Abstract

This report is a reflection that reflects on the issue of conflicts & tension critically related to team building. Own contribution to the teamwork and role players have been discussed using the 6 stages of the Gibbs reflective model. Lastly, strategies for own & team improvement have been recommended in the report.

Introduction

Recently our team of five members had performed a project on “presentation of outline business case and PID documentation”. In this project, my role was to identify team responsibilities as well as roles using the RACI matrix. During the planning stage of the group project, an issue related to group dynamics & teamwork was encountered such as conflict & tension. This study is a reflective report that reflects on the issue critically. Own contribution to the teamwork and role played by me have been discussed using the Gibbs reflective model. In addition, strategies for own & team improvement using theoretical approaches have been recommended.

Reflection

Gibbs reflection model to reflect on the issue faced during teamwork

As per the views put forward by He et al. (2018), Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle developed in 1988 by Graham Gibbs gives structure to the learning from experiences. The model is used in examining experiences allowing the user to learn & plan from things that went well or did not. The model covers 6 stages such as Description, Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis, Conclusion and Action plan. The reflective account on the issue has been performed below using the Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle. 

Description:

As commented by Sekarwinahyu et al. (2019), the first stage of Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle involves the description of the experience. In the group project, I was responsible for identifying team responsibilities and roles using the RACI matrix. I thought that I will assign the team roles according to the knowledge of the members equally and no problem will take place. However, when I did so I found a lot of conflicts & tension arose as the team members were not satisfied with the tasks that were given to them. As a result, a lot of time was spent dealing with the conflicts. 

Feelings:

As stated by Rosen et al. (2018), the second stage of Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle involves the thoughts & feelings about the experience. Before I was assigned the task among the team members, I was quite happy and thought that I will make a smart decision for the project. However, after dividing the team roles among the members, conflicts arose and I felt quite unhappy & frustrated with it. I was certain that I will manage my team successfully but I failed to do so which reduce my morale. I felt more frustrated when I had to explain to my team why I had given them that responsibility instead of others. The conflicts were quite lengthy and time & energy consuming which had definitely affected the quality of the work. 

Evaluation:

As analyzed by Pitts (2021), the third stage of Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle involves the evaluation of experience, both bad & good. The thing that worked well & was good was the fact that each team member provided good quality work within the given deadline even after so many conflicts. This reflects that I was successful in managing the conflicts that took place among the team members. In addition, the fact that some team members had canceled their personal plans to complete the project on time motivated me to work harder. This was a positive contribution to the team’s work ethic. On the contrary, the thing that clearly was poor and did not work was my division of work among the team members. Some of the members were so dissatisfied with their allocated tasks that I had to change some of their responsibilities to ensure the successful completion of the project. My decision of distributing tasks without consulting from the team members was not a good idea. 

Analysis:

As per the ideas of Lacerenza et al. (2018), the fourth stage of Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle involves analysis of the situation to make sense of the things that have happened. I feel that the initial work division that I had done did not work well because I did not consult with the team members. I thought that with the help of RACI matrix, I will be able to divide the tasks effortlessly and my team will like it. However, I was wrong and my team members thought that I was partial with some of them which led to conflicts & tension. The team members thought that the division of tasks was not correct and thus wanted changes in them. I thought that if I divide tasks according to individual strengths then they will be able to meet the deadlines and produce quality work. In reality, this approach ended up costing me far more energy, time and resources than expected. We also had to stress & rush for a change of the allocated tasks. I also think the fact that we did not plan how to deal with future conflicts & tension that can take place was the main reason behind the issue in teamwork. 

Conclusion:

In the views of Constantinou et al. (2020), the fifth stage of Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle involves a conclusion on learning and activities that could have been done differently. During this process, I learned that in order to manage conflicts during the team project it is very important to consult and communicate with the team members. In addition, it is important to have necessary conflict management strategies ready during the planning process so that such kinds of issues can be dealt with easily. Communication is the key to a successful group project and we must always have a long-term thinking approach for better results. 

Action plan:

As suggested by Adeani et al. (2020), the last stage of Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle involves an action plan stating how to deal with similar situations in future and appropriate changes. With the above discussion, it can be said that the best way to deal with team working & group dynamics issues is to communicate and consult with team members as much as possible. Five approaches that can be used in managing conflicts are Accommodation, Compromise, Avoidance, Competition, and Collaboration (Salas et al. 2018). The strategies have been elaborated in the next section.

