The Live Consultancy - Personal Statement Example

THE LIVE CONSULTANCY This project had been a great source of learning for me. In the past few weeks, I had seen myself growing from a business student to a business analyst. This gave me the opportunity to evaluate my skills, abilities, capabilities and talent and also made me realize my strengths and weaknesses in different fields - both at personal and academic level. On the personal level, I had learnt the great values of patience and co-operation and on the academic level I had learnt the finer aspects involved in the operational and financial activities in an organization or firm. My contribution to the project involved analyzing the financial activities and the recent performance of the Co - operative group. I would not be honest if I say so far it had been a cake-walk for me, on the contrary the truer side of this is that I had experienced the most difficult phase of my academics so far. Though, it has been difficult and at times unbearable still I feel immense pleasure in stating that the complete experience was fruitful. This had been the first time I had been a part of the group and I have consciously pushed myself to contribute whilst working in a group. Although I initially felt intimidated, I made the conscious effort to contribute to the group work. My contributions were positively received, and this proved to be my source of inspiration. I found I was not only able to actively contribute whilst in the group, but the more put in, the more relaxed I became. I felt more responsible and at many instances felt the pleasure in learning great values of patience, co-operation and realizing the value of time. It would be a best practice if I put in my experience and its impact on my personal characteristics under the following heads : -> Planning: Planning is the primary activity to be done for every step in your life. A good plan and an effective implementation on it would bear fruitful results. As a team, we had been very satisfactory in realizing the goals, aims and objectives and describing the strategies to achieve this. But on the personal level I had a tough time, as I could not prioritize my work on the basis of its importance, I had to face difficulties. I have to bring in much efficiency in building a plan, and then defining various steps in implementing the defined plan and achieving the goals in a set of time. This would be my primary area of focus now. An effective plan would definitely help me in getting effective results. -> Organizing: The best part of the project had been the organizing. The way everything was organized was highly appreciable. Our mentor had assigned each of us the task required to be done. There have been vary rare instances where I felt few gaps, the main reason behind this being mis-communications which led to mis-understandings. Thus I feel the only thing required would be developing good rapport among the team members. -> Managing the Task: The outcome was to personally gain confidence, when faced with being a member of a group. Every one of us were assigned different task, the appreciation I had received on the completion of any activity made me feel very happy and I was compelled to out perform others in the team. I felt competitive skills developing in me to a large extent. -> Group Discussions: Group discussions had been another best experience for me. The group discussions which we had every now and then helped me lot in assessing my completed activities and also at the same time it helped me in viewing two sides of any situation. As time was the basic constraint, we could not have many group discussions, but I feel if we had more group discussions the outcome would have been more effective. -> Knowledge skills: I have learnt through contributing not only did I became more relaxed, I was able to communicate the ideas and suggestions I had more confidently. This has shown me that it is the initial contribution that has to be made, and once that is done, it becomes easier. This is still something I must work on. This has been a positive experience for me, and through facing more situations like this I hope to fully overcome this weakness. -> Time value : This is the most important thing which I had learnt from this experience. I had realized the value of time. This made me agree to the fact that Time is money. I had understood the value of time. Effective utilization of time is highly essential not only to succeed in any projects or tasks but also to succeed in life. I felt this realization changing my life, I felt myself growing in to a matured and responsible person once I realize the time value of money. Here, is the reflective log providing specific analysis on my experience while doing this project. This log briefs about the main areas which I had seen I working on and also the areas which still needs me to improve. It is the representation of my experiences while working on the project, and this would help me in realizing where do I stand now and how do I have to improve and on what things the improvement is required. Week Number Feelings re progress On project Achievement During Period What went badly Lessons to learn Tasks ahead Strategies to deal with Tasks. Functioning of the Team. 1 Planning Satisfacto- -ry Efficiency Effectiveness Plan Ahead Risk management Satisfactory 2 Organizing Good Few gaps More communication Develop communication Effective Communication among team Satisfactory 3 Managing the Task Effective Time constraint Time Management Action plan Effective action plan Requires Attention 4 Group Discussions Knowledge Based Time limit More participation Group activities Be more participative Good. 5 Knowledge Skills Developed Sharing Sharing Practices Group discussions Active Participation More Action Needed 6 Time - Value Highly understood Time Management Time Management Time Management Effective Planning Satisfactory. Similar, to this is another part of the reflective log which basically determines the advantages I had received on my academics level by taking this project. As I had mentioned earlier, I had seen myself growing both in my personal level and academic level. I feel immense pleasure to reveal that I had transformed myself from a business student to a business analyst. My area of specification and interest had been Finance always and so I had taken the task of contributing the financial details of co-operative group in the project. The major source of data had been the web - site of the co-operative group from where I could get the data about the financial details of the organization and my academic books helped me a lot in analyzing this data and providing information on the strength and weakness of the firm in financial matters. Week Number Academic input, Discipline, framework and Theories. Assessment of Academic Input usefulness Consulting skills which would have been useful Strategies to deal with skills Mis-match Resources Used Resources sought but not found Overall assessment of Academic toolkit. 1 Financial Statements Very Useful Analyzing skills More critical approach Financial Books Statistical data. Good 2 Financial ratios Helpful Analyzing skills More critical approach Financial Books Statistical Data Satisfactory. 3 Productivity More information needed Information acquiring Learning and Reading Online catalogs Relevant books in library Improvement needed. 4 Quality Satisfactory More data Reading Books Information about the company Good. 5 Performance Good Judgmental skills More judgmental approach Books Specific data Good. 6 Audit Helpful And also useful Reading Reading Financial Books More data Good. The learning experience has been good. I had realized the fact that by putting the theoretical knowledge into a practical approach I could improve my knowledge about the entire thing. I had worked in a live environment and this gave me the opportunity to consider my points and present them in a more approachable and understandable format. The more I read about a specific topic, the more satisfied I felt. There have been various instances when I found myself spending hours together in the library searching for relevant information. I feel pleasure in stating that the academic inputs, discipline, frame work and theories had prove to be very useful and beneficial in assessing the information. Though I had taken the data from the web-site but the source of all analytical approach to this data had been the financial books which were being provided as a part of the academics. The data and the information provided in the academics had been very useful and I feel happy that I could utilize it to the optimum level. There were few short comings as well. For certain specific things I realized I had to learn more on analytical skills, I had to be more judgmental while taking decisions and in order to do so I had to adopt both critical and non critical approaches in my studies. Overall, it had been a very pleasant, helpful and satisfactory experience for me. REFERENCES : - -> Northledge, Thomas, Lane and Peasgood (1997)- The Sciences Good Study Guide. Open University: Milton Keynes Read More