NfP

Just completed my personal reflective report on the NfP (Not for Profit) Project. Here are the points.

Team Working
Our team consisted of 6 MBAs from different countries and different background. With a team of such a diversity, one may expect that the team work will be interesting and productive as the team has access to a range of perspective and skill.   

In fact, diversity can actually hinder integration and may increase the occurrence of conflict within the team. This was exactly what happened in the meetings. Everyone had their own interpretation of the project needs and own ideas to implement the project. But hard to achieve an agreement as everyone had different point of view. As a result, the team spent long hour in meetings yet no concrete conclusion. Sometimes, the conclusions were made recklessly due to tiredness and frustration of further discussion. Obviously, the outcome due to these conclusion was undoubtedly poor in quality.

The team was aware of the severity of the problem only after half way of the project We received our first score in their MBA program, the score of the project interim presentation. The score was below passing mark and everyone was shocked. Our ego as an MBA student was badly hurt and after a reflective meeting, we committed to put more time and more effort into the project.

Later, I learned about the Belbin Team Role in the Skills for Successful Manager class. Interestingly, our team members are obviously in different team roles. Since the result of the SHL psychometric test was confidential, I could only guess my team members' team roles based on my observation. I guessed there were a "Shaper," two "Plant", a "Finisher-Completer", an "Implementer" and a "Monitor-Evaluator". What lacked in our team were a "Co-ordinator", a "Resource Investigator", and a "Team Worker". No wonder our team has a lot of ideas, but no one try to coordinate between us, no one try to explore resource outside the team and no one being diplomatic to support the team.

With the commitment and better understanding of each other, we started to split the work according to the strength of each members. We set a limit for the meeting time and tried to carry out the meeting efficiently with better preparation before the meeting, threw ideas and discussed but let the person-in-charge of the work decide the final decision, and ensure all action items decided in the meeting were carried out in action.

As a results, our work was gaining momentum and we managed to work efficiently and harmoniously compare with before. We managed to finalized our study results and gave a presentation to our client confidently.

Key learnings:
1) Recognise strength and skill of each members is important at the first stage of any project.
2) Understand interpersonal style (for example the Belbin Team Roles) of the team members can help to achieve better efficiency in team.
3) A team work efficiently when the team has a balance of all team roles.
4) Diversity can help as well as hinder the efficiency of team work. 
5) A meeting without clear objective, time limit and a decision maker is doomed to be fail.

Consulting Skills
Another problem in implementation was non of us had consulting experience before. We were unclear about what need to be do, and how could we do in a consulting project. Therefore, due to lack of experience as well as delay from client side, we could finalize the project scope only almost one month after the project launching. 

After finalized the scope, we had long discussion about what data is required and how we could gather the data. We thought of carry out survey but later found out that within limited time and resources, the limited numbers of questionnaire that we could gather would be statistically insignificant. We carried out several interviews but the responses were not encouraging.

Nevertheless, we gradually understood what need to be done, and how to carry out our study. We prepared a project structure breakdown to visualize the whole process. As taught in the Consulting Skills class, "Begin with the end in mind" by visualize the end, the deliverable to client in mind, we could actually think backward of what need to be done in order to achieve that. Based on the project structure breakdown, we divided the tasks and work independently but supportively.

I found that newly learned knowledge from Financial Accounting and Corporate Finance class was quite useful in the analysis of the project.

Key learnings:
1) Identify the business need and finalized scope with client as soon as possible.
2) Work up a clear and realistic work plan.
3) Begin with the end in mind.
4) Quick understanding of client's issue and add value with the implementable recommendations.
5) Financial/Management Accounting, Corporate Finance, Marketing and other MBA subjects are the fundamental knowledge to support any consulting work.

Presentation Skills
The comments on our interim presentation were no clear structure, lack of logic in content development for the presentation content and not appear confidence, no eye contact, reading slides for the presentation delivery. No doubt our score was below the passing mark.

To improve our presentation, we got the feed back from our supervisor, and carried out peer assessment on our presentation style. While complementing what done well, we also pointing out what need to be improved in each other presentation. We scrutinised the logic in content, we checked the necessity of each and every slides, we made sure all slides carry clear messages to the audience.

Our final presentation was quite successful, at least to our own perception. We appeared confident in the presentation and managed to articulate our ideas and recommendations clearly to the client.

Key learnings:
1) Use eye contact, appear confident, speak with passion in presentation.
2) Make a logic, a story line to link up the whole presentation.
3) Bring the finding forward to the beginning of the presentation will give audience the whole idea of the presentation.
4) Ask why you need the slide - eliminate any unnecessary slide.

Manchester Survivor

My smartphone showed a temperature of 3 degree Celsius out there, and the weather forecast said that there would be a mix of sunshine and shower. I was changing with the Manchester Survival T-shirt and a running short pant. Putting up the additional jacket and tracksuit, I walked to the school to meet my fellow teammates. The weather was freezingly cold even in the jacket and tracksuit. I doubted whether I would be willing take it off once I reach the event center.

