Reflective Portfolio

SUMMARY

The present document is a refelective portfoliofor the project management class, the student was
supposed to produce 12 000 word report for a client of their choice in order to produce this report,
they have gone through different steps starting from :

 Identification of the aims and objectives that satisfy client requirements,

 Searching for industry information to provide supportive evidences to their
suggestions,
 Using an A3 map and draft a Gantt chart that summarize the problem, solution and
communication tools as well as improvement suggestions.

My consultancy work implies the development of a bid proposal for the client project, company X,
which requires a consultant to conduct a scoping study in order to determine the necessary
requirments for implementation and development of B2B application.

The reflective portfolio highlights the process of completing my dissertation which include brief main
step presented above which will enable me to apply these knowledge in in m own business and also
identifies how I expanded my learning process and skills as future leader.

The portfoliois composed of 5 major chapters : introduction that present the project, discusses
expectations and learning goalsas well as the methodologies applied in the course of this module.
The second part presents the potential of identifying business requirements, the third part present
my ethical integrity and values in identifying the customer’s needs objectives, and corporate social
responsibility. In the fourth part, I will present the importance of gantt chart and at end I will reflect
my experience in the module and my future actions and next steps.
Table of Contents

SUMMARY...................................................................................................................................
Table of Contents.........................................................................................................................
1. INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................
1.1. Learning goals and expectations.........................................................................
1.2. Learning Methodologies.......................................................................................
2. ASSUMPTIONS.....................................................................................................................
3. ETHICS AND VALUES..........................................................................................................
4. TIME MANAGEMENT............................................................................................................
5. LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE AND MOVING FORWARD............................................
5.1. Learning from experience...................................................................................
5.2. My actions and next steps..................................................................................
6. CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................
REFERENCE..............................................................................................................................
 1. INTRODUCTION

The management project module is based on the research methodology skills and requirements of
critical debate to enable students to better understand consulting an PM skills and to demonstrate
how critical these skills are in a business context and to guarantee rational decision-making. The
course also aims to enable an evidence-based approach to problem solving within a company
focusing on the ability of participants to manage complex projects in different dynamic business
environments in business contexts, management of change and leadership.

The VLE platform provided the necessary material for the course settled in a progressive order within
16 weeks. As part of the evaluation process , students were required to act as consultant for a
customer project of their choice in order to identify an area of study within their company and build
a report on the objectives of the work and their own way of completing the study . The module
assessment deliverables were developing a consultancy bid report and a reflective portfolio . After
examining my own business needs and reflecting on my future aspirations, I had to choose a project
with similar context and needs, consequently choosing project 5 requests to develop a bid proposal
for conducting a scoping study that determines the necessary requirements for implementation of a
B2B mobile application for my customer which is the company X. In order to fulfill all the client
requirements, I was tasked to carefully identify the client’s project objectives and aims, propose the
study techniques and methods based on industry’s analysis and benchmarking, which serves as
supportive evidences to introduce an A3 map. In order to summarize the problem and solution , I
have included Gantt chart and I have demonstrated the contribution of my suggestions for
improvement to top management. As I have taken a number of steps to achieve the wanted
outputs , this experience has allowed me to accumulate a great deal of skills and knowledge in
consulting and management that will be reflected in this report.

The present document serves as a reflective portfolio on my learning steps, and discusses the way
and the followed step used as consultant to produce a bid for the customer’s project. It focuses on
how the process of achieving my project objectives which includes the above brief main steps. This
class and project will assist me to apply the acquired knowledge in the module to my own project’s
daily operations as well to identify how this learning process was beneficial to my own knowledge
and how it expanded my thinking in addition to developing my competencies as future business
entrepreneur and leader.

1.Learning goals and expectations

At the commencement, my major focus was to understand gradually how to work on a customer
consultancy project. As far as the class outcomes were concerned, the module was attracting me due
to my wiliness and enthusiasm to become a consultant, consequently, my learning objective and aim
was to master the basis of applied management research and on the other hand to have the ability
to critically apply a range of business concepts , framework and tools in the solving a business issue.
 Learning Methodologies

According to Richardson (2005there area three types of learning approaches that are
frequently applied by students: Surfaced learning where students attempt to memorize the
course materials for assessment purpose; the Strategic learning approach where they focus on
marking criteria with the aim to score higher in exam; and Deep learning approach that is
based on understanding the course materials and seen as the most recommended. Given my
attitude to pick up the key module concepts because of its perceived importance in
determining my career as a strategic business consultant, I have chosen to adopt a deep
learning from the start to the end of the module. This has been achieved by careful reading of
course researching industry-related projects and reports, papers and articles, relevant studies
and using all the VLE discussions.
As advised by Boxer (1978), I used reflective internal learning who recognizes that reflecting
and learning increases professional effectiveness.

