Posted: March 24th, 2015

engineering management reflective essay

Aim:
Being a 2nd year chemical engineering student aiming to secure job opportunities in terms of fellowship, the module of engineering management and leadership has provided an information on what employers look for from University students as well as trained us as students by improving our skills in some areas such as building our communication and self-confidence by exposing us to the team building and motivation lectures. These have implemented me with expanded analytical thinking along with the awareness of risk when completing a group project or working in industry in the future. The development of my PDP (Personal Development Plan) has expanded my ability to analyse my progress across my learning outcomes of my course as well as observe my weaknesses and strengths while considering ways of improving my skills in general for my future job.
Reflection:
Project management and Planning:
The term ‘project management’ is considered to be the discipline of planning, controlling resources, motivating as well as organising in order to achieve specific targets. A project is said to be a temporary enterprise with a defined start and end, usually undertaken to reach to unique objectives and goals.
The term ‘planning’ is also called a ‘forethought’ which is said to be the process thinking and organising activities in order to achieve a desired goal. It also involves creation and maintenance of a plan.
Our chemical process design group based project would be a good example to start with in terms of describing project management and planning. Prior to the start of our project week, the introduction to this project week was planned in advance where our meetings were organized with agendas distributed and minutes taken. Being a person with good communication skills as well as known to be participative and task oriented leadership style, I was chosen by my team to chair the design project. Producing some Gantt charts and understanding the use of some Microsoft software’s has helped a lot in planning our project and meeting of the deadline. However, as stated in the reflection session presented in this module, teams involve members with different personalities which I have noticed where some members were more active than others leading to failure in the first part of the design project. I have considered each member’s weaknesses and strengths including myself by asking them to produce a SWOT analysis of themselves. With the help of this, I was then able to classify different leadership and management means to use for each member. This has formed an impact as the majority of the inactive members worked so hard under my leadership skills. Evidence of this is the successful achievement of the second part of the design project with very good results.
Team work and Interpersonal skills:
The term ‘teamwork’ can be defined as the capability to work cooperatively with other individuals and work together as opposed in order to separately achieve a specific target. This term has been very important and is used in all aspects of life such as professional and personal lives. Working in a team is probably a certain life experience, even for individuals who prefer to work alone.
Moreover, in almost all cases, when coming to task solving and analysing any situation more than one person is required. A positive outcome can only be sufficient if teamwork is used.
The term ‘interpersonal skills’ not only include how people communicate with each other but also include the ability to listen and understand as well as the confidence. Interpersonal skills are considered to be personal stress management, problem solving and decision making.
As mentioned above along with the project management and planning, team work has implemented into the project where a great use of skills where used such as communication, listening and participation. I have come to understand that to produce a strong team; one must consider other members opinions as well as allocating tasks to each group member, recognising the members weaknesses and strengths must be known to help assign them with the appropriate tasks, I have done this with previous group design projects where the members and myself produced a SWOT analysis. Moreover, I have come to understand that to address a team’s weaknesses the best system of strategy is to design around them by shifting the tasks and responsibilities to allow them to focus on their own strengths as well as focusing on the other member’s strengths through the SWOT analysis. Being engaged with team work has very much to do with understanding the objectives of the university project which needs to be completed or the organisation that you are part of. The best system of building a very good group is by having clear expectations, commitment and context. However, in my own practice and with the knowledge gained from this module’s session on motivation, I have come to understand that one of the best ways of constructing a strong team is by having motivated individuals as well as trust among them. Moreover, each individual has his own characteristics, hence indicating that each of them meet the different needs to others. Application of interpersonal skills is fundamental in group work.
In addition, individuals with a strong interpersonal skills are always more successful in their personal and professional lives. They are often perceived as to be more charismatic, calm and confident, such qualities are often appealing to others. Being aware of our interpersonal skills can help us improve and develop ourselves.
Leadership and initiative:
According to the Oxford dictionary, the term ‘leadership’ has been defined as ‘the action of guiding a group of people or an organization’.
Leadership is considered to be a very important to many companies and because of this an individual should pay more effort to develop this aspect. At University, leadership is often not required for a long period of time as most of the work tackled is individual. However, the group tasks provided to us during the tutorials and random group assignments provides a good chance of testing or improving an individual’s leadership skills.
In my opinion, management and leadership work firmly together, though the leadership expands as well as innovative while the management depends on the control. I have determined leadership and initiative by analysing the students and trying to come up with ideas which related to starting a society in my home country (The State of Kuwait) aiming to help the students to achieve placement opportunities by promoting the opportunities that the Universities of the state of Kuwait has as well as improving their employability skills. I have communicated with academics and students from Kuwait University during the summer holidays. The society now has around 45 members and has had five company visits. As mentioned above, I have taken the role of leader for our group design project. I have now reached to a point where I can understand my own weaknesses and strengths as a leader as well as what type of leadership I can take and how to try to help improve my leadership. In my opinion, a good leadership must be able to handle a range of styles adapting to co-workers.
Problem Solving:
The term ‘problem solving’ has been used in many disciplines along with different perspectives and terminologies. It can be classified under two different types called ‘ill-defined’ and ‘well-defined’ where appropriate solutions are being made.
The ‘ill-defined’ problems are those which have no clear goals or solution paths, on contrast with the ‘well-defined’ problems which have specific goals and clearly defined paths.
Every individual can benefit from their good problem solving skills and encounter problems which are on a regular basis, some of which are obviously more complex or sever than others.
Having the ability to solve all problems efficiently is wonderful especially in a timely fashion without facing any difficulties, but, unfortunately there is no one way where all problems can be solved.
I have used the technique of analytical analysis for problem solving in many different modules as well as by adding some creativity to the problems I have faced. The technique which has helped me with solving my problems is by evaluating the question and knowing the reasons that has caused this problem to help make the solving easier. I then run the problem, decide what actions to take, make the action and wait for the results. This technique has helped me a lot in picturing the problem when applying it to real life.
Professional communication:
The term ‘professional communication’ includes digital communication, visual communication, written as well as oral communication.
However, in the modern society nowadays, communication is said to be rapidly changing area; the advancement of technologies seems to frequently outpace the number of expert practitioners.
Furthermore, in this part of the module I have learned how to communicate with people with more self-confidence as well as how to exchange and discuss ideas, listen to others thoughts and how to persuade people with my opinions and point of views.
Personal Development Plan:

skills Current qualifications Target Actions of development
Project management and planning Good management and planning skills and often help inactive people to manage complete their work To achieve excellent project and management skills Looking for volunteering opportunities at University
Leadership and initiative Confidence in leadership and determining initiative Modify different leadership types to different people Leading university projects as well as try leading larger projects
Problem solving Good analytical skills as well as looking forward to finding more problem solving techniques to overcome difficult situations Becoming more confident with problem solving Expose myself to variety of situations and test myself
Team work and interpersonal skills Enjoy working in a team and often work ahead Learn to make a successful team and understand the weaknesses and strengths of the members Expose myself to larger projects and volunteering opportunities
Professional communication Communicating with people in a professional level Increase my communication skills Interacting with more people through networking sites
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