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 information on the Old Bailey. Sophie has to obtain a phone or help number to the Old Bailey and see how we were to get there and see how much admission to the Old Bailey would be. Rachel was absent which proved a major down fall for the group, as she needed to plan the travel arrangements and with Sophie see how we were going to get there as they needed to plan the travelling hours and what date would be suitable to get there.
The only way we could work around this is by, if either Chris and/or Asif work together, they could obtain some information from the Internet on the Old Bailey and help Rachel and Sophie into achieving our objectives.
I also made everyone present to exchange e-mail addresses and mobile phone numbers to allow external communication flow in the group. The biggest constraint in the group so far is internal communication. This can be fixed if everyone is present for most of the time; the group work together effectively and help each other out.
Possible problems that may interfere with our plans are, the Old Bailey may not want college students going to the Old Bailey as a serious court case may happen or, they may have to close on one of our visiting dates etc. in case of an event, we have back up events to go to. We will have to seek out what we could do to get another visiting time and use Internet documents and letters to the Old Bailey and see if we could persuade them to let us go to them.
In case something does happen, we have decided to go to one of these places:
- Pinewood studios
- The London Eye
- Houses Of Parliament
- Heathrow Airport
In case we have to do choose another place for our event, we have decided to do the following:
- Asif writes a professional letter to Pinewood studios asking if it would be possible to do a visit in the studios
- Sophie rings and/or writes a letter to Heathrow Airport requesting to visit them
- Rachel plans on how to get to these other places and arranges the times and dates appropriate to get there.
We will have to do research all over again for one of these other places, but we will be prepared to do so, as everyone in the group as a thorough understanding of what they have to do and what needs to be done.
We have to decide on a date. We have decided we should do our event on Thursday 11 November 2004 or do our event during the study week (i.e. half-term week: 25th-29th October).
Lesson/meeting finished at 10.59am.
As I mentioned above, we had to do some research and/or do individual work as well. Asif is doing research so he has to gain some information on the Old Bailey. He has to gain information on the Old Bailey’s opening/closing hours, where the Old Bailey is located and how many courts there are in the Old Bailey. Sophie has to phone the Old Bailey and arrange an interview with one of the clergies/lawyers in the Old Bailey. If that isn’t going to be a possibility, we will then interview a lawyer/solicitor (providing they have a lot of experience) from her family. Rachel is the planner, so she has to plan out what we are exactly going to do on the day we visit the Old Bailey, i.e. she has to plan out what time we meet to go to the Old Bailey, how we are going to get there, what is our spending budget etc. Chris has to do a Gantt chart, as this will show what we have planned/developed in the time we have until the trip is being held. My role as the shaper/boss is to make sure everyone is doing their jobs/roles sufficiently and help out anyone that is struggling with their roles.
The next lesson/meeting was held on, 30/9/2004 at 11.34am.
We have decided on a date to visit the Old Bailey. We have chosen two dates. Monday 25th October and Friday 29th October. We have decided these dates as they are both during the study week and everyone has agreed that these are good dates. Everyone is fine with them, We all agreed to meet up at Slough train station at 9am as this is when cheap train tickets will be issued and by the time we get to the Old Bailey, it will probably 10.30am/11am and this will give us time to record our journey specifically to our day plan.
After the lesson/meeting we were discussing where the Old Bailey is located. We found out that the Old Bailey is located in London and we needed a tutor to come with us, as it is a requirement. We need to ask Diane if she or another tutor can go with us
I have also found some new additional information towards the Old Bailey. I have found out that it is Newgate Street in Central London. I have discovered that it has 18 courtrooms. I have discovered information regarding some of the court hearings that has taken place in the Old Bailey and what hearings take place in the courtrooms. Rooms 1 and 2 are for notorious killings (such as the Soham killings) and terrorist trials. Courts 3-11 and 13-18 are for any sort of trial. Courtroom 12 is for long fraud trials. I have also discovered in order to get there, we will need to get the underground tube station and go to St. Paul’s tube station via the underground central line. I have also found out the address of the Old Bailey and court trial hours. They are: 10am-1pm, 2pm-5pm. We will have to choose a decent hour to go to the Old Bailey as there are short court hours and we cant afford to miss a hearing. If we are to respond to this information efficiently, we need to find out the tube timetables, check on the directions on how to get to the Old Bailey and see how much the train tickets will be. We also need to plan on how we are going to reach there on time (i.e. plan out a suitable time to get there.). I will need to work with Rachel, as she is the planner and help plan out the day planner for when we actually carry out the away-day trip. All this additional information can be seen in the appendix.
