Entries in the Category "MGMT250"
Learning Plan Part II
This assignment proved to be one of the hardest writing assignments of the semester and possibly one of the hardest assignments I have had at Case so far. If I had known the difficulty I would have in writing this paper I would surely have started much earlier than I did. The reason why I believe I had trouble on this assignment was because I am very good at setting goals and making plans however my follow through is no where nearly as good. This proved to be so hard that I had to change some of my goals because I realized some were physically impossible. It was also very difficult for me to plan out my course of action because I realized how much work I am going to have to put in to achieve my goals. In retrospect I believe that this paper truly helped me out because I have realized that while it will be hard to complete my goals they are in fact achievable and well worth it. I also feel that I will fully understand the process of making goals and achieving them once I have helped to establish Case’s lacrosse team. This is one goal that I know I will complete because I have put myself in a situation where people are counting on me and I am not the type of person that lets people down.
Peer Evaluations
The peer evaluations part of the HR simulation turned out to be much harder than I had originally expected. I found that I had trouble both with the online part as well as the part to be handed in during class. In the past when I have been asked to do peer evaluations it has been much easier for me to complete and I have done it many times without even giving it much attention. On the other hand when I began filling out the evaluations for my team mates I felt in conflict because while I wanted to answer them as truthfully as possible I also did not want to give my team harsh evaluations. This dilemma was so great that I ended up having to stop and resume the next day. During my break from evaluating I realized that the reason I had been having trouble was that I had truly enjoyed working with my team more so than any other team I had ever worked with. Once I had identified my problem I realized that the best thing I could do was to evaluate them accurately because it would hopefully help them to improve in any areas where they were lacking.
Overall analysis of HR simulation
Now that the HR simulation is over I believe it is time to analyze my experience with it. Looking back I remember many long nights spent at meetings debating how to allocate our companies resources followed by the assigning/volunteering to do different parts of the write up. I fondly remember taking over the reading room on the library and using it as a mock boardroom pretending that this was our office. This simulation proved that contrary to popular belief one can have fun while also learning volumes of information. I feel that if the material that we learned during the simulation had been taught in a classroom I would have retained less than half of what I have learned. My favorite part of the simulation was calculating the numbers in our budget and allocating our budget toward certain decisions knowing that when the quarterly report came back I would be able to see what had been the effect of my spending.
2nd year Annual Report
The 2nd year annual report was much different than the first and allowed me to reflect upon the changes my team had made in operating our company during the second year in comparison with the first year. While the overall format was the same the content of the paper changed drastically. In the 1st year annual report I analyzed our operations during the year and wrote an overall summary without much concern. In between the time that the 1st annual report was handed back and the 5 quarter was due my team met and decided on a plan that would help us do very well in the following four quarters. In writing the 2nd annual report I was able to reflect on the team plan and analyze how well we had stuck to our plan. Overall the 2nd year annual report gave me a better insight into what writing an analysis of an annual report is really like and how it can help companies.
Tom Mendola Case
The discussion in class concerning the Tom Mendola Case was a very interesting experience for me. After reading the case study I had thought about arguments defending him and in favor of keeping him on the job by placing him back in his original position where he had been regarded as an excellent employee. When we were divided into sections to talk about the case I ended up being in the section given the task of supporting his termination. This was difficult for me because I had to go against my opinions and support something that I had originally opposed. After taking a few moments to clear my mind I set out to look at the case in another light and realized that I was able to make some strong arguments in favor of his termination from the company. This taught me that in the future I will have to be careful when presented with a similar situation because I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and side with them even though they are not necessarily correct. I also learned that by taking a step back and re-analyzing the situation I can in fact make a strong decision and stick to it without any moral reservations.
9/21/06 Networking Session
9-21-06 Networking 101
I found that today’s MGMT250 class was interesting as it was different from our typical class. I thought that the intention and idea for the class was useful for some, but not others. I am one of those who, while I enjoyed meeting people, I am a very extroverted individual and am the type to go up to someone and introduce myself, thus networking. As far as a networking session as described in class with wine and cheese, I feel that if I were to attend I would research who was attending, and pick key individuals to talk to. Ironically enough I felt rather awkward today when we were pushed to network and while I did my best to approach it with an open mind, I am not sure that I truly enjoyed it. My opinion on this type of networking is that it is not very efficient at least not in the setting in which it was held in today. I would like to state that this, however is only my opinion and if anyone disagrees with me I encourage them to share their opinions with me.
9/19/06
9/19/2006
Today’s Management 250 class was rather interesting and surprising. I had thought about not attending due to my lack of preparation for class, as I thought that today was the networking day. Luckily, however I had confused days and as I found out the networking day is in fact planned for Thursday. I was quite relieved when I realized my mistake because I had not come dressed properly, nor had I prepared my business cards. Of the topics discussed in class, the one of most interest to me was about the MBTI test. I had no idea how much of a widely used resource it was, furthermore I was intrigued to find out that many companies use it to help make productive work teams. In addition the self assessment test, done in class, was a great idea and will surely help us students in our group projects.