Recommending strategies for own & team improvement using theoretical approaches

My responsibility within the team was to identify team roles for each member and responsibilities with the help of the RACI matrix. However, the team members often conflicted with each other due to the roles and responsibilities given to them. This in turn resulted in a delay in starting the project. My responsibility was taken for granted by the team member which resulted in providing an explanation to each member about the reason for providing the particular task. Therefore, I believe the specific issue present within teamwork and group dynamic was conflicted. In this regard, the theoretical approaches of conflict management will be beneficial in developing strategies for the team and me. The conflict management theory focuses on identity and handling conflict in a fair and sensible manner (Almeidea and Buzady, 2019). The five key approaches within conflict management that can be used for strategy development are “avoiding, accommodating, compromising, collaborating and competing”. 

I believe that most of the conflict has arisen due to the spontaneous interaction of every member. With respect to the avoiding strategy of conflict management, it would have been better if the decision and segregation of teams were divided separately which would limit team interaction. This will assist in avoiding the conflict of providing role and responsibilities to the team members. On the other hand, Adkoli and Pawar (2018) suggest that conflict can be managed easily by accommodating the views of others. In this regard, I believe that by accommodating the views of others within a team conflict can be minimized along with easily segregating responsibilities and roles. The accommodating strategy within the conflict management theory is beneficial in improving relations within the team. The third strategy that can be used is compromising which focuses on accommodating the requirement of others without facing a loss for themselves. This strategy is beneficial in situations that can lead to the development of conflicts which in turn can lead to losses. I have used the compromising strategy with the team in order to compromise with the team members while distributing roles and responsibilities based on the RACI matrix. 

In addition to the aforementioned strategy, collaborating is also appropriate as a primary means of solving conflicts. The key idea behind the collaboration is to identify a common ground of acceptance in order to benefit all the people involved (Hossu et al. 2018). I believe that this strategy is beneficial for the project that we have undertaken as a team. The strategy can be used to ensure that each member is working collaboratively to achieve a similar goal along with compromising and accommodating the views of others. This would ensure that the conflict between members does not arise during the completion of the project. Therefore, I believe the development of a strategy with the help of the conflict management theory can be used for improving team performance. In addition to this, it can be used as an approach for overcoming the issue associated with group dynamics and teamwork.

Conclusion

The development of PID for the Community Centre building project has helped me to gain knowledge about teamwork and group dynamics. My role was to identify team responsibilities and roles by using the RACI matrix. However, I faced a key issue of conflict which impacted teamwork and group dynamics to the disagreement of roles and responsibilities. In addition to this, the lack of skill and strategy for managing conflict resulted in delaying the project. However, the use of the Gibbs model for reflecting on the issue has assisted me to develop a strategy for overcoming the issue of conflict. The application of conflict management theory for developing strategy is beneficial for the team and me.

References

Adeani, I.S., Febriani, R.B. and Syafryadin, S., (2020). Using Gibbs’reflective Cycle In Making Reflections Of Literary Analysis. Indonesian EFL Journal, 6(2), pp.139-148.

Adkoli, B. and Pawar, S., (2018). Conflict management strategies implications for health professions education. Journal of Basic Clinical and Applied Health Science, 2(3), p.132.

Almeidea, F. and Buzady, Z., (2019). Assessment of Entrepreneurship Competencies through the Use of FLIGBY. Digital Education Review, 35, pp.151-169.

Constantinou, C.S., Andreou, P., Papageorgiou, A. and McCrorie, P., (2020). Critical Reflection on Own Beliefs for Cultural Competence in Medical Education: an Analysis of Tutors’ Reflective Narratives. Qualitative Research in Education, 9(3), pp.273-299.

He, K.N., Parkinson, L. and Doyle, A.K., (2018).Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle.

Hossu, C.A., Ioja, I.C., Susskind, L.E., Badiu, D.L. and Hersperger, A.M., (2018). Factors driving collaboration in natural resource conflict management: Evidence from Romania. Ambio, 47(7), pp.816-830.

Lacerenza, C.N., Marlow, S.L., Tannenbaum, S.I. and Salas, E., (2018). Team development interventions: Evidence-based approaches for improving teamwork. American Psychologist, 73(4), p.517.

Pitts, R.T., (2021). Pinpointing Where to Start: A Reflective Analysis on the Introductory Evaluation Course. Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, 35(3).

Rosen, M.A., DiazGranados, D., Dietz, A.S., Benishek, L.E., Thompson, D., Pronovost, P.J. and Weaver, S.J., (2018). Teamwork in healthcare: Key discoveries enabling safer, high-quality care. American Psychologist, 73(4), p.433.

Salas, E., Reyes, D.L. and McDaniel, S.H., (2018). The science of teamwork: Progress, reflections, and the road ahead. American Psychologist, 73(4), p.593.

Sekarwinahyu, M., Rustaman, N.Y., Widodo, A. and Riandi, R., (2019), February. Development of problem-based learning for the online tutorial program in plant development using Gibbs’ reflective cycle and e-portfolio to enhance reflective thinking skills. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1157, No. 2, p. 022099). IOP Publishing.