2.ASSUMPTIONS
After munitions reading of the course materials available in the VLE, I obviously understood
that every industry has different products or projects that are supposed to respond to a
business need. The B2B mobile application is one of the company X's new projects, which
aims to promote, create a direct marketing channel, the visibility of the company, bring value
to its customers, create a brand and recognition , help the company compete and cultivate
customer loyalty and improve customer engagement and (Rose, 2017).
Defining project requirements is the following step after setting project goals . This led us to
conclude on the potential for clarity of business requirements. Following our perspective
Stroud (2018) points out that “One opportunity for improvement involves making reasonable
estimates of how big a project is and how much it is going to cost”.
While Going through the readings, I realized that if the company’s requirements are not well-
defined, we can spend important resources and fail to respond to the client’s needs and fall in
a mismatch between what is designed and what is demanded.
As I wish to convert to business-consulting , it has been very beneficial for me to highlight the
importance of the clarity client’s requirement in order my work will tmeet their professional
objectives. Or else, if the requirements are not predefined , it is crucial to start by identifying
them according to objectives and goals of the company. This implies a business analysis to
identify the requirements that, when identified for the first time, are really presented as
business desires, needs, suggestions or ideas, as Kupersmith al.(2018) has determined in his
researches.
While conducting a business analysis, I will always verify the main categories of
requirements - solution requirements, business requirements, transition requirements,
stakeholder requirements and technology requirements (Kupersmith ,2018).

Wiley, Composition Services Graphics

Since these requirements are capabilities or conditions needed to achieve a business objective, to
satisfy standards or to solve a problem, I learnt that it is important to provide a documented
presentation of these requirements in order to enable stakeholders or expert to understand the
requirements of the solution, as well as their creation responsibilities.

At this point, documentation, business requirements is the business solution for a project. I
realized that it is essential to define the scope of activities, to evaluate the time and resources
needed to complete a project. As a consultant, Bpayne & Watt (2018) advised using
collaborative discovery sessions, stakeholder discussions observations, tangible and
prioritized business / user requirements, interviews, a documented scope to prevent scope
creep, use cases for solution definition of target audience; and finally use a series of facilitated
workshops involving system stakeholders to analyze identified needs. By keeping this in my
mind, I am able to assume and identify areas of improvement in the business and summarize
all the necessary information.
3.ETHICS AND VALUES

After careful analysis of the customer’s project throughout the second week of the class
enabled me to better understand the objective of the company X to create a B2B mobile app
with the aim to increase its competitive advantage by ameliorating customer-business
interactions. Once understanding the rationale for the project and the aim of the project , I
could recognize the deliverables. In order to analyze the customers’ demands and objectives
that need to be solved, I followed the theorist Stephens' (2018) in summarizing the project's
objectives in numerous bullet points. Also, I used case studies in order to master the client’s
needs in the industry.
In the identification phase of the client requirements, Kahler (1975) and Marianna (2018) who
discussed the key drivers and ethical conducts on the workplace, especially on a consulting
project, inspired me. They push me to be responsible for the client's project by applying an
fast and action-oriented aggressive attitude in order to deliver a faultless job within the given
deadlines. The continuous unsatisfaction with what I had already done , pushed me to
permanently review my work in the interest of my customer, this behavior contributed a lot in
identifying the client objectives and requirements (Authenticity Consulting, 2018). My aim
was to make plenty of findings to further investigate the need of the client so that my
recommendations would not be destructive or badly affect my customer due to inadequate
information-based recommendation. As a consultant, I knew that I could neither not tackle
some findings for my client nor push my point of view. My mission was customer centered in
order to help the client, Client information confidentiality was crucial for me; therefore, the
report enclosed different evaluation and monitoring meetings with the Company X’s top
management rather than with entry-level personnel to avoid sharing confidential impressions
of what I might conclude about the top management. In all cases, I was confident to not
overpass my competencies in the mission with the client and go beyond my industry
evidences. (Marianna, 2018, Stephens, 2018).
Consequently, in the course of the mission with company X, I respected all the values and
principles that governed my practices in order to preserve the client interest and corporate
social responsibility.

