admin in business

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Ravi Ahluwalia        Admin Ops        Tutor: Diane Appleby

Introduction

This coursework is for Unit 20, which is also called Administrative Operations (or Admin Ops) for the Business AVCE course.

In this coursework, I have to show I’ am capable of showing a variety of administrative skills for a project of my own choice. I have chosen to base my project on the Old Bailey.

In order to carry out my administrative skills, I had to carry out an activity such as, setting up and participating in an away day trip to an organisation for at least six people, in which I’ am the key administrator.

I also have to show knowledge and understanding of the roles of administrators in organisations.

 


In this coursework I’ am required to work in a group of people that have specific roles in the group and plan and organize (or administer) our own event for AVCE Business Studies Year 2, unit 20 – Admin Ops. Our event has to be well planned and multi-layered, as this will allow each individual in the group to act out their role.

My group is built up of 6 people. They are, Rachel, Chris, Sophie, Asif, Ashraf and me.

We have all worked together in Unit 1 (Business At Work) and have all obtained experience of producing information. Examples are in, Unit 3, 4 and 10 (Marketing, HR and Customer Service).

We all set each other positions or roles in the group in order to get our event started up. Below are my group’s roles/positions.

  • Rachel – Boss
  • Sophie – PR/Phones
  • Chris – Planner
  • Asif – IT
  • Ashraf – Research
  • Ravi – Research and minute taker.

As you can see from above I have a second job role. This is taking down minutes (or notes) at every lesson. This is to make sure we don’t forget to mention anything in-group discussions and can help all of us in every meeting the group holds.

These are all our roles in the group. We are also called Group A as there are 2 groups that have to organise an event.

We also have to organise and record our event by taking a camera. IT is a critical path as it allows us to broaden our knowledge on the place we want to go to for our event. We also must use a computer database to store information and manage our project efficiently to ensure a smooth running of it.

We had our first meeting at 11.33am on the 16/9/2004 and in the meeting we had to be sorted n groups and then allocate roles to each other. We also had an agenda. The agenda was to discuss project planning and allocate responsibilities to everyone in the 2 groups. Our tutor Diane Appleby said that we all had to start allocating a few more responsibilities to one another and discuss what we are all organizing for our event. She also stated we must use Microsoft PowerPoint to show our presentation for our event to the other group.

The lesson/meeting ended at 11.45am.

The next lesson and meeting was on the 20/9/2004 at 9.35am.

In this lesson/meeting we all recapped with what happened in the last meeting/lesson and all had to come up with ideas for our event.

We all discussed about what was happening in the group. As Asif is the

main person dealing with IT, he has to set up an “e-mail circle” to keep

the group work flowing. This can also allow external communication flowing in the group.

We then had to suggest what we were going to do for our event. We came up with the following ideas:

  • A visit to the Old Bailey
  • A trip to Pinewood studios
  • A Mars factory tour
  • A tour of the BBC
  • Go to the London Eye
  • Go to the Houses Of Parliament
  • Go to the Tower Of London
  • Go to Heathrow Airport

We wanted to opt for something that wouldn’t cause the group too much stress; conflict with anyone’s roles and that could involve everyone in the group. We didn’t want anyone in the group to be left out so we sought out the ideas that we came up with and suggested what one would be good for us.

Through thorough discussion, the group all thought it would be a good idea if we all organised an event to go to the Old Bailey.

                                        Objectives

We set up some objectives of our event. We had to:

  • Decide how we are going to get there (travel arrangements)
  • Find out how much the cost of travel will be
  • Research the Old Baileys opening and visiting hours
  • Find out if we had to pay for admission
  • Contact the Old Bailey and see if we could arrive there on a specific date (date is still yet to be decided)

The lesson/meeting was coming to an end but, we had our event idea planned and we sought our objectives to our event.

Lesson/meeting finished at 11.06am

The next meeting/lesson was held on the 23/9/2004 at 11.32am

In this lesson/meeting we had to do a “Belbin self-perception inventory test”. This is a psychological test that determined if our roles were ideal to suit us or if we were perfect to do another role. In this test I came up as a “Shaper” (my score was 92%). Here’s what the test had to say about a shaper: (Temperature chart on the next page)

“A shaper is a person that has a lot great need for achievement. They are usually aggressive extroverts and possess strong drive. Shapers like to challenge others and their main concern is to win. They like to lead and boss/push others into action. If an obstacle arises, they will find a way around it. Headstrong and assertive, they tend to show strong emotional response to any form of disappointment or frustration. Shapers are single minded and argumentative and may lack interpersonal understanding. Their role is the most competitive team role”.

I would agree to the Shaper role, as on the 13/9/2004 we had to fill in a skills audit sheet. This shows what I believe are my strong skills and the Belbin Shaper role supports my conclusion of this test. I have included the skills audit sheet and it can be seen on the other side of this page.

I found the test to be very accurate. As Chris, Rachel and Sophie were the other people present from our group; here are their team roles:

  • Rachel – Resource investigator
  • Chris – Team worker
  • Sophie – Implementer

The group all discussed our roles and thought if our roles in the group were best suited to us and wondered if we had to change our roles.

Lesson/meeting finished at 10.58am

The next lesson/meeting was on the 27/09/2004 at 9.36am.

In this lesson/meeting, we looked at our roles in the group and were deciding if we should switch roles. We decided if we did, this would allow us to get suitable roles that would help all of us get our event done more efficiently.

We discussed our roles for 20 minutes and came up with the following changes:

  • Sophie – PR/phones
  • Rachel – Planner
  • Chris – IT
  • Asif – IT and research
  • Ashraf – Research
  • Ravi – Boss

We decided these changes would be better for us as the “belbin test” told us what we were best at and we decided it was better if we worked on what we are best at.

As I’ am now the boss of the group, I now have to work effectively with the people in my group. I now have to:

  • Help Sophie with contacting companies
  • Help Rachel with the planning of the event
  • Help Chris and Asif with IT work such as the Gantt chart
  • Help Ashraf with research in the Old Bailey

Now that we had assigned better roles to each other we can carry out our assignment more effectively and sufficiently. We also had to view our team formation.

From extensive research in-group dynamics and the process of team building, we know a great deal about how teams operate. For instance, we know that teams go through relatively predictable stages. These stages are not hard and fast, but they suggest the sequence of activities in building a team. This sequence is traditionally called - Forming - Storming - Norming - Performing

Teams have a finite life. They form for a specific purpose and must disband once their mission is complete. Consequently there is a fifth and final stage, sometimes called Mourning. Achieving closure, acknowledging the end of a project and moving on is a vital part of the lifecycle of every team.

The following table describes aspects of the five stages.

Join now!

As I mentioned from the minutes taken from the 20/9/2004, we all decided to do an event on the Old Bailey and we had our objectives.

The objectives we set had to be worked on if we were to go to the Old Bailey.

                                Possible constraints:

We had a few constraints on some of our objectives. As we had all just changed our roles in the group, we all had to review on how we had to go the Old Bailey. As Asif is doing research, he had to research the Old Bailey and get some ...

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