The Exploring Management in modules textbook clearly specifies the importance of the planning process. Well, planning is fundamental for everything in life; ans I am sure many agree with that. We had an "egg drop" activity on our MGT class a few days ago. When my team and I got together to analyze what we had to do, we actually came out with a plan to win the challenge. We didn't really mention the steps necessary to come up with a plan. Even though we read the chapter and came prepare to class, nobody went through the process step by step. I think that was our first mistake. The first step is to define your goals and objectives. No problem with that, our goal was to release a "protected" egg from a desk to the floor; and our objective was to get those 5 points Prof. K was offering for such accomplishment. The second step is to compare where you are at the present with your objective and to determine your resources. We approached to the desk to see the materials, we measured and calculated how much of the resources we were going to get. We had 8 straws, some tape and we were allow to use the scissors. The third step is to develop several alternative strategies to come up with a positive result. We actually came up with an idea, we drew it in a piece of paper because it wasn't clear enough for everybody. We exchange different questions that contributed with an idea. I think that our problem in here was that we got stuck with the first alternative and not really with many changes to it. The next step is to actually make a plan. We did!!! I was the one who wrote down every step and what we used. The final step was to take the action and evaluate results. We took action but Tweety didn't survive. Unfortunately it scratched. We were so excited because we were so sure that it was going to work out but, it didn't. So, we took action but after wards we didn't discuss what went wrong. Another mistake.
Probably if Prof K gives a second chance to try it again, we wouldn't do it right because we didn't talk about what went wrong in our plan. It was fun though.... but we didn't get those points. :(
I truly belive that planning is something that seems a little more complicated when working in groups. Since there are so many personalities, many different ideas and thoughts, you wanna give a chance to every one to be part of it and consequently we lost control and ended up doing the opposite of what we were asked to do. Leadership is an important factor in group planning. First, because is good to have someone who count with the proper leadership skills to direct the group to accomplish the goal and second, you want to delegate in order for everyone to focus on one things instead of 3 or 4 that will not be properly executed. Like you, my tean failed to keep the egg save, but we learned from our mistake.
ReplyDeleteplanning, i would say is underrated. people dont really consider the exclusive 5 steps in the planning process, even though, sometimes, we do it intuitively. but as for the egg-dropping experiment, i think this was all a lesson learned. however, i think if professor did give us a second crack at this experiment we would perform better because, in a sense, we are a little familiar of what not to do. dont be so discouraged :)
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ReplyDeleteI think planning is one thing, taking action is another thing. I agree with LittleShark said that everyone is different; they each had their own opinion. Another thing about planning I think is important is following the planning steps. For our group and many other groups, I think the alternative plan is a problem.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the job process measurement or the evaluation of the performance is a very important task to will help us better understands the whole planning process.