Reflective Report on Mega Simulation Game

Reflective Report on Mega Simulation crippledyexecutive SUMMARYThe report is intimately a 12- work calendar week critical evaluation about my experience of the Mega Simulation Game that I was to execute with other four convocation members. The exercise inquires identifying the primary pensive theories that will be use for reflective learning. In my case, I used Lawrence-Wilkes think over and Gibbs Reflective dumbfound. I used these 2 moldings to enumerate on twain relative incidences in the pigeonholing work experience, which were related to inter ad hominem dynamics, and personal surgical operation in- assemblage work. The interpersonal dynamics such as personality clashes, diverse ethnic values, and personal interests acted as a hindrance to communication and collaboration. However, the commitment of the squad was very lofty and this kept the aggroup going. The second incidence was on personal exploit where the convention leveraged on individual strengths and delegated tasks. The delegation of tasks was fruitful however the turn back carrefour was not due to personal interests overriding the stem interests. I learnt the admit for in force(p) communication, the post of attractorship and the need to accommodate varied opinions.IntroductionReflection has numerous meaning that includes self- fol number one, self-aw arness, self-criticism, self-appraisal, self-assessment, personal scholarship and other terms that are related to these terms. Boyd and Fales (1983) defined reflection learning as the process of extern bothy examining and exploring an takings of concern, triggered by an experience, which creates and clarifies meaning in terms of self and which results in a changed conceptual perceptive. The ex arrangement brings out key important issues in reflective learning there needfully to be an issue that is examined, meaning of the issue must be derived and lastly the meaning should improve the perspective of the individual i n a similar situation in the future.In this reflection paper, I will pursue cardinal sheaths of reflection interpersonal dynamics and military operation of the members of the throngs. Teamwork is used everywhere from tell apart settings to organizations and even commwholeies to accomplish tasks that require collaboration, brainstorming and synergy. The primary objective of a team is delegation of responsibility and development of a good plan for the comp permition of a goal (Hughes and Jones, 2011). The interpersonal dynamics is about how people use communicatory cues such as facial expressions and body language to complement verbal communication in on-on-one inter works. The mind I decided to discuss interpersonal dynamics is because I saw the group as a cross-functional one rather than a functional one. The origins I think the group was cross-functional was that all(a)(a) the members in the group were specializing on different careers and alike we had never worked unne urotic as a team. The simulation game was a one cartridge holder project where the group would be dissolved after its completion. Parker (2015) noted that cross functional teams were to a greater extent susceptible to interpersonal barriers such as cultural biases, work styles, turf wars, conflicts, lack of trust, and differing priorities. whatsoever of these things contend out during our game simulation task.The second area that I am going to explore is performance of members in the group. I felt this is an area worthy of exploitation as the different members had a different level of performance towards contributing to the success of the group. It is impossible to separate team performance from individual performance because the former depends on the latter. Individual standards comprise of the performance expectations that severally team member expresses as personal pres for sure to achieve (Larson and LaFasto, 1999). I specifically noted that I dumbfound a lot of sudor to ma ke waterher with another member in the teamwork, which stimulated others to perform better, but neartimes it was not ample enough to reach our desired goals.I will employ the Gibbs Reflective Cycle (1988) and Lawrence-Wilkes REFLECT illustration (2014) to critically reflect on the two MSG experiences. I used Gibbs reflective model because it is a simple model to use and provides questions that I flip to answer in a particular order. alone like the Gibbs model, Lawrence-Wilkes REFLECT model uses a simple concept of reflection making it easy for the drug user to apply it. The model uses a bacronym (an acronym devised in reverse to fit a word) on the word REFLECT. I will not be using the Honey and Munfords learning style as it is in addition simplistic in its steps to allow me to critically reflect on my experiences.Gibbs reflective model is a recyclable alikel in reflection as it provides critical phases of an experience from what one experienced to how they would determine changes and serve better in subsequent events. The different phases include description, feelings, evaluation, outline, conclusion, and action plan. Below is the Gibbs reflective cycle with the germane(predicate) questions that need to be answered for each phaseFigure 1 (Gibbs, 1988)Gibbs reflective model directly fits to the accidents of the group.In my reflection, I was first wondering why there was no sense of cohesion in the group when we started. The opinions were so diverse and the commitments were so dissimilar. I was feeling that personal priorities and interest were coming in the way of life of cooperative approach. Most of the group members, including I felt distraught and disillusioned by the progress of the group in the initial weeks due to the lack of organization and poor ranking. We did not have a perisher who would inspire us through the disillusionment. In the Tuckmans stages, the group dwelled so much in the forming stage where the group members were getting to know each other and there was general socializing (Martin, 2006).Lawrence-Wilkes -REFLECT model (2014) comprises of steps that are almost similar to that of Gibbs reflective cycle but it goes to a deeper level to analyze elements such as strengths and weaknesses, reference to external checks, waitressinging at the responsibilities and asking the what if question. The model examines more details that not only assist in reviewing past experiences but also learning from them and integrating new ideas to enable change. The model requires reviewing of experiences from both objective and subjective angles. Below is the REFLECT barconym used in the model.Table 1 (Lawrence-Wilkes and Ashmore, 2014) Lawrence-Wilkes REFLECT model of Reflective PracticeR1. Reflect olfactory modality back, review and ensure intense experiences are reviewed cold (subjective and objective).E2. EvaluateWhat happened? What was important? (Subjective and objective)F3. FocusWho, what, where, etc. Roles, respons ibilities, etc. (Mostly objective)L4. go outQuestion why, reasons, perspectives, feelings? Refer to external checks. (Subjective and objective)E5. EvaluateCauses, outcomes, strengths, weaknesses, feelings use metacognition. (Subjective and objective)C6. ConsiderAssess options, need/possibilities for change? Development needs? What if? scenarios? Refer to external checks. (Mostly objective)T7. TrialIntegrate new ideas, experiment, contain action, and make change. (Repeat cycle Recall)Incident 1My group was comprised of five members that are evidently from different cultural backgrounds and also hold diverse views and values. I noticed due to the diversity in the group, there was no effective communication and there were issues when it came to sense of responsibility. The first incident was our groups inability to operate cohesively due to differences in personality and cultural values. My preceding encounter with the topic of diversity is that it (diversity) can lead to team str ength and innovation (West, 2012). But on the contrary, the initial weeks of our groups was faced with communication challenges as we worked together.Initially, I thought that the reason for the incongruity was that the exercise was new to everyone and no one had substantive information on how to go about the exercise. Everyone in the group was in constant search of what is expected of the exercise. The disappointment was evident in week 3 due to the poor ranking, which left everyone de activated. Waller, Gupta and Giambatista (2004) noted that lack of effective communication leads to deviation from attaining team goals. We got confused on what were our desired goals. Despite the miscommunication, the group was able to function as there were elements that were consonant with structuration theory on how groups use rules and resources to form its structure (Frey, Gouran and Poole, 1999).Our group was held together by the weekly contact that were mandatory and I believe were it not f or the rules, the team functioning would have been impaired.I must delight in my group because irrespective of the communication barriers, the group was able to hold on and depict to overcome these barriers. The alludeance of the meetings was satisfactory as there was minimal absenteeism, which was accompanied by apologies and genuine reasons such as complaint or class time. In my assessment, the general theme of the group according to Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was feelers instead if