APPLICATION & LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE PROJECT AND TEAM MANAGEMENT COURSE:
First, allow me to commend Professor Nicholas Carver, for the successful delivery of the Team and Project Management course. It wouldn’t have been the same without his tremendous and profound skills on the subject matters.
In just the past one month, I have learned so much about projects and team management than I ever learned in the past 5 years. This means that more than all my expectations were met.
When the course started, I was looking for ways to best tell the world about myself through writing. The blog post exercise helped me meet this need because it challenged me to exercise this art by making a similar post and share it first with the world and with my classmates. Also, I received constructive criticisms when I shared who I was and what I wanted to do. This paved a way for me toward personal growth and development.
I learned about the freedom there is in brainstorming exercises and the advantages that come with such activities. It breeds confidence, growth and development in groups since it allows room for mistakes and yet doesn’t look at mistakes as mistakes but as unique ideas. This has given me a chance to freely exercise idea development and work them towards becoming a few real solid ones to choose from, a skill deemed necessary in my daily professional entertainment business.
Secondly, I focused on learning how to choose the best and most appropriate idea from a few selected, and further develop it to tangible results. For example, having shared that I was a musician than hoped to start my own entertainment business company after graduation, and that I was a passionate singer songwriter, as well as working with other musicians, I later started to work toward re-writing one of my own songs for the world, with emphasis put on the message of peace and togetherness. This started as a brainstorming exercise which I have seen grow through the course. It is a skill I am already using and I shall continue to live it because I love it.
My target at this stage was to learn a completely new software program or fresh ways that would help me plan and organize successful events. As introduced by the professor, “Tiki-Toki” allowed me to meet my needs. I had never used the software program before and when I did, I learning how it worked, I enjoyed using it and it certainly joined my list of tools for a successful business event planning and execution.
Later, along this journey, I looked forward to learning how to develop budgets for both small and large projects and activities. My targeted desires were met when we had an opportunity to design our own budgets for a timeline activity we had worked on. It was from this moment forward that I started to appreciate financial analysts for the great job they do in the entertainment world. Through detailed research and by using my timeline song project, as well as my classmates’ constructive comments from the discussion board, I designed a great budget for the very first time in my life. Today I can say, budget development has become a new skill added to my field of work because I now understand why things appear the way they do.
In the last stage of the course, I have learned more about personality traits. I had never learned so much about myself in such a short time. Now, I can associate myself better with a few animal characters. Having learned that I am 80% a teddy bear, 75% an owl, 60% a fox, and 5% a bear, helped me see how well I could become at resolving conflicts in any team. I have come to appreciate myself better and exactly know where to put emphasis in trying to become a better problem solver. It is important to consider others’ feelings and emotions while we deal with problems and conflicts between people because great relationships are the foundation of most successful organizations. Therefore, it is very vital to protect them.
I learned that in a group or team setting where relationships are the most important element, the owl characteristics are the best in conflict resolution. This means that I have the opportunity to focus on developing this area more so that I can use it to ensure great relationships with any teams I shall work with from this day forward.