Project Management - Ch. 11 - Summary

18 as a group of individuals working independently to achieve a common goal.Teamwork is the cooperative effort by members of a team to achieve that common goal. The effectiveness -- or lack thereof -- of the project team can make a difference between project success and project failure.

Project teams evolve through various stages of development. For thing, the initial stage of the team development process, involves the transition from individual to team member. During this stage, individuals on the team began to get acquainted. During the storming stage, conflict emerges and tension increases. Motivation and morale are low. Members may even resist teen information. However, after struggling through the storming stage, the team moves into the norming stage of development. Relationships among team members and between the team and the project manager have become settled, and interpersonal conflicts have been resolved for the most part. The fourth and final stage of team development and growth as the performing stage. And this stage, the team is highly committed an eager to achieve the project objective. The members feel a sense of unity.

Characteristics often associated with effective project teams include a clear understanding of the project objective, clear expectations of each person's role and responsibilities, a results orientation, a high degree of cooperation and collaboration, and a high level of trust. Barriers to team effectiveness include unclear goals, unclear definition of roles and responsibilities, lack of project structure, lack of commitment, poor communication, poor leadership, turnover of project team members, and dysfunctional behavior.

Teambuilding -- developing a group of individuals to accomplish the project objective -- is an ongoing process. It is the responsibility of both the project manager in the project team. Socializing a multimember supports teambuilding. To facilitate socializing, team members can request that they be physically located in one office area for the duration of the project and they can participate in social events.

Ethical behavior is necessary within a project organization and its crucial in project business relationships with the customer, suppliers and subcontractors. Customers and suppliers want to do business with a contractor or project organization they can trust. Intentional distortion, deception or misrepresentation is outright unethical. Two actions a project organization can take to help prevent any wrongdoing is to have a written policy on ethical behavior and to provide training about ethics in the workplace. A policy on ethical behavior should include topics on expectations, processes for reporting misconduct, and consequences of engaging in unethical practices. Misconduct or conflict of interest activities must be addressed and appropriate disciplinary action taken to show that such behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Every member of the project team must feel accountable for his or her actions. Personal integrity is the foundation for workplace ethics.

Conflict on projects is it inevitable. During a project, conflict can emerge from a variety of situations. It can involve members in the project team, the project manager, and even the customer. Sources of potential conflict on projects include differences of opinion on how the work should be done, how much work should be done, at what level of quality to work should be done, who should be assigned to work on which tasks, the sequence in which the work should be done, how long the work should take, and how much the work should cost. Conflict can also arise because of prejudices or differences in individual's values and attitudes.

Conflict is not just for the project manager to resolve; conflict among team members should be handled by the individuals involved. Dealt with properly, conflict can be beneficial because it causes problems to surface and be addressed.

It is unusual for a team to complete a project without encountering some problems along the way. A good nights that problem-solving approach is to develop a problem statement, identify potential causes of the problem, gather data and verified most likely causes, identify possible solutions, evaluate the alternative solutions, determine the best solution, revise the project plan, implement the solution, and determine whether the problem has been solved. Brainstorming is a technique used in problem-solving in which all members of a group contribute spontaneous ideas. And brainstorming, the quantity of ideas generated is more important than the quality of the ideas.

Good time management is essential for a high-performance project team. To manage their time effectively, team members should identify weekly goals, make a to-do list for each day, focus on accomplishing the daily to-do list, control interruptions, learn to say no to activities that do not leave them closer to their goals, make effective use of waiting time, handle paperwork only once, and reward themselves for accomplishing their goals.