Lesson/meeting finished at 12.58pm
The next lesson/meeting was on the 4/10/2004 at 9.33am
We have been discussing Ashraf’s position in the group. He has been absent from every group meeting and Admin Ops lessons. As he is relatively new to the college and group, no one in either group has his mobile/home number. We as a group have discussed his behaviour and role in the group. We have concluded he is never present, hasn’t helped in the group, shows no interest in this unit and is holding the group back. We have discussed this with our Admin Ops tutor Diane Appleby and I have been given Ashrafs home number. The only thing I’ am left to do is, contact Ashraf and see what is happening with him and see if he is at all coming back to the college. Ashrafs behaviour and lack of commitment to the group and group work is proving to be a major constraint as he could really help us gain more information, as his role is research. This would have been a major benefit to the group and to the work, as we would have had double the information and double the work.
As I was given Ashraf’s contact number, I have tried contacted him but I have received no response. I will keep trying.
We also had to do a mind map. The mind map was created by Tony Buzan and shows what we want to achieve and how we are going to achieve our aims. We had to think of a word that shows what we want out of this unit. My word was achievement. How I was going to achieve my achievement, was by doing these aims:
- Research the Old Bailey
- Plan more into this unit
- Contact the Old Bailey
- Act out my role
How I was going to achieve these aims was by:
- Completing all work that is set out
- Be a good leader in the group
- Make sure everyone in my group is confident in the work we are doing.
I also had to say something that showed what I was like as an individual. I said “I’ am a competitive person and I like to work to the best of my ability – always”. I chose to say this as I felt that this was 100% true about me and I felt that it fit into my aims and objectives.
Lesson/meeting ended at 10.57am.
The next lesson/meeting was on the 7/10/2004 at 11.34am.
We really needed to find the location of the Old bailey and arrange the train ticket prices. In this lesson we were just going over our work that we have done so far and we had to do it on the college computers.
We were in the college library and we were doing the first draft of this unit so we could a start on this coursework.
Lesson ended at 1.06pm
The next lesson/meeting was on the 11/10/2004 at 9.36am
Asif produced his letter that he was sending to Pinewood studios. The letter was weak in terms of grammar, but after a few corrections were made, a different letter will now be sent to Pinewood. Asif is also planning to phone Pinewood studios and will need a witness to make sure the phone call is genuine and will have to be recorded onto paper. It will also need to be signed by Asif and the witness to state that it was a genuine phone call and the whole thing wasn’t made up.
Ashrafs role in the group was again being reviewed in the group. This is being a serious matter in the group as we all feel as we are being kept behind in our work.
Sophie is still waiting for a reply from Heathrow airport and in the mean time we are still concentrating on the Old Bailey.
Like I mentioned before, the final date we have set for the trip will be on Friday 29th October 2004. We will all meet at Slough train station at 9am, because, like I mentioned before, everyone in the group finds it easy to access.
I have to look at clerks in the Yellow Pages as, if we are unable to interview a clerk at the Old Bailey, we can rely on the one I interviewed from the Yellow Pages.
The next lesson/meeting was on the 14/10/2004 at 11.32am.
In this lesson/meeting we got close to making our event a reality. We have got a day plan worked out (i.e. what we are going to do for the whole day), we are still researching train tickets and see what will be the cheapest option, what our maximum expenditure for the whole day will be, how long we are going to spend at the Old Bailey and what equipment we will need to show evidence that we did go to the Old Bailey. Rachel was given a booklet full of forms. In the booklet were various forms that showed our budget, consent from to be filled out by everyone’s parents/guardians, and various other things. I have to make copies of the parent/guardian consent forms so that everyone’s parents/guardians sign the form and are aware that their child is going to the Old Bailey.
