Introduction
This report will give a brief review of a presentation that I was a part of this semester with four other team members (Muskan, Matt, Harsh and Tharindu) and how we successfully implemented the four core functions of the management – planning, organising, leading and controlling (POLC) in our individual as well as the collective contribution towards the presentation. We discussed and formed a basic outline for the presentation in the tutorial itself and equally started distributing the work among the team members such as who will do what part. We connected with each other on a social media platform (Facebook) and formed a group to carry on the discussion and updated a file on the google docs to put our individual ideas and suggestions in one place and bring all the information together.
PLANNING
The first core function of management is planning. Planning is the process of thinking about the activities required to achieve a desired goal. It reduces the risk of uncertainity and helps in better implementation of resources to complete a task effectively and efficiently.
We decided to interview the manager of a fish and chips shop, ‘Kon’, as one of our team members (Matt) has been working at this store and he mentioned that arranging a meeting with the manager and getting his feedback regarding everything will most likely be honest and easy as most of the workers at the store were his family members and the manager was one of them.
We planned that it is better to ask the manager questions about different concepts at different intervals rather than all at once so we started putting in questions about a concept one at a time which made it easy for us to determine the right questions as well as helped the manager to keep the interview quick and easy as our team member used to take a few minutes and ask a few questions when he went to work there. This helped us to start working on the presentation concept by concept and have a proper understanding for each one of them.
All this while, one of our team members (Tharindu) did not respond to any communication so we decided to meet in person and discuss the matter but he did not show up for the group meeting also. Harsh did not show up for this group meeting either but he was actively responding on the group chat for his part.
We specifically planned how to complete Tharindu’s part to finish the presentation in time by measuring the work and using it set achievable and relevant goals that were time bound. We further decided to keep each of us updated by informing everything and actively responding on the group chat. (SMART goals)
Organising
Organizing is a systematic process of structuring, integrating, co-ordinating task goals, and activities to resources in order to attain objectives.
We used our first group meeting for identification and re-division of work among four of us because one of our team members was not responding and the whole process was delayed due to communication barriers and we were close to the submission date.
After division of work, we grouped the tasks and put together those that were similar to one another in terms of research so that it is easy for both us and the manager to understand and link the concepts together. (departmentalisation)
We assigned all the team members their individual duties by having a group discussion and knowing who is good at doing what best and then giving them the respective work to implement and a deadline to complete it. (assignment of duties)
We established reporting relationships and decided that each of us will make slides for their part and then send it to one of our team members (me) who will connect all the slides together and put a similar background, font, theme, colours, etc. to all of them and add some pictures or graphics to enhance the presentation.
Leading
Leading is a practical skill encompassing the ability of an individual or organization to "lead" or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations.
I feel like I took up the role of a leader during this presentation work. Though everybody was supportive towards each other and helped each other to find an appropriate solution to the problems they incurred while researching for the information or performing the tasks (interview/presentation).
I also made sure that everybody is comfortable with their task by communicating with them regularly on the group as well as on private chat and solving the problems which they had with other team members and asking if they need any help for anything related to our group presentation.
I motivated them and told them we should be able to benefit from this group presentation not only individually but also as a whole group and have an experience that increases our knowledge in a way that we can apply these concepts in our daily life.
We all realised this is a great opportunity to show our team spirit and learn all that we can from each other.
Controlling
Controlling in management means setting standards, measuring actual performance with the planned performance and taking corrective action.
controlling is an important function because it helps to check the errors and to take the corrective action so that deviation from standards are minimized and stated goals of the organization are achieved in a desired manner.
We had set some basic performing standards such as completing the given work on time and being able to score at least a distinction which we were able to successfully achieve as a team.
We measured our actual performance by having a group meeting in the library giving a presentation in front of other team members one by one as we would do on the presentation day in the tutorial and afterwards, we compared our actual performance with the planned performance and saw where we were wrong and helped other team members to identify their mistakes. This is important as we need to monitor our work and evaluate it to get the best results
We analysed the deviations in our presentation such as speaking over the time limit, standing still while presenting, not being able to pronounce some specific words properly and more so we focused on key result areas (KRA’s) and took corrective measures to prevent any general or obvious mistakes on the presentation day.
Due to some circumstances, one of our group members (Muskan) did not join us for this meeting but was actively responding on the group and informed the part she wants to speak about and the time she will be taking to present it.
The type of control we used was concurrent control, also known as real time control, and as soon as we identified a deviation in our work we took instant measures to correct them.
Conclusion:
This report justifies how our group practically implemented the four core functions of management and used those concepts efficiently to make our group presentation a success. I will not be willing to take part in another group presentation with the exact same group as there was lack of communication and one of our team members left most of his work to be done at the last moment and one or the other did not show up in the group meetings. We all worked hard and supported each other along the way to give our best to this presentation but I feel like we could have done even better if the team members did not have a such a casual attitude towards this assessment.
This presentation gave me an insight on how to manage as well as lead a team and what to do in case of conflicts between the team members. I learned to be prepared in advance and always have a backup plan in case the first one does not work out as those who fail to plan, they plan to fail.
The overall experience was good as this group presentation helped me gain useful experience and knowledge in the field of management that will help me score goog grades in this unit.