thinkers. Feelers judge situations based on feelings or emotions while thinkers judge situations based on logical analysis (Quenk, 2013). Most of the choices that were do such as marketing for orbit cars were based on personal emotions, which lead to disregard of facts and information.I must admit despite the personality clash in the group all the group members were committed to accomplishing the task successfully. The commitment even inspired us on meeting doubly a week to try and bett er our ranking and get a better grip of the exclusively game simulation concept. Personally, I was not thinking about how to bridge the miscommunication gap or clash personalities but on the task at hand and this was also the general trend in the group. flush up to the end of the exercise in the 12th week, we communicated but we never did so effectively. The ranking of the group improved over time even though it did not reach the desired goal. Upon critical review at the end of the exercise, I could only make sense of the group performance through the self-organization theory. The theory postulates that order can arise from a disordered system due to interactions of distinct part of the system.The incidence on interpersonal dynamics, especially the personality clashes and miscommunication between the group members, helped me to develop transferable skills to do with closing ranks when it comes to personality and cultural differences. The group would have attained a better rank i f we resolute the disillusionment in the early stages of teaming as this would have gone a long way in working harmoniously (Searle and Swartz, 2015).I also saw the fruits of commitment as the members were able to perform regard little of the cohesion problems.Incident 2The second incident was related to the individual performances and their contribution to the overall group performance. Personally, I believe am a natural leader who engenders the mantle of leading in some(prenominal) situation. I believe that one does not need to be appointed formally to take the leadership role but can take the steering wheel from any position. I subscribe to the relationship-oriented leadership model where the leader is more focused on the human resources than the task at hand. I would motivate the members of the group by telling them how the assignment was important and how we should all be committed towards improving our ranking. The group needed a small dose of external motivation to kee p them going and energized (Beagle, 2012). When I was actuate and inspiring the team, I found the motivator in me, which was essential in keeping myself going and also the group.I noticed that a team produced synergy and a better output than an individual but it is the latter that contributes to the results of the former. Despite the shaky start, we realized that we need to use our individual strengths for team success (Graham et al., 2012). At different points of the assignment, we had to assign and delegate duties and cover ground on the different actions that needed to be taken. We seek to leverage on the strengths of the individual members as much as possible. The use of individual strengths to delegate tasks did not work effectively as I expected as the third phase of Fishers Theory of stopping point Emergence was not adhered to. The third phase is the emergence phase where an individual needs to soften on their stance and let the interest of the team prevail over personal i nterests (Littlejohn, Foss and Oetzel, 2016). In some situations, we had to go with individual opinions instead of consensus, which did not work well for the team.In the future, I would advocate for more agree and consensus instead of personal opinions as the latter risks beingness biased and non-inclusive. I learnt that anyone can be a situational leader if they wanted to make a difference amidst uncertainty and anyone can lead from any position (Alizor, 2013). I saw the importance of delegating duties as it covered more ground but it needs better coordination to achieve a common goal.I believe my strength and individual contribution was leadership and motivation.ConclusionI appreciate the experience as it was an eye-opener especially on different aspects of group tasks. I understood how group dynamics can work against the success of a team and they need to be identified and dealt with at the early stages of an assignment. For instance, team members need to understand each others values and culture, and accommodate them. reason each other is the first step of breaking the communication barrier. I appreciated the importance of effective communication, which our group lacked, eventually leading to poor coordination and cooperation. I must admit that