There is however a bit of a problem of what we are going to do for lunch on our event day. As it is Ramadan for Sophie and Asif, they wont be allowed to eat or drink during the day until 6pm. As this conflicts with our time for the trip, we decided to move the time forward as, we can still see a court trail at the Old Bailey and Sophie and Asif can eat/drink something whilst we are on our event.
There’s still some work that isn’t produced by the two people that are doing IT. Chris still hasn’t produced a group Gantt chart. This is a major asset to the group as this details the groups activities in the days and months that we have been planning our event. It is urgent that this Gantt chart is produced.
Lesson/meeting ended at 1.10pm.
Next lesson/meeting was held on 21/10/2004 at 11.31am.
We have discussed Ashrafs position in the group and we have concluded he is not returning to college let alone to the course lessons. We have decided to just make it me, Sophie, Asif, Chris and Rachel in the group as we have done most of the work. We have borrowed Samara from Group B to help us with the research side for our group to ensure we still have six people in our group, as this is a requirement for the course work.
Afterwards we just discussed and agreed on the terms of our event, re-discussed our event plan and just wished everyone a good half term. Sophie and myself managed to discuss with Diane our interview with my neighbour who happens to be a solicitor. We had an approval from Diane and we have organised a date and time and questions to ask my neighbour. All we have to do now is find a tape recorder, as this will provide us with audio proof and documentation of the interview and proof we did it.
Lesson/meeting ended at 1.07pm.
We have now done most of the group work and we now we are all focusing on our individual work. We have planned and administered our event and all we have to do now is go to our event and carry it out.
I have received two letters from the Langley AVCE Business studies group who are also doing the Admin Ops unit. The letters both say that they would like to hold a conference in December at the Langley campus and discuss the three events (Windsor Group A and B and the Langley campus event) that are being held and that they would like to show each group what the event trips were like and how they were administered/carried out. We have agreed to meet in December and have the conference then.
Like I mentioned before, I said we had to plan a budget and do a day plan. My Admin Ops tutor gave me a form booklet to fill and I had to fill it out and put in the details of the event that were going to happen.
In this booklet I had to fill in:
- Where we were going
- Purpose of visit
- Date of visit and return
- Number of students going
- Mode of transport
- Expenditure
We decided the most appropriate figure to spend on our event was £35 per student. In total we have six students and times that by £35 gives us a total of £210. This is the total cost for the group.
The combined cost for the Windsor groups and the Langley group comes up to £1000. This is because we have to include, food, transport, personal costs etc.
On the next page is a travel plan. This shows what we are planning to do on the 29th October 2004 (or our event date).
As we have completed all our group work, we have used a variety of communications. We have used:
- Written communication – internally
- Oral – internally and externally
- Internet – externally.
We had used written communication as Asif had to write a letter to Pinewood studios which unfortunately never did reply to his letter.
We had used oral communication throughout the duration of this coursework, as this is how we managed to get our group work completed.
We had used the Internet as a form of external communication as we were able to e-mail each other outside the Admin Ops lessons and help each other with the group work outside college.
My analysis of the communication in the group
Overall I believe we have done very well to achieve all our aims and objectives. We have worked well as a team and we have made sure we have completed all the work set and we have improved our communication skills.
We have struggled with some of the work but we worked as a group to make sure no one falls behind and is kept up to date like the rest of us.
We had helped each other out in the planning of our event by continually communicating externally and internally to ensure all the group work that had been set had been completed. By doing so, we had been improving our communication skills and our group bond/relationship.
Contingency plan for Old Bailey day trip
In this part of the assignment I have to do a contingency plan. This is basically a plan that can be used to help make sure if anything bad were to happen on the event day or before the event day, ways we can go around the disasters and how we can carry out our event without any disturbances/disasters.
I also have to do a bar chart, which shows what my costs are and how much the day is going to cost me.
As the cost per student is £35, we have to make sure we don’t go over that budget. Here is my budget:
- Equipment - £5
- Other - £8
- Meals – 11
- Tickets (train) – £11
I have also compiled all this info into a bar graph.
This shows my total budget plan for our event, which will be on the 29th October 2004.
I have also done a Gantt chart as this shows what has been done up until now.
