I knew people in the class so I decided that I would go into a group with them. My team for this module consisted of 4 people. These people are all doing the same degree course as me so we all had similar knowledge.



The first task that we were faced was decided what sort of business we were going to do for the business plan. We all discussed this for an hour and came with our decision, which we all voted on, and it was a unanimous decision. We had to try and separate the business plan jobs into departments.

The problem that faced us here was that the three out the four members were all studying the same subjects at university and therefore it was hard to separate. The accounting part was easy because we had an accounting student. I decided to do the marketing side of the business plan because I have had more marketing experience than every one else. The other two members just tried to do what they could for the other areas of the business. This plan to separate the business plan into departments was relatively successful because everyone knew what they had to do.

The group had a weekly meeting to discuss the tasks that had to be done and any issues or problem that we had. This meeting lasted about an hour each week and it gave us a chance to sort out the problems. At the end of the meeting each week we established what we had to get done for the next meeting, by doing this it meant that we didn't fall behind time.

By separating the business plan into sections and by having set tasks each week it meant that the business plan production was equal through all areas and the result was the achievement of tasks and goals were met.

My group had to make a numerous of decisions throughout the duration of the module. These decisions shaped the direction and the quality of the business plan.

There are a number of different decision making techniques that have been designed by experts throughout the years, all of which are good techniques to use for team working. Any of these techniques can be used in order for a group to make decisions.

In my group we never used any of theses techniques that have been designed, instead we just used our common sense when making decisions. On every occasion when any decision had to be made we would put it to a vote to find out the opinions of everyone before we made a decision.

If we reached a majority then that would be our decision. When we had to decide on what business we were going to do we all made suggestions and then talked about each. We then voted on the one that was the best and ever since then that has been our decision-making policy for this module.

This policy worked for us on this occasion but at times I felt that we badly needed someone to take on the leadership role and make some decisions based on persuasion.

During the period of this business plan module we as a group had some difficulties and minor conflicts on the way.

At the start we had a few problems with leadership issues with people fighting to try and take control, which eventually got sorted out. The result being that we didn't have a clear leader and it became more of a partnership. The problems at the start were just natural group development problems and we knew that it wasn't going to be serious.

When a member of the group expressed difficulties we all tried to help that person out by giving them advise and opinions on the subject.

We as a group haven't really had any major conflicts so this section is hard to comment on however we have had minor conflicts over tasks being on time and confusions over meeting times.

There are five main conflict management strategies that have been identified. These strategies are forcing, avoiding compromising, accommodating and collaborating. I feel that every member of the team has been using the same conflict management approach and that has been an accommodating approach. The aim of this approach is not to upset the other people and it aims to maintain harmonious relationships.