Project Management - 3.3: Team Management

Team Management

The best project managers are also first-class team leaders. Nowadays, project managers need to go beyond the traditional project delivery practices and master the business systems approach. They have to think of the project as a business enterprise and manage it like a business venture. This means they have to consider the success of the project outcomes as well as the success of the project itself.

Project managers need to understand how their organisation creates value for its major stakeholders and accept responsibility for delivering that value. This requires a detailed knowledge of the strategy the project is supporting, as well as knowledge of organisation, motivation, marketing, accounting, cost control, finance and quantitative decision-making from a project management perspective.

The key project leadership skills are as follows:

• Developing an overall vision of the project

• Building and developing the project management team

• Leading the team through the steps of the project management process

• Oral and written communications skills, both one-to-one and with a group

• People-management skills, including giving constructive feedback, conflict resolution and managing individual styles and personalities

• Facilitation skills, including interfacing across the organisation and removing obstacles for the team

• Ability to accept criticism, feedback and input from others

• Using team-based tools such as brainstorming, organising, decision making and project management.

• The ability to promote and sell the project, within and outside the organisation.

• Presentation skills

Problems Faced By Project Managers > Team Management > Team Dynamics

Team Dynamics are invisible forces that operate between different people or groups in a team. They can have a strong impact on how a team behaves or performs and their effects can be complex.

Consider a team consisting of six people, two of whom are already good friends. This pre-existing friendship can have a strong effect, either positive or negative, on the whole team. On one hand, the other members of the team may feel excluded from the friendship, thus dividing the team into two, possibly antagonistic, groups. But on the other hand, the whole group may be drawn into an extended friendship, causing the team to gel quickly and perform more effectively.

Physical factors can also have an effect, for example if a row of cupboards was place in the middle of the project office it could split the team into two groups. But the cupboards could easily be repositioned and the room layout designed to encourage communication.

Team dynamics can be recognised by examining the forces that influence team behaviour, eg:

• Personality styles, eg tendency to include or exclude people

• Team roles

• Office layout, eg cupboards dividing teams

• Tools and technology, eg use of email, bulletin boards etc.

• Organisational culture, eg company cars as status symbols

• Processes/methodologies/procedures, eg problem-solving methodology

Team dynamics can best be managed by examining the forces involved and intervening constructively to make the effects of those forces positive, wherever possible.

Problems Faced By Project Managers > Team Management > Establishing the Project Authority

A good Project Manager always takes steps to establish his/her authority and inspire respect. One of the first challenges is often taking over from the previous manager and winning over his or her supporters.

New managers often have a honeymoon period, when people are more interested in finding out how they work, than in criticising them or challenging them. This can be a good time to establish authority and get a good grasp of how organisational finances and control structures operate.

It is important to gain control of subordinates. In most organisations these can be divided into four groups: personal assistants, staff, subordinate managers and rank-and-file team members.

Personal assistants should always remain directly under the control of the manager and should have little or no authority.

Staff generally carry out functional roles, such as distributing information and again have little authority.

Subordinate managers should be encouraged to accept authority over their own areas of responsibility, but with a degree of caution to ensure that they do not attempt to usurp the role of the Project Manager.

Rank and file team members will normally report to a subordinate manager, but should have direct access to the Project Manager should any need to resolve conflicts arise.

Problems Faced By Project Managers > Team Management > Mechanics of Leading a Team

There are a number of fundamental skills involved in building and leading a team:

• Vision means being able to excite the team with large and desirable outcomes. This means devising goals that contain challenge, appeal to personal pride, and provide an opportunity to make a difference. Skilful team leaders communicate the goal by picturing success, eg by asking questions like: ‘What will it look like when we get there?’ or ‘How will others know?’

• Commitment can be a dangerous concept because of its attendant assumptions. For some people it may mean long hours, while to others it may mean productivity. Some team members may have difficulty in achieving commitment. This doesn’t automatically mean that they don’t care - they may already have too many other commitments both in and out of work. Leaders must avoid seeking accountability without providing support. The optimum approach is to establish an atmosphere of trust, and within that atmosphere encourage inclusion.

• Trust is the antidote to the fears and risks involved in commitment. When trust is established, team members are more willing to go through a difficult process, supported through good times and bad times, risk and potential loss. This happens when leadership commits to vision first, and everyone knows this commitment is genuine.

• Inclusion means getting others to commit to the team effort, helping others through their initial to genuine commitment. The basic tasks are to communicate the vision, ensure that it is understood, communicate commitment (including sharing risk and reward) and elicit and address peoples’ doubts. Leaders need good communication skills to achieve inclusion, eg non-assumptive questioning and good listening.

Non-assumptive questions like ‘Can you tell me what is happening with this report?’ are likely to receive real answers because they are inclusive, not intrusive. Questions containing assumptions like ‘Why is this report not complete?’ invite defensiveness.

Good listening means separating the process of taking in information from the process of judging it.

Problems Faced By Project Managers > Team Management > Team Meetings

Team meetings are critical to the effective functioning of a team. Team dynamics only come into play when the team is together, so meetings have a crucial role to play. It is at meetings that members develop their relationship as a group, so if the meetings do not work well, the team is unlikely to do so.

The members of a team generally have their own separate jobs, and meet together to get direction, share information, make decisions about issues that affect them all and coordinate activities that overlap roles. Members must get to know each other, learn to be a team, formulate a common goal, identify targets, plan work and coordinate how they will achieve that work. Teams also have a role in identifying problems and working together to find solutions and better ways of doing things. Meetings are their forum for making decisions and expanding their own empowerment levels.

Meetings are also a forum for feedback and evaluation. Team members are jointly responsible for reviewing their progress on achieving results, each other’s performance and the performance of the team as a whole. This should happen at the team’s regular meetings. Successful teams normally use meetings for some or all of the following purposes:

• Building relationships
• Learning team skills
• Setting goals and objectives
• Planning and coordinating work
• Discussing ways to expand empowerment
• Finding and solve problems
• Working on innovations
• Giving each other feedback
• Evaluate the team and the meetings
• Evaluate results achieved

Team meetings have to be carefully structured and skillfully facilitated in order to accomplish all the things an active team needs. Ensuring that meetings are well-managed is one of the critical functions of a team leader.

Meetings need to be regular and members must attend them consistently. The team leader should establish a regular time for meetings and keep to that schedule even if some members are occasionally absent.

Problems Faced By Project Managers > Team Management > Maintaining Team Leadership

Each team needs to shape its own common purpose, goals and approach. A team leader must contribute effectively to the work of the team, but the leader also stands apart from the team due to his or her position. A team expects their leader to help them clarify and commit to their mission, goals, and approach. Leaders should not be afraid to get their hands dirty, but they should also be prepared to let team members get on with their jobs.

An effective leader will work to build the commitment and confidence level of each member and the team as a whole. The leader’s goal should be to have members with technical, functional, problem solving, decision making, interpersonal and teamwork skills. He/she should encourage them to take the risks needed for growth and development and challenge them by shifting their assignments and role patterns.

Team leaders are expected to manage the team’s contacts and relationships with the rest of the organisation. They must communicate the team’s purpose, goals, and approach to anyone who might help or hinder it. They must also be able to intervene on the team’s behalf when obstacles that could cripple or demoralise the team are placed in their way.

A shared vision is a critical aspect of building a successful team. Teams are likely to fail if they don’t see clearly why they are doing what they are trying to do and why they are doing it. The leader must motivate the team toward the fulfillment of their goals. Team members want to be successful and they know the only way to do that is by following and achieving goals.