On the page after, I have justified the selection of the away day trip to the Old Bailey for Unit 20 – Administrative Operations
On the next page is a booklet, which shows the administrative requirements for the project in terms of physical and human resources.
This booklet had to completed to ensure we had approval to go to the Old Bailey field trip and everyone in the group had to fill this in and get approval (by signature) by our parents or guardians to allow us to go on the away day trip.
This was something that had to be filled in.
Without this being completed, we could not go on the away-day trip and complete our report on the Old Bailey.
Away-Day Trip Report
The away day trip to the Old Bailey Crown Court was held on the 29th October 2004. The Old Bailey Crown Court is situated in Newgate Street in London. We weren’t allowed to take any belongings with us so we had to leave them behind in travel agents.
On the away day trip to the Old Bailey Crown Court we went to one of the 18 courtrooms. This courtroom is part of the original court as it had its own private entrance. Before we could enter the courtroom we had to go through security clearing. We had to be frisked by a security guard and then enter a metal detector and then proceed to the courtroom.
Before we entered the courtroom we were told by a member of security we had to be quiet as any noise could disrupt the court session.
The security guard also told us what the trial was about.
In courtroom number 2, we saw a murder trial. The murder trial was based on a murder committed by a man who allegedly murdered his father. The man who murdered his father was a man called Steven Vaughan.
When we entered the courtroom we had to sit on sits that was at the top of the court which allowed us to see everything that was happening down below in the courtroom. This is known as the public gallery. From where I was sitting I could see the witness box, judges, barristers, the accused, a TV screen and people that were supporting the accused.
In the actual trial we were viewing CCTV footage, which showed what happened before the murder. After a while another CCTV footage was shown. In this footage, we could see a witness’s movement, which happened during the police interview, following the murder. This witness was a policeman who worked for the Metropolitan police force.
The policeman had to answer various questions that were being asked by a barrister. The witness had to go to the witness stand and answer the questions that were being asked by a barrister that seemed to be defending Steven Vaughan.
The witness from the Metropolitan police seemed to be very nervous when he took to the witness stand. The witness didn’t seem to understand the questions being asked and had to answer some of them a few times and had to ask to hear the questions again. This was probably due to the witness being very nervous and anxious to answer the questions he was being asked.
He was also trying to prove to the barrister who was defending Steven Vaughan that Steven Vaughan did in fact murder his father.
I also heard another barrister who was defending the witness. This barrister was saying that Steven Vaughan did murder his father and the witness was telling the truth and he did give the correct evidence, which could also prove that Steven Vaughan is guilty.
Steven Vaughan was present throughout the duration of the trial. He was sitting in a box, which was next to the jury and had a security guard with him. This is also known as the Dock. Steven Vaughan couldn’t say anything, as he wasn’t allowed to.
The trial lasted for two hours before breaking up for a lunch recess. In overall, in the two hours that I was in the courtroom, I heard:
- What had happened
- Who had been murdered
- What the witness had to say
- What the barristers views were
The trial is still continuing with the final verdict still being pending.
During the time that I was in the courtroom in the Old Bailey Crown Court, I learnt how a criminal court system works. I also learnt how a court works and the procedures you have to go through before you can enter the courts (i.e. going through the metal detector before entering the courtroom). I also learnt how a trial is held and how many barristers, witnesses and what needs to be stated/present at a trial.
I also learnt about the role of Administration. I learnt how to administer an event and how to plan and act out a planned event.
Like I mentioned before, I had to do a “Belbin self-perception inventory test” my role was the “Shaper”. I felt that my role as a Shaper had changed during the time we had spent at the Old Bailey. Instead of taking charge and making sure things went my way, we all agreed on the things that we thought would be good for the group. When we had to decide on a something, we agreed on the final decision as a group e.g. picking a courtroom to visit.
My role as a Shaper had changed during the away day trip and didn’t really show at the trip. I felt that instead of acting out my original role as a Shaper, I felt that I acted as a team worker.
I had noticed that I was a Shaper during the planning of the event and I acted as a team worker during the actual event. I expect to take to my Shaper role again when we do any group working and when we hold anymore group meetings.
