinate the whole
project, but also because she was supposed to write the very important part of the report—the
recommendation. As a result, I was overburdened with work. Ultimately, I ended up writing
almost 50% of the report, which I was clearly not supposed to if everything went according to
the plan. I was insecure and afraid that the assignment will not be complete within time, so I

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devoted extra time and effort to work on some of the parts of Ezekiel, Emma and Matthew as
well. Out of the whole 4000 task, I wrote 2000 words alone, and still was not appreciated by my
peers. Moreover, they did not even carried out the presentation of internal feedback, mostly
because no work had been done till the last week, and nobody attended the scheduled group
meetings. Hence, we did not have anything to present the collective insight or output fir the
interim period. I am really saddened to say that my peers were not even truthful in their
responses in the team health check reports. This shows severe lack of integrity and honesty,
which is a significant drawback in any collaborative work.
At the end, I was utterly exhausted and saddened by the outcome, although I was more
concerned about the timely completion of the project rather than its quality. I felt responsible for
the clients, as I personally deem maintaining the customers’ interest as the highest priority in any
organization. Also, the submission was of primary importance to my career, as my final semester
was looming ahead and I did not want to compromise my career because of this assignment. If
we failed to submit it on time, we would have to take the paper once again in the next semester
which would hamper my progress. Also, I pushed my limits to the extreme so that I did not doubt
my capabilities and confidence in future, wondering what I could have done better.
The whole episode nevertheless bothered me, made me hurt and angry on my
teammates. . I suppose the group was dysfunctional and that is what cost us. If my friends could
cooperate a little better, or at least realize the importance of the project, they would have
performed better. But we lacked leadership and coordination. Apparently, I could blame them
for the malfunctioning and come clean. Instead, I learnt a lesson from this episode that team
selection and composition is a crucial factor in any group project. I understood that utilizing the
unique skillsets to respective tasks yield more effective result than distributing responsibilities

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equally among the members. Also, I will have to work on my public speaking skill in future, so
that I can voice my opinion in time and convince people to cooperate. As a whole, the entire
episode was a lesson that I would use in future to improve my leadership skill.