the strength of our group lie in commitment more than anything else. After communication, personal interest was the other weakness. I learnt the need to let other team members speak their mind, brainstorming and softening individual stance for the good of the team. I was a culprit myself of holding strong stances, sometimes unconsciously, on some of the issues. Looking back at the exercise, I acknowledge that for better interpersonal reactions, the parties need self-awareness. Lastly, I appreciated the power of leadership in motive and inspiring team members towards tasks accomplishment.References Alizor, J. (2013). Leadership Understanding Theory, Style, Practice Things You Need to Know about Leading an Organ ization. first ed. Bloomington, IN WestBow Press.Beagle, M. (2012). The Rock Motivational Leadership A Leaders Perspective On Inspiring Others eon Finding the Motivator in You. 1st ed. Bloomington iUniverse, Inc.Boyd, E. and Fales, A. (1983). Reflective Learning Key to Learning from Experience. Journal of humanitarian Psychology, 23(2), pp.99-117.Frey, L., Gouran, D. and Poole, M. (1999). The handbook of group communication theory and research. 1st ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif. Sage Publications.Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing A guide to teaching and learning methods. 1st ed. London FEU.Graham, S., Emery, S., Hall, R., Blanchard, K., Huntsman, J., Lennick, D., Kiel, F. and Jordan, K. (2012). Leading Teams with Integrity Advice from Leadership Experts. 1st ed. Upper saddle roof River, NJ FT Press.Hughes, R. and Jones, S. (2011). Developing and assessing college student teamwork skills. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2011(149), pp.53-64.Larson, C. and LaFasto, F. (1999 ). Teamwork. 1st ed. Newbury Park (Calif.) Sage Publ.Lawrence-Wilkes, L. and Ashmore, L. (2014). The reflective practitioner in professional education. 1st ed. London Palgrave Macmillan.Littlejohn, S., Foss, K. and Oetzel, J. (2016). Theories of Human Communication. 11th ed. Long Grove, IL Waveland Press, Inc.Martin, B. (2006). out-of-door leadership Theory and Practice. 1st ed. Windsor, ON Human Kinetics.Parker, G. (2015). Cross- Functional Teams Working with Allies, Enemies, and Other Strangers. 1st ed. San Francisco, Calif. Jossey-Bass.Quenk, N. (2013). Essentials of myers-briggs type indicator assessment. 1st ed. Hoboken, N.J. Wiley.Searle, M. and Swartz, M. (2015). Teacher Teamwork How do we make it work?. 1st ed. New York Association for inspection Curriculum Development.Waller, M., Gupta, N. and Giambatista, R. (2004). Effects of Adaptive Behaviors and Shared Mental Models on Control Crew Performance. Management Science, 50(11), pp.1534-1544.West, M. (2012). potent Teamwo rk Practical Lessons from Organizational Research. 1st ed. Chichester, West Sussex John Wiley and Sons.Theories Used1. Gibbs Reflective Model (1988)2. Lawrence Wilkes REFLECTION (2014)3. Tuckman Stages of throng Development (1965)4. Structuration Theory5. Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (1956)6. Self-Organization Theory7. Relationship-Oriented Leadership Model8. Situational Leadership Model9. Fishers Theory of Decision EmergenceAppendicesLogbook week No./date of meeting(s)Action point(s)Team member/time of arrival/leavePotentially areas that every member worked onState of team / work in progressWeek 2 (3th October 2016)Get all members of group together and sign learning campaignStructuring what must be through for close meetinga)George Iashvili -11amb)Claudia Borges-11amc)Carlos Chalhoub-11amd)Cagri Ozecoglu-11ame) Ilya Ignatov-11am(All left same time as class was finished) at that place was no game simulation this week so no work to be done as a group yetLearning Contract s igned and we got all group members now.Week 3-First shock on Gaming Simulation (14 October 2016)1.Speak about steps we needed to take for the game and whether we all watched the video and read the game manual.2.Start to look at game excel sheet.3.Making sure all members had put their name in the game simulation.a)George Iashvili-1pmb)Claudia Borges-1pmc)Carlos Chalhoub-1pmd)Cagri Ozecoglu-1pme) Ilya Ignatov-1pm-All members that insureed looked at each section of the decision sheet together and made decisions as a group.Task completed-all the members looked at the decision archive and discussed on WhatsApp what steps to take as well as what we needed to do in the next meeting, which was to figure out a more accurate strategy and approach.At this point we still didnt know how to play the game properly. Some group members still not giving suggestions on the decisions. Some members still not contributing.Week 3-Second Meeting on Gaming Simulation (17 October 2016)1.Make sure we all k new how to fill in the decision document.2. Conclude on what car we wanted.2.Fill in decision document.3.Submit the decision document.a)George Iashvili -Didnt Attend, sick on sidereal day of meeting.b) Claudia Borges-Didnt Attend, informed group could find out due to having lessonc)Carlos Chalhoub-1230d)Cagri Ozecoglu-1230e) Ilya Ignatov-did not attend, could not attend due to having lesson too.-Claudia filled in some of the document and sent an email to the rest of the group. The members who attended all worked through the rest of the decision document together.-The group had little to no strategy in mind as we did not know the specifics on how to play the game properly yet. The group tested and true using common sense and logic as we hadnt known that the information was available on the mega learning website.Feeling disappointed with the result that we got for last week.However,we tried our best for the next decision to be better. Some group members go demotivated.Week 4(20/10/ 2016)1.To look over everything and looked at the results of the last simulation game and analyse it.2.We had the game reset this week3.Try to make changes to the game in order to get better results.4.To ensure the use of the information available on the mega learning website and blackboard on the consumer sensitivity and market growth, in order to configure a sluttish strategy.a)George Iashvili -1300b)Claudia Borges-1300c)Carlos Chalhoub-1300d)Cagri Ozecoglu-1300e) Ilya Ignatov-did not attend,but informed the group ahead of non-attendance.-We all looked through the decision document and made decisions on each section together as a group after thoroughly discussing everything. Also, we made sure we used the information available to us on consumer sensitivity, market growth and each decisions effect on budget.-We had a much better idea on how the game simulation works this week and used all the information given to us which made our decisions improve greatly. Also, almost the whole g roup was at the meeting which was very beneficial for the decision analysis and strategy direction that the group wanted to take.There was a clash in personalities which was affecting some decisions.There was a lot of miscommunication between the group.Week 5(27/10/2016)1. We planned to keep to our strategy that we used in week 4 as it seemed to work.a)George Iashvili -11amb)Claudia Borges- did not attendc)Carlos Chalhoub-11amd)Cagri Ozecoglu-11ame) Ilya Ignatov-11am-All who attended analysed the decisions together as a group and made more aggressive decisions on umpteen of the consumer behaviour sensitivity and impairments of the sectors, which changed our strategy direction.-We couldnt keep to our strategy that we had in the anterior week and the decisions made were too aggressive which gave us a low rank on the mega learning simulation.Some results and decisions that we made the week before worked and gave the game a good result so we kept them the same.Week 6 (3/11/2016)1.Reg ion 2 started this weekSo, we had to make sure to look at each section of the simulation game and try to increase our capacity of how numerous cars we can sell on component 1 and get much capacity for realm2.-Try to look at Eco-friendly cars and lower product appeal from the previous week because it was too high up.3.Look at marketing appeal for cooking stove cars higher and try focus on low hail and eco-friendly cars because the market growth is increasing in both these two sectors.a)George Iashvili -1230amb)Claudia Borges-1230amc)Carlos Chalhoub-1230amd)Cagri Ozecoglu-1230ame) Ilya Ignatov-1230am-Claudia looked at filling how many models in range for each category, how many new parts needed and feel at price for the cars.-the rest of the group tried to focus on the action points so making sure that look at product appeal and which areas need the most product appeal, like eco-friendly was too high the previous week so to decrease that and-Focus on trying to get the EBIT tea r down and capacity up and at the same time to make the best decisions for the simulations game based on last weeks results.-We now had a better misgiving of how the game was worked and we starting to get better rankings now. Now we had a better understanding we could do better for contribution 2.Week 7(8/11/2016)1.Try to meet more as a group, have at least two meetings a week.2.Try make sure we discuss the previous weeks results3.Try to focus on eco-friendly and image sectors due to this these two sectors being the ones we are doing weak at the moment.4.Try to look get product appeal up and again look at capacity for eco-friendly and image sector. Also, look at image cars due to sales revenue being so low in that sector and see what is happening and what is affecting for cars not to be selling.5.Decrease low monetary value unit cost and family unit cost too.