Dumf5106 Reflective Practice : Reflect Assessment Answers

Answer:

Reflective Portfolio:

The following essay is going to reflect management skills in terms of operations. The purpose of this reflective essay is to demonstrate how I have developed idea and improved skills that I have chosen in order to perform operations.  One of the most important skills to improve operations management skills is to manage time during multi tasking scenario. Scheduling task for each unit and then executing the plan in accordance with the priority basis is a huge responsibility of an operations manager. Hence, I feel time management is going to be one of the most important  skills that needs to set in order to ensure leadership qualities as an operations manager of a business organisation. I would prefer to improve my time management skills as it would be reflected in my leadership skills as well in near future.  There have been different steps that I have selected to carry forward in a scheduled manner.  Following are the ways that I have to stand upon:

For many years I have been struggling with time management. I used to work as a content writer in an organisation. There I used to take up several tasks at a time in order to meet the set target. Though I would  be able to meet the required target at the end of the month, I could not make myself happy and contented because I used to miss a lot of deadlines. S The reason behind not meeting the scheduled deadlines for the providing the contents to the clients were the loads of work I would take up. It is not that innumerable works could not be completed at a time, however, effective and skilful time management strategy was needed. I tried different way t manage time and in order to do so , I started taking immediate tasks.  However, it would all go n vain as I still could not manage time.  Moreover, the quality of work deteriorated.  I have always felt that my working time needs to be organised and productive.  This was the greatest weakness i had while taking and submitting too many works.  I doubted whether I had procrastination, but  I never stopped working. So I realised that it was not procrastination, it was rather the sense of making things too complex to work. I had a tendency to take 5 minutes break after every one or two hours of continuous working on a project or more. As a consequence I would feel stressful and would end up finishing nothing in time.  The problems actually rose in recent years. While writing this reflective portfolio, I feel that I can gain confidence to improve my chosen skill so as to become productive and positive in my working area. I have decided that ii will improve my time management skills in 4 weeks period.  A month might be little too short however, my determination needs to be compact so  that I do not skip the process.

Defining Time Management:

Time management, according to Chase et al. 2013, is the skill to apply effective and particular schedule of time in order to finish one or more specific activities within a given period. on the other hand, a definition by Hansen 2011 states that time management does not  associates the creation of time in accordance with the convenience  of particular individual, it is rather the skill to use the provided time with much efficient manner.  Marquis and Huston 2011 rejected the notion that tie management is a term.  They said that it is not possible to manage time.  According to the scholar duo, no individual can mange time, rather the activities and events should be adjusted according to the given time frame.

The essay proceeds with the week wise time management schedule so as to particularise the works divided in definite time frame.  As I have previously stated, my time management program is going to be divided into the following schedules. Since there are only four weeks, these four weeks will be further divided into eight fortnights so as to narrow and fasten the organised work division.

Week 1: Searching Information and Setting Workshop:

It is not an easy task to manage time according to the given tasks. Hence, I need to improve certain areas in it.  In this context in my previous business organisation where i used to work as a content developer, I met tried to hold a meeting with y supervisor who was guiding me in every step since I was new to the organisation. Then I was directed to meet our chief operations manager and the employee motivator. Both of them were highly experienced in their respective fields. Therefore, I decided to talk to both of them. To my surprise, I managed to set an appointment with both of the senior managers of the organisation who took me into their consideration pertaining to certain level of the provision of professional guidance on time management. I was informed to attend workshop that the company was going to organise regarding overall development issues of the employees. It was a kind of motivational workshop that would guide the employees to success. I collected information regarding the workshop and started preparing for the participation thereafter.

