- The strengths of the group
From our group, while working together to complete this coursework, overall we think we did very well. This is mainly because of the array of technical ability within the team and our ability to work well together as a team as well the amount of hard work that has been put in by the whole team.
Our strengths include the pool of technical ability between us in using the three software’s that the assignment was based on, as well as good cooperation between team members to fairly share out responsibility and work together as well as feedback to the team Our other main strength would be our ability to work well as a team as we are able to communicate well and share out responsibility fairly as well as generally get along as individuals.
- The difficulties encountered
Some of the difficulties we encountered were as follows:
- Learning to do certain tasks within excel and access
- Learning to use Sage without classroom learning
- Making time do the assignment as well as have team meetings
- Have all team members work fast enough and at a similar pace on the project
- Organise each task in such a way that more than one person can be doing different parts at the same time rather than wait on each other to finish our sections so we can do the next as this is not time efficient.
- Maintain good levels of participation in the planning stage by all group members so that all ideas on the issues can be considered and to streghthen team spirit.
- How difficulties were addressed
The difficulties were addressed in the following way:
- In terms of the problems related to learning how to do certain functions within each software, we spent time reading online tutorials, looking back on class notes as well as discussing with Mr Tetteh how these functions work.
- Regarding making time for working on the assignment and meeting we chose free time on our timetables that we were all available for to hold meetings and work on the project together,
- In order to get the team to work at a fast enough to complete the assignment on time and at a similar pace we discussed how much time would be needed to complete each task and separated them into major sub-tasks so that realistic deadlines could be set for tasks as well as weekly deadlines within our mini teams working on each task.
- Doing some of the tasks for the assignment
- All team members were asked by the group leader to scrutinise and discuss all issues regarding the assignment brought up in each meeting in order to maintain a high level of participation of all in the planning stages.
- Individuals experiential learning from the assignment
Nozmul Hussain
I believe I learned a great deal about project organisation and teamwork. In this project we learned how to look at the task and split it into sections and delegate in such a way that all members of the team can be actively working on something most of the time rather than always waiting on each other to finish sections that are pre-requisite to theirs. Prior to doing this project I have never used sage before, through this project I am confident in saying that I have attained a reasonable level of ability on sage, although initially it seemed very difficult as I didn’t know how do anything and I found the user environment difficult to understand, once I got over this first stage I developed my skills a lot faster.
- What we would do differently if we had to repeat the assignment
We would like to look for ways to cut down on bureaucracy involved in making a decision as each team member usually has a lot to say and on each issue and often is hard to get everyone to agree to move on to the next issue, although it is good to consider different views the time factor must be considered, furthermore after completing this assignment we all have trust in the group leaders decisions on most issues so it would be more time efficient that he only brings up issues up for discussion that could greatly benefit from it, this should also lead to the decrease in the number of team meetings which would save time.
- Positive and negative experiences within the group
Positive
Team working
Developing time management skills
Developing more practical IT and accounting skills
Negative
Some personal differences that lead to some strain on team work within the team
Pressures of internally set deadlines for every task much earlier than required
Too much time spent discussing in meetings
- Action plan
- meeting key deadlines by each member of the group
All team members met all major deadlines, not all task schedules were kept up with resulting often a lot of work having to be done just before key deadlines.
Below I will list some of the deadlines that were put in place,
- Arrange first meeting of the entire group to select the team leader and then discuss who will work on what tasks,
- Team leader decides who should be doing what tasks based on their abilities as well as to share out work fairly and in a way that they can expect the best out of the group by also considering who would work well together,
- Team meeting, each group working on each task must present their plan of action and timetable to finish the draft version well within deadlines set by Mr Tetteh so that there is time to review it and make amendments before submitting the coursework. (Team leader must agree with the timetables given or ask group to amend them if he feels there is a problem with it)
- Team leader will review progress with each group based on the timetables they have submitted on the previous meeting.
- Meeting with entire team when draft version is done by previously set deadline, in this meeting they discussed what needed to be improved and then set the final deadline as the day before the deadline set by Mr Tetteh.
- deliverables by each member of the group
Each individual managed to deliver the results that were expected of them, the role definition of each team member is defined in the ‘Role definition of the group’ section above, these roles were maintained through out although on some occasions some team members crossed over onto other tasks to help with specific problems arose that they were needed for on top of their existing responsibilities.
Nozmul Hussain and Abdul Quayum: Section 1- group progress report
The proof that this deliverable was achieved is this report itself as this was the task; I hope it is up to the standard expected of us.
For this task to be done I had to have a number of meetings to discuss progress with each member of the team so I could accurately report on progress. In order to report on how well the team did on working towards deadlines I kept in contact with the team leader Muhamed who let me know as each member got their work done in time for deadlines. I had in total two meetings with the entire team to discuss certain issues for the report such as what they thought were positive and negative experiences in the group, what we would do differently if we had to redo the assignment, difficulties encountered and how they were addressed, team strengths and weaknesses.. I discussed other issues with just the team leader as they were issues I could only take his view on as the overall team leader such as meeting deadlines and deliverables by each member of the group.
Khuram and Nozmul Hussain: Section 2- Working on sage section
Having taken part on this task I believe we delivered what was required of us, through this project I have learned to use sage to reasonable level, as for the quality and correctness of what we have produced that is for you to decide.
Abdul Quayum, Khuram and Muhamed Farid Ameen: Section 2- Working on MS Excel.
Having discussed with both of them and Muhamed the team leader we have all agreed that through this project that Abdul and Khuram have developed their Excel skills to a high standard that has enabled them to produce a high quality solution to tasks set in the Excel section, they are both very confident that they have done well, again how well they have done is for you to decide. As far we are concerned it was of a high standard that fulfilled the task and was done within deadlines while maintaining a high level of communication with the team leader.
Muhamed Farid Ameen: Group Leader
For this section I discussed with all the other team members about what they thought about Muhamed performance as a team leader. They were all positive in their remarks and unanimously agreed they would want him as team leader in future projects. The main points they made were; that he was very organised, managed team members and working groups well, kept all of us informed, portrayed a good example to the rest of the team through his consistency and reliability as well as his technical ability.
Muhamed Farid Ameen and Khuram; Section 2- Working on MS Access and MS Excel
These two team members have the most technical ability in the group so it was expected that they would finish their task earlier than the rest well before the deadline in place and yet still at a high standard which they did.