4.TIME MANAGEMENT

I have considered this module as a new project with different activities that must be
completed and balanced with my normal professional life. Despite some constraints, I
managed to devote two hours a day to class activities and the rest of my time to business
work. The Failure to follow schedule has always resulted in skimming, multi-tasking, and
influenced negatively my effectiveness and efficiency. This class has taught me a lot about the
importance of project leaders in scheduling and organizing their daily activities, one main tool
is Gantt chart.
Noah (2016) has affirmed my thoughts: "By not getting ready, you are preparing to fail." “A
Gantt chart is an assurance that we have a plan,” . In their side, McDonough &Taylor (2013)
emphasized on the importance of a Gantt chart; explaining that a project may have several
tasks and activities for several months and interdependent . Some tasks cannot begin until
others are finished, I learned that project managers can describe an write them down, but it is
difficult to understand the significance of a document with different technical aspect. Then,
using a pectoral tool such as the Gantt chart to manage the project would be more efficient.
Reflecting on the benefits Gantt chart in a given projet.I realized that it is a coordination tool,
which helps to break down projects into manageable sets of tasks and reduce the potential of
overburdening teams as suggested by Taylor & McDonough (2013). This it allows team
members and project stakeholders to easily understand the task progress and their role in a
process, since it saves time by replacing meetings and because of its ability to provide clarity.
On the other hand, when I remember my preceding experience with the Gantt chart, once a
time I remember my team was stressed because of the feeling of not having control over the
plan, which pushed me to think that determining deadlines for future step or stage in a project
may have a negative consequence on the manner by which we should handle tasks, depending
on group. My other remark concerns the struggle of Gantt chart to appear on a sheet of paper,
which is become extremely complexto visualize it , the size of the bar does not indicate the
volume of work as recommended by Tomek (2016).
As a whole, I found the Gantt chart is a time-saving tool since it enables project manager to indicate
the duration of each task, to determine who is/will be liable for each activity, break down activities,
and visualize the resource usage and also identify problems that project team may encounter to make
relevant decisions.

5.LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE AND MOVING FORWARD

At the beginning of this course, I had never submitted a bid for a consultancy work but I had worked
on some consultancies such as proposals for some organizations and developing a strategic plan, I was
very glad to learn that I would develop a bid report and act as consultant, this will be my first
experience in this kind of report.

Reading the nature of the module and available course materials in the Virtual Learning Environment
(VLE) depicted my first step into the course. However, having worked with nonprofits and being
familiar with business strategies, I thought that identifying relevant need in my organization could
work best for me; but given my recent commercial real estate initiative, I was advised to work on the”
Client Project Five” " so that my experience could further my future business aspirations. Discussed
below is my learning experience.

5.1.Learning from expérience

I have chosen the project because of the perceived future needs of my entrepreneurial experience ,
where I really need to develop a mobile application in order to fulfill the market’s needs. In this
sense, I was really in need of this experience that helps me to know more about project
requirements. Consequently, I noticed the importance of choosing such projects in my business
activity.

I understood that I have to follow the process as the recommended process in this class. My
assertion to work with the recommended process without forgetting to investigate the requirements,
elicitation methods that gathers information from different users, stakeholders and customers by the
questionnaire, brainstorming and meetings. In the industry, experts highly urge the use of case
studies in order to critically take the lesson from the other projects. The analytical tool used in this
class enables me to make decision on complex situation.

Concerning my own business, I had the difficulty to understand and highlight the necessary
requirements to conduct a scope study. This class will be a reference point in conducting my own
study for my business by setting first the requirement and then translate them to specificities that
the developer will try to answer. Or , I will specify the needs and work hand in hand with a freelancer
to have more clarity on the progress report of the project and constant communication since I
assume that I have the necessary requirement for managing such project.

5.2.My actions and next steps

After the completion of this class , I have decided and I am confident that I have the necessary
background and I am mastering the entire consultancy process. I would also keen to enroll in online
training sessions to improve my skills in order to successfully work and bid for my future projects.

The results and findings will be used to explore my B2B application , which is believed to totally
form my project in agribusiness industry. My project will follow the same requirement elicitation
process when conducting a scoping study for my e- commerce project.

6.CONCLUSION