For first four days of the week I involved myself in the study of the workshop and its kind and in order to understand the essence of the workshop I collected little information pertaining to time management so that I could raise questions to the motivator if I would have any. In the second half of the week I attended the workshop that exhibited different topics and issues of the employees of different companies. The workshop was no doubt quite useful in terms of providing the employees with motivation regarding work technique and recovery  of the professional setbacks. In the workshop I was directly handled by the experts and I was guided that I should jot down all the works I posses at a time.  I was told that I ought to filter the works as per priority. They repeatedly mentioned the word priority that strictly focuses illustrated the view that one needs to be skilful while making selection. The selection of the most prior work needs to be placed on top of the list where all the works are mentioned. The most urgent works should be dealt with immediate action and the less prior works shuld be placed accordingly.  The first directive method was quite useful for me as it taught me to be selective. Second, I was advised to to foresee the time before taking multiple works.  I needed to judge my capacity and should take the tasks. However, I did not rely upon this advice as I believed that capacity of taking and doing assignments could be advanced and developed at tomes. Therefore, I decided to reject the advice in immediate action. Onn top of that I was directed that a particular working schedule should be designed and a free time should be kept aside in need. There were some strategic plan outs that were supposed to be performed during the work. With the help of the designed schedule I could remind myself of the pending works.  Therefore, there were three basic techniques to ease the situation as well as to lighten the burden of extra work pressure. I was also advised to read some light materials such as motivational books and writings so as to keep motivating myself in complexities. I therefore, started carrying out all the advised processes to manage time from the very basic level. I realised that there are various situations that need to be dealt with cool brain and rationality so that I would not become perplexed with the complexities of loads of works.

Week 2: Theoretical Frame Work:

It is true that without the works on the theories presented  by the scholars, one could hardly understand the rational value of a particular subject or a problem. There are differtn theories of time management. These theories are set to be applied in the daily work series so as to comprehend the actual validity of those during the implementation. Theries of tme management can be categorised in to two sections: the classica theories of time management and the modern theories of time management.

The classical theories of time management encompass the disciplinary practices of the Greek philosophers and the mathematicians.  According to the roman philosopher Seneca, part of time is actually stolen from a human being or else they are cheated out of that.  As per the philosophy formulated by Seneca, time is one of the most potential resource that human being can use in order to achieve success through the path of light. If someone does not exploit the potential of flowing time, human works and performances are buried under the sand of the dead. Seneca’s philosophy is highly supported by most of the great organisational leaders. The belief that time runs the human fate and work culture needs to be developed within me so as to realise the actual value of it. We all know the value of time but we seldom can exploit the potential of meeting the time.  on the other hand, the principles of Pareto in terms of the usage and follow-up of time in working performances, can be taken into  account.   Pareto principles deal with the input and output relation of time and work performance.   

In the second week, I thus prefer to go through the principles of time and theories related to time management s as to gain profound knowledge regarding the ways of managing time. Theoretical understanding would definitely help me perform my tasks as per the schedules. Hence, the second week was quit essential for me.  

The aforesaid theories were quite helpful in creating theoretical framework of my own.  However, I wanted to explore the tools and comprehend the theories in an empirical manner. Therefore, I continued my research on the topics. However, this time my research was based on the practical conversations. This time I contacted few important people the organisation where I was working and developed the idea of different time management process. I tried to relate those processes with the existing time management theories- both the classical and modern. At the end of the week I developed my own time management theory and its framework so as to implement the rational thought in my work.

Week 3:  Using Tools in Order to Find Presentations and Information:

In the third week I went through Slide Share searching time management skills. On the other hand, I used different social media networks so as to maintain contact with different people around the world. Through Face book I afforded to contact five people who were either CEO of a company or the managing director. I found their names in LinkedIn and tried to contact them.  My target respondents were ten, however only five such persons responded to my request.  I, therefore, designed a set of questionnaires so as to develop the idea of my own response to theirs. Through Face book, I requested for their personal mail id and I was only provided two mail ids as I was not known to them.  Having heard about my studentship two of them provided me with their email and I sent the set of questionnaires to them. On the next day I received the mail with response to the questionnaires. The questionnaires were based on the theories I had developed in the second week.  

On the fourth day of the week, I followed Slide Share from LinkedIn searching the “way of managing time”. I found some effective slides that presented some important points for time management. The chosen slide was based on a book ““How to improve your leadership and Management skills: Effective Strategies for Business Managers” (Liraz 2013). With the help of the link, I searched the book in Google Scholar and went through almost the entire book (I could not go through the entire volume because of its width). After a through reading of the book, i realised that the time management skill entirely depends on an individual and the skill was definitely set to be upon the cause of self reflection of work.

 The book provided me with the insight of setting a particular goal for my life and specifically to set the goals for the particular work. The goal was not necessarily set to be a particular one for the entire life. Goal for a particular work might defer for that for the other.

Week 4: Developing Schedule: