Self Reflective Essay

NAME: PRUDHVI RAM VEDULA        PGID: 89180482

Reflective Self Best:

Based on the feedback I have received from my peers, I am best at

• Strong technical skills
• Good at problem solving and analysis
• Good leadership skills
• Coaches people well

As a team leader there are several aspects that I need to work on as part of the engagement with Flipkart. The first target would be to understand the expectations of the customer. After this I will try to prioritize things and set short term commitments to achieve the end goal. Frequent touch points would be held with the customer to check if we are proceeding in the right track or if any adjustments need to be done to the course. Will try to make the team understand the ask from the customer and what needs to be done to achieve the same. Have frequent conversations with the team members to understand their challenges or issues in achieving the end goal.

Replacement for Top Performer:

The new candidate should have strong technical competencies with respect to market analysis, the different tools and medium that are used as part of it, working with large customers, ability to work and deliver in fast paced environment. Below are some of the abilities that I will be looking for to complement the abilities that I have and will help the team achieve the end goal:

• Teamwork → Talk about a time where you had to work with a team member whose personality is completely different from yours
• Teamwork → Tell me about a time when you have faced a conflict in the team and how did you handle it.
• Client Facing Skills → Tell me about a time when it was important for you to make a really good impression on a client. How did you do it?
• Client Facing Skills → Tell me about a time when you did not meet a client’s expectation and how did you handle it.
• Ability to Adapt → Tell me about a time when you had to work in a pressure situation.
• Ability to Adapt → Tell me about your first job and how did you learn
• Time Management → Tell me what is the strategy that you would apply in order to meet all your top priority items at work
• Time management → Tell me about the longest project that you have worked on and how did you mange delivering it on time.
• Communication Skills → Tell me about a time when you were the in house technical expert and how did you manage to make everyone understand your thought process
• Motivation & Values → Tell me about a time when you were dissatisfied with your work and how did you manage to get over it
• Motivation & Values → Tell me about a time where you saw a problem and took the initiative to correct it rather than waiting for someone to look into it.

GOALS

The organization goal is to help Flipkart develop a global expansion strategy into Kenya. This goal can be divided into 2 goals. The first one would be to do the market analysis in Kenya to understand the different segments of the market in Kenya. The second one would be to define a plan to help Flipkart to gain market share. By dividing the goals to multiple short goals the team will be relieved of the pressure that they have in their mind seeing one big goal.

Market Analysis Goal:

The team will perform some of the key tasks that are involved as part of this goal to meet the end goal. What kind of research do we need to do. Once this information is gathered, the next step is to determine the design that we want to follow for this research. This will help us determine what type of research do we need to do which will give us the most amount of data. Once the design is in place we will look at the different tools that we can use to capture the required data. The next task would be to do sampling and data collection. Once we have the data, we analyze, visualize and then communicate the results.

Gain Market Share Goal:

The goal for the team is to come up with a plan on how Flipkart can gain market share. The team will need to come up with all the different ways that Flipkart can implement. Some of the key tasks the team will be performing to achieve these goals are listed below:

• Stay relevant through innovation → What are the different innovation techniques the organization can adopt and implement them
• Respond to customers → Identify the different ways that can be adapted using which the organization can respond to customers as fast as they can
• Use Customer Ideas → Identify different ways to reach out to customers and understand what features they need
• Be more flexible → Provide flexible work benefits to employees

RAP Framework with low performer:

As part of the conversation with the low performer on the team below are the points that I would talk and get an understanding of what is going on

• Will first try to get an understanding on what is the kind of work that he is doing
• Will understand what are his areas of interest and what is doing good at
• Appreciate all the work that he has done so far to the team and will motivate him to continue to do the same.
• Will try to get detailed feedback from the previous manager to understand specific instances/examples where the team member has performed low
• Based on the feedback received will try to identify what examples can be shared that will help the team member realize the gaps
• Understand his career aspirations and what are the different goals that he has set for himself so far.
• Understand if the goals that he has set are SMART enough. If not will work the team member over a period of time to convert these goals to SMART goals.
• Understand what help the team member needs to achieve these goals

At the end of the conversation I would say “You are really great asset to the team and have been doing a great job in supporting the team to get the work done. We have discussed some of the examples of where you did really well and few examples of where there are certain gaps which need to be filled in. You have set goals to meet your career aspirations. Based on the discussion we had, we agreed that these goals need to be revised, measured and tracked to closure. You will be setting up a follow up meeting to discuss the same. We also had a discussion on the organization goals and how will you get benefited by them. Lastly please do let me know if there is any help that you need from me or the organization to meet your goals.”