Evaluation of the event
The event was a success as everything went according to plan and nothing bad had happened. I got to London Paddington and the Old Bailey on time and we arrived back at Slough train station on time. We were able to discuss what happened at the court very well and were happy we had a successful event. The event was a success and everyone enjoyed themselves at the away day.
Action points/next steps
It has been agreed that one day in December that we will hold a conference in December for Windsor AVCE Year 1 Business Studies students and tell them what Unit 20 – Admin Ops is all about. We have chosen the seminar to be held in the Windsor campus on Thursday 16th December and hold it between 11.30-1pm (the same hours as our Admin Ops lesson). We have decided to explain to the future year 2 students what this unit is about and show them various pieces of work that has been done and tell them about the events that the two Windsor campus groups have done and explain to them how they can achieve a good result in this unit. Also, do a wall chart displaying all the work that has been done and show pictures and notes explaining the unit and our work.
My role in the group
My role in the group is to be the boss. I had to delegate tasks to the people in my group to ensure smooth running of our planning until the actual event. The event that I helped to plan out was to go to the Old Bailey. I planned to go to the Old Bailey and watch a court trial in session.
I have played a key administrator role. As well as planning the role of the boss, I also played the role of the minute’s taker. This role included me recording/writing onto paper everything that had been said and done in the group meetings and review what I wrote. I also tried to improve the group if anything bad had happened in the previous meetings e.g. lack of teamwork communication.
I have supported my colleagues by helping them to do their roles. I have helped Sophie who does PR/Phones with her role of external research and communications, I have helped Rachel who does planning, plan out what we are going to do on the event day, I have helped Asif who does research, gain information on the Old Bailey Crown Court from the internet.
I would compare my role to that of a level within an organisation i.e. I’d compare it to a trainee manager.
My project was to see a court trial at the Old Bailey Crown Court and acknowledge what the court did. I had to research what professional people worked at the Old Bailey. I also got the chance to learn how a court system works in real life.
This event also gave me the chance to improve my written and oral skills, as I had to do a lot of work that involved writing, which has lead to improvements in my spelling, punctuation and grammar. This has also helped me to fill out my UCAS application. The event has also given me the chance to improve my peoples and communications skills. I improved on these two skills, as I had to do a lot of teamwork and helped me to interact with people and work as part of a team. The event planning has also helped me to be more creative when it comes to productive work, as I had to be very creative and productive when it came to making ideas and/or suggestions.
I have shown a computerized list of tasks. I have shown a travel plan – a list showing what has been planned for the day out. A contingency plan has also been planned out. This is a list that shows anything bad that might possibly happen on the away day and how the possible risks can be avoided/overturned.
I would also say that I am a step-by-step business student. I would support this as the planning of the event has shown that after one task has been completed, I would like to move onto the next task, as I find it can break down the work into easier pieces to complete.
I have also done some research on Warren Bennis who wrote about leaders and their roles in a group and/or business.
Warren Bennis also pointed out there are several qualities of a leader. They are:
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Technical competence – business literacy and gasp of one’s field
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Conceptual skill – a facility for abstract or strategic thinking
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Track record – a history of achieving results
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People skills – an ability to communicate, motivate and delegate
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Taste – an ability to identify and cultivate talent
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Judgement – making difficult decisions in a short time frame with imperfect data
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Character – the qualities that define who we are
I believe that I have achieved some of the leader qualities. I believe I have good conceptual skills as I managed to help organise the event for an away day trip to the Old Bailey. I have a good track record as I strive to achieve good results. My peoples skills are good as I managed to communicate internally and externally to the people in my group and I managed to help them with some work they found difficult and persuaded them to complete their work. I have good judgement as I managed to organise the way day plan in a short space of time and decided on the time and day we should go to the Old Bailey. My character is defined by my own personality and my Belbin role. I believe my Belbin role makes me who I’ am in my group and helps me to complete all my individual and group work.
Another thing I should do, as a team leader is to satisfy my followers’ needs and achieve positive outcomes. In order to do this, as a leader I have to provide four things:
By achieving meaning and direction in my group, I can create goals and objectives for all of us in the group to achieve. By creating trust, I can create reliability and consistency in the group. By creating hope and optimism, I can make people have energy and make them committed towards their work. By getting results, I can create confidence and creativity, in my group. By achieving what I have listed in the above table I can create a good working environment and create goals and objectives, reliability amongst the people in my group, commitment to ensure all work is complete and confidence in each other. This can lead to good team working efforts in my group and respond quicker to any necessary changes.