-Focus on region 1 as region 2 sales are good, however the sales for region 1 have gone down from last week.a)George Iashvi li -14pmb)Claudia Borges-14pmc)Carlos Chalhoub-14pmd)Cagri Ozecoglu-14pme) Ilya Ignatov-14pm As a group, we tried to resolve our action points such as meeting more often, so timetables were sent of each of the members timetable so we could see which daywould be the best to meet.Secondly, we looked at resolving our problem with image cars and why we were not selling as much cars as we could and found out this was due to capacity was low and tried to increase this for the next weeks decision.Thirdly, try to decrease the unit cost for low cost due to being too high and also for family the unit cost was too high as well so we decreased this too.Look over previous weeks results and compare to current week to see what is happening and what is going wrong in the eco-friendly and image sectors and why our capacity is not increasing.Achieved a good ranking for region 1, however region 2 ranking went down.Week 8(17/11/2016)1.Focus on family cars sector because our sales have gone down a lot f rom previous weeks2.Focus on image sector too because our capacity for region 1 is still low and for region 2 is too low and we need to try and increase this.3.Discuss our results from previous week and what decisions need to be changed based on teachers feedback and our online results.a)George Iashvili -14pmb)Claudia Borges-14pmc)Carlos Chalhoub-14pmd)Cagri Ozecoglu-14pme) Ilya Ignatov-14pm-As a group we focused on looking at the capacity for the eco-friendly and image cars because it was really low and also tried to increase low cost cars capacity due to selling a lot of low cost cars each week, however not using all capacity.-Making sure that we kept some decisions the same such as low cost and family car unit prices.Week 9(24/11/2016)1.Looking at previous weeks decisions as it was good result and there was a lot of increase for capacity for all regions 1 and 2 and sales revenue increased. So look at what decisions were made that got as to have such a good result.a)George Iashvil i -14pmb)Claudia Borges-14pmc)Carlos Chalhoub-14pmd)Cagri Ozecoglu-14pme) Ilya Ignatov-14pm-As a team we made sure we went through each region 1 and 2 and made sure we looked at the engineering, how much we were spending in capacity and also HR and also looking at unit prices for each sector such as low cost and family prices.These two sector prices were too high and causing us to lose customers.Capacity was also a problem for our region 2 because we had less capacity for low cost cars and family and we tried our best to increase this and tried to keep our costs down.However, at the same time trying to fix our problem with eco-friendly and image cars due to the fact that no cars were being sold in that sector.-Making sure that we make investments into region 2-Try to look at unit prices whether too high or low.Week 10(1/12/2016)1.Make investments in region 22. Look at facilities for each car section and for each region 1 and 23.Look at prices for each section4.Again try to increase capacity in each section.a)George Iashvili -Could not attendb)Claudia Borges-Could not attendc)Carlos Chalhoub-1pmd)Cagri Ozecoglu-Could not attende) Ilya Ignatov- Could not attend-Carlos looked at each section and saw what we could do to firstly increase the capacity. The sectors we tried to increase our capacity were low costs cars and family cars in region 1 and 2, and eco-friendly cars and image cars in region 2 due to the fact that the capacity was 0. Then Carlos sent a copy of the file by e-mail to everyone in the group to have a look at before we submitted.-We also made some investments in HR and capacity for region 2-Increase Capacity-Look at eco-friendly and image cars sectors for regions twoWeek 11(8/12/2016)1.Look at region 2 image cars and eco-friendly and see why no sales being made.2.Again increase capacity for region 1 low cost and family cars and try to use all capacity available.a)George Iashvili -1pmb)Claudia Borges-1pmc)Carlos Chalhoub-1pmd)Cagri Ozecoglu-1pme) I lya Ignatov-1pm-As a group we discussed why we were having the problem in region 2 in the eco-friendly and image car sector. Due to the fact that for the last few weeks of decisions we have put invested in the HR division and also made others investments but despite this these two sectors did not make any sales.-We made a decision to sell off eco-friendly and image cars in region 2 and use the money to invest in region-Decision to sell off region 2 eco-friendly