Arrived the event center 1 hour earlier. But the game already started with the first wave runner. Our team - a team of 10 and a team of 5 will run in the 4th wave. Took off the jacket and tracksuit, quickly worked out to warm up the body. Running around the field, discovered several scary obstacles along the runway. Several 2 meter high grasswalls at the first 100m, 2 pools of muddy water contained in the giant steel trash bins, and a 8 feet wall at the last 100m.

It was a 10km run. Sounds easy right? That was what I thought, but there were 15 physical obstacles (according to the guide, but I felt there were more) in the run. So, besides running, you will encounter 1 to 2 physical roadblocks every 1km. And the obstacles, can be high walls to test your upper body fitness, pools of water to slow you down (there was a pool where the water deep enough to cover your top, damn freezing!), hurdles in the arena to test your agility, burden to test your strength, fun stuff likes mud crawling, mud sliding, water slide, bouncing castle etc.   

Tried to get to the front line at the starting point to avoid slowed down by other people during the first few obstacles. Climbed over the grasswalls, 2 meter height woodwalls, several hurdles, ran up and ran down the stadium spiral carpark driveway, ran up and ran down the stadium audience seat stairs, ran surrounding the stadium, when I thought I already finished half, almost fainted down when I saw the signboard showed a 2km on it. Oh, my god, still 8km to go!

Later came to a canal. Never think that the organizer want us to get wet that early. It was still 3km! And the canal was deep enough to cover my top. Getting all wet including my head and continued running to avoid cold. Run, run, run, passed the bouncing castle, ran into the woods, the fun and dirty parts began. Mud crawling, mud sliding, can't remember when was the last time I played with mud. But, it was really fun!

The organizer would never want us to finish it easy. They made us run with sandbag, gas tank, etc, do the rope swinging, puzzles, when I finished 8 km, I started feeling cramp in my thighs. Slowed down my pace and walked for a while, wondering how many obstacles left and any other surprises. Passed the 9km, came to the big pools of muddy water that I saw before, I know I was closed to the finish line. Crawl over the giant steel trash bins, walked through the muddy water, finally came to the monster 8 feet wall. I can't do it without help! None of my team member was there with me at the moment. I tried to be friendly and helped several people to climb up the wall, and lucky  enough to get help from someone else to climb the monster too.

Climbed on the top of the 8 feet wall, the finish line was just 10m in front. Jumped down the wall and ran passed the finish line. Phew! Never think that a 10km would be that hard for me, but anyway I made it! I survived! Took pictures with those arrived earlier. My other team members arrived progressively. All 15 of us made it! 

Went back home, took a hot shower, enjoyed the hot lunch prepared by my wife, went into bed, wake up and writing this blog now. Still can feel the pain on every inch of my muscle. But, the pain is a result of enjoyment, satisfaction, and achievement.

MBS 2014 Team!

Ready, Start!

Thinking of wearing these next year...

My wife was struggling washing this for me after the game

(Photos by Mary)

Financial Accounting

Phew! A new word learnt from my British friends to express relief from fatigue. Ya, the Financial Accounting exam is just over. Hardly imagine that within 5 weeks of 15 hours lecture, I eventually managed to understand the substance of the mysterious accounting statements, read the financial statement of any of the listed companies without frowning and at least capable of some general analysis of the company performance.

It all owed to Peter, the lecturer of the financial accounting class. A British gentleman with lots of sense of humor. He made the dull accounting numbers a series of interesting stories. He made the seemingly complicated concepts easy to understand. And he made us (or some of us) the accounting beginners comprehended the tricks and the so called creative accounting behind the book.

As Peter mentioned in the first class, the course aim is not to teach you how to prepare a bookkeeping. It is all about how to understand the financial statement, analyse it, and use it for management decision as a future manager. The course is to demystify the financial statement, so that you won't be scared away by the accountants that speak to you in the accounting jargons which seems to be a foreign language. You can talk the talk and finally you will learn to love accounting!

Well, I don't know whether I have fallen in love with accounting, but at least accounting is no more a boring subject for me. It was so delighted that unconsciously I able to discuss about some company business performance using the accounting knowledge learnt from the class in the chat with friends. That's super cool! 

The course covered of course the 3 main financial statements, the balance sheet, the income statement and the cash flow. But not much discussion on how to prepare those statement. The emphasis was more on how to analyse them and what are the tricks that some companies use to disguise their profits. A more detail discussions were done on topics like tangible assets, intangible assets, leasing, employee benefit, and group companies.

A 5 weeks lecture, 15 hours, plus 3 workshops for the preparation of exam, and 2 thick textbooks, numbers of powerpoint slides. That's the speed of a subject in an MBA program. Looking on the piles of other text book, I realised that the journey is still long away. NfP project submission and presentation, Economics presentation, Marketing presentation, Economics, Marketing, Finance, Skill for Successful Manager exam will occur subsequently in next 5 weeks.

Not feeling "phew" anymore...but at least I am enjoying the learning process. I don't aim to be an accountant, an economics, or a Finance or Marketing expert after all these courses, but if I can talk their language, understand their tricks, and may eventually manage them (haha!), wouldn't it sounds great!