A1
As we have now achieved our aims and objectives, carried out our away-day trip and evaluated it, I now have to do my overall evaluation of my work in this unit.
As I mentioned above, we had to do a wall chart that displayed some of our work and pictures that were taken from our away day trip. I also mentioned that we had to display some notes of the away-day trip. The notes that had to be included were of the group’s own individual Belbin team roles. This could show to everyone that we applied our own Belbin role to the away-day trip to the Old Bailey and how the Belbin team role helped us in doing our coursework and the planning of the event.
The wall chart I believe is an effective way of what we did in the group and how much effort we had put into it. It showed we worked as a group and we put a lot of group effort into it. I believe my Shaper role also came into planning the wall chart as I helped develop it and made sure that everything was put into place and everyone put something onto the wall chart.
I believe when we organised our team roles after the Belbin test, we all immediately took to the roles. I managed to guide, delegate, assist, communicate and help the other members of my group and help share their responsibilities and group work.
We all managed to help each other develop the away-day trip and make it a success and made sure we were all prepared for the trip.
I managed to improve several things in the group. I managed to improve:
- The communication flow of the group both externally and internally as this was a weak area
- The planning of the away day. We had several ideas planned before hand and they proved to be weak so I managed to get everyone and discuss; how we can make sure everything goes according to plan, how we can improve on the areas we are weak on, how we can avoid any possible conflicts occurring (the contingency plan)
- The possibility of meeting our objectives
- The way the group interacted. When we had first “joined” as a group, we had problems in working altogether. By making sure we worked with each other nearly all the time, I managed to get everyone in the group perform better.
I believe that my Belbin role really helped me out when I improved on the four bullet points above. Without the use of my Belbin role, I doubt I would have been able to achieve any of the above four bullet points.
I strongly believe I greatly developed my leadership skills and roles in this coursework. I believe that this coursework managed to help me “develop” the key leader skills and role and it had made more assertive in the process, as I had control of the group and I made sure nearly everything went according to the way I wanted it to go. This was a great development process as it helped everyone in the group (along with myself) achieve everything that was planned and we managed to achieve them.
A2
In this section I have to talk about effective planning. We did some effective planning after the away-day trip to the Old Bailey. We had to effectively plan as a group a wall chart. The wall chart I have mentioned above is basically a wall display, displaying group work that we had done as a group.
The wall chart was created by, our tutor Diane Appleby telling both Windsor groups (Group A and B) to show evidence that we had carried out our away-day trip and display in some way. We had decided to do a wall chart as this could show we had carried out the away day trip and everyone could view it. We showed research into the Old Bailey and the statue on top of the Old Bailey and what the statue represented (truth and equality of justice) and our Belbin roles (mine can be seen in the Appendix). Photographs of Slough train station, London Paddington station and the Old Bailey were also taken as this showed proof that we did carry out the away day trip and that we did in fact go to the Old Bailey.
A contingency plan was also attached to the wall chart as this could show how problems could be produced and showed how we were prepared for the possible problems and how we could get around them.
I believe the wall chart is a good way of showing to different people and to the other group, the effectiveness of working in a group and what can be produced if everyone in the group effectively plans ahead and works together to get work produced.
The overall planning of the project was weak at the beginning, but later on, it proved to be very strong and very effective. We managed to build up on the group and helped everyone out in the group work. I enjoyed the group work and believe that the group had a strong bond and made ideas a reality. The planning of the project improved day by day as, we all worked together and improved on communications and group work. I strongly believe the planning of the event went very well and the group worked well towards it.
The project in total was good itself. The work I have produced I believe is very good and I have worked hard and well towards it. I have enjoyed working on this project and found it to be every enjoyable to do. The unit itself has been relatively understandable and learning about administrative operations has been very enjoyable to learn.
I have this to be a very good and enjoyable course work unit and have found this to be a good learning experience on administrative operations.