Experience as a Member of a Team whose Project Was not Completed Successfully - Essay Example

As our learning process is from womb to tomb, the knowledge, skills, and lessons that we acquire from our different experiences are unbound. I can confidently say that my exposure to various individuals and tasks for a reputable business organization has provided me with a lot of happy, challenging, and even frustrating experiences which become an important part of my learning process. However, one of the most notable projects I have worked on and on which I learned a lot is during my internship. Compared to my previous successes, my first project is marked with a failure that I will never forget. 

In March of 2004, I have been given the privilege of an internship with XYZ Company in their Analytical laboratory. During my first day of work, I am quite challenged and enthusiastic to find that I will be working with two other new interns. Also, there will be no full-time analytical chemists to assist us except my supervisor. These circumstances made me realize that my duties are going to be very challenging as well as interesting. Being able to prove our commitment, dedication, and skill, our group has been offered to work on a project, which would be very tedious for us as interns due to our lack of experience. However, we consider the task as a huge opportunity to further improve our skills and further our competencies. Because the current method is time-consuming, tedious, and requires continuous attention due to the usage of hazardous chemicals our project is to create a short method to analyze an element in one of the raw materials by using modern instrumentation. The group merrily took the project, albeit with a very tight time constraint. We only have a few more weeks for final exams and we are required to invest more effort to meet the short deadline. After a short discussion with the group, everyone agreed to contribute the best of his ability to accomplish the project within the allotted time. Two weeks later, my team and I have come to realize that we will not be able to finish the project on time since we were working two days a week. The month passed and the shortage of time coupled with our lack of experience makes it impossible for us to complete the project. Pressing further, we ask for an extension of one week because we have already gathered all the necessary data for the completion. However, to our dismay, the project has been transferred to another analytical group within the company. This has been very disappointing for me.

I have learned a lot from being a member of a team whose project was unsuccessful. This experience taught me to be a good team player and to manage my time more efficiently. Being a senior in the group, I had learned to manage and deal with the team who knew that we will not be able to finish the project on time. I have been instrumental in absorbing the stress my team and I was going through because of the short deadline. From this whole experience, I had also learned to recognize my strengths and the requirements of the task before accepting it. Even though my group failed to finish the project on time, we were still recognized for our work, and I took it as a reward. Therefore, I can say that even though our project was unsuccessful, the work and the effort were still recognized. As for me, I was able to gain knowledge from it and I consider it as an essential aspect of the learning process.