9.3 Developing a strategy In developing a strategy for improving your skills in working with others you are aiming to: identify the opportunities you can use to develop and practise your skills in working with others, and the goals you hope to achieve; identify the resources you might use for developing your skills, including people who might be able to help you as well as libraries, books, databases, the Internet or online support; establish
Working on improving your skills in working with others The three-stage framework for developing and improving your skills provides the basis for you to become more confident in: developing a strategy for using a variety of techniques and tools for working with others, including being clear about what you want to achieve, identifying relevant sources of information that will help you to achieve your goals, and planning how you intend to improve your skills; monitoring your progress and cri
9.1.1 About working with others Very few people study or work in complete isolation. Some courses now set projects and assignments that need to be completed in pairs or groups, either face-to-face or using e-conferencing. Even if your course does not formally require you to do this, working with others is an important part of your skills portfolio. Most jobs require you to work as part of a team, and employers value individuals who can demonstrate this. In working on a work project or an assignment with others – in
8.7.2 Assess the effectiveness of your strategy How did you carry out your work? What lines of enquiry did you follow to reach your conclusions? Were there any dead-ends where you felt you could not make further progress, or particular insights that you felt helped you to better understand your work? You should be able to explain why you pursued some approaches but rejected others; what decisions did you make to keep you on track? In stating your conclusions and interpreting the results of your work, you should refer back to what you
8.6.2 Adapt your strategy to overcome difficulties Often plans run into difficulties because of unforeseen problems or changing circumstances. For example, you may be running over your deadlines, the resources or support you were expecting are unavailable to you, or your personal circumstances may have changed. Plans are only a means to an end, however. If you run into difficulties, take some time to think about what effect they will have on your plans, and what changes you may need to make to your overall strategy to achieve the outcomes you
8.6.1 Monitor and critically reflect on your use of problem-solving skills As you use problem-solving skills in your work, refer back to the outcomes you hope to achieve and the goals you have set yourself. Ask yourself questions such as: am I on track to achieve my outcomes? what difficulties in using problem-solving techniques have I experienced and what have I done about them? how have the choices and decisions I made impacted on me and on others? do I need to make any ch
8.5.3 Negotiate the option to be taken forward In many contexts problem-solving activities will involve other people. You may need to seek permissions, advice, support and resources from a range of people, such as your tutor, manager, group or team colleagues, or others who may have authority over or be affected by your work. Some aspects of negotiation are: gaining the co-operation of colleagues, as necessary; establishing the availability of resources, including staffing;<
8.5.2 Identify options that have a chance of success Explore and compare the options available to you. Be critically aware of the different factors such as technical, commercial, political, academic or personal interests that may influence your choice of options. How will you arrive at those solutions most likely to meet the agreed conditions for success? In comparing possible approaches you might use:
decision-making techniques: developing and applying a decision tree to help you select a
8.5.1 Generate a variety of ways of tackling problems Where the best way, or, indeed, any way, of tackling a problem is not obvious, there are a number of tools and techniques which can be useful to stimulate ideas and different ways of thinking:
reasoning: reaching conclusions or deciding on paths of action by means-end analysis or critical-path analysis;
matching: recognising similarities with other situations, drawing analogies, adapting solutions that have worked or s
8.5 Monitoring progress This stage is about keeping track of your progress. Are you tackling your problem-solving activities effectively? How do you know? Could you have done things differently, made use of different tools (such as software packages) or facilities, taken more advantage of tutorials, training sessions or local expertise, or recognised that such support would have helped you? Monitoring your own performance and progress needs practice; try to stand back and look at what you are doing as if you w
8.3.4 Research information from other sources Spend some time finding out about what you will need to help you complete your problem-solving work successfully and who you need to consult. You may need to arrange access to a library, the Internet, databases on CD-ROM or online, or specialist training or publications. If you need to learn more about tools or techniques (for example concept maps, critical-path diagrams or flowcharts), then look first at your course material, and then at study guides or notes aimed at your area of interest (
8.3.2 Identify the outcomes you hope to achieve An outcome is the result or consequence of a process. For example, you may want contribute effectively to a design project in a course, or work in a team to improve a product or system. In this case the design or product improvement is an outcome, and using your problem-solving skills is part of the process by which you achieve that outcome. You may find it useful to discuss or negotiate the outcomes you hope to achieve with others. Solving problems will often depend to some extent on other k
7.7 Drawing ideas together This key skill has used a three-stage framework for developing your skills. By developing a strategy, monitoring your progress and evaluating your overall approach, you take an active role in your own learning. But learning does not necessarily follow a path of steady improvement, it involves change: revisiting ideas, seeing things from different perspectives, tackling things in different ways. You are unlikely to be able to complete your work by working through it from beginning to end
7.6.5 Identify ways of further developing your number skills Think about your overall number skills and suggest areas where you feel you need to improve, based on the experience you have gained. You might find it useful to discuss with a tutor, manager, another student or work colleague how you might do this. There may be changes you feel you need to make so that you can move forward, such as trying to extend the facilities and resources available to you, changing the way you study to make best use of the time you have, or focusing on improving your ow
7.6.4 Evaluate the effectiveness of your strategy Using the records in your Skills File, look back over your number skills development work and think about how your decisions, and the facilities and constraints of your working environment influenced the way you tackled the task. How effective was your strategy in improving your skills? Identify what was and was not helpful in achieving your goals and outcomes, and assess how your own strengths and weaknesses contributed to this. Evaluate your achievements against the criteria you estab
7.6.3 Explain results in relation to your work You should be able to explain the results of your work, drawing attention to any patterns, trends or relationships you have identified. What are the consequences of your work? Does it support the hypotheses or assumptions you started with? How did you carry out your work? What lines of enquiry did you follow to reach your conclusions? Were there any dead-ends where you felt you could not make further progress, or particular insights that you felt helped you to understand your work better? You
1.1.1 When do we use key skills? Key skills underpin almost everything we do. In the following table, there are some examples of when we use key skills as part of our studies or in other areas of our lives. As you read through the list, think about how confident you are in each of the key skills. Click on 'View document' below for a printable version of Table 1 that you can fill in. 7.6.1 Interpret results and identify your main findings In stating your conclusions and interpreting the results of your work, you should refer back to what you set out to investigate or demonstrate. Have you achieved your goals? What evidence have you got to support your conclusions? If you are making general statements based on your work (for example a statistical analysis of data), then you should be able to explain clearly the reasoning that has led to your conclusions. In quoting mathematical results you should be able to say whether the resu 3.1 Tables and flat databases Reuters Today: Citi puts "Grexit" chance at 90% in 18 months
www……..gov.uk You can now access government directly through the web. E-government in action. While studying this unit you look at the scope of e-government, the databases that are necessary, the use of biometrics in identification and verification of identity and assess the usability and accessibility of websites.
July 26 - EU's Barroso meets with Greek PM Samaras while international lenders mull whether Athens has done enough to secure the next bailout payments. And Citi sees 90% chance of Greece leaving the euro.
