A team has "A small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and a common approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable"
Project Team Building
Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results together.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
What is a Team?
Why Teams?
Teams are formed because they can achieve far more than their individual members can on their own, and while being part of a high-performing team can be fun, it can take patience and professionalism to get to that stage.
Effective team leaders can accelerate that process and reduce the difficulties that team members experience by understanding what they need to do as their team moves through the stages from forming to storming, norming and, finally, performing.
Project team building for any project is the most important and challenging step. Most Project team building likely, the project manager will require skills from different departments/jobs to achieve the goals of the project.
An effective project team leader is a "social architect". One who understands the interaction of organizational and behavioral variables, can foster a climate of active participation and can minimize dysfunctional conflict. To be effective, the team leader must identify major issues associated with three dimensions.
- The first dimension is the project organization structure, including organizational development, and senior management involvement to ensure visibility, resource availability and overall support for the project throughout its lifecycle.
- The second is team related with emphasis on behavioral aspects such as team structure, trust and respect, or conversely, barriers to team development.
- The third is project task and resource related such as goals and objectives, planning and scope management, scheduling and cost control. These are all accomplished through effective communication.
But what of the other essential ingredient, the team, the followers? Ideally, the more the team can be motivated and empowered to "take the bull by the horns", the more productive they become and the less direction and control is required.
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It is clear that leadership is important to the success of a project because leadership is essentially about motivating people. It is also clear that what may be characterized as “managership” is equally important because this is about getting things done. The Project Manager is responsible for everything that is required to make the project a success - whether directly or indirectly.
It is not like a typical hierarchical line management role. The PM should have the skills, knowledge, and personality necessary to bring the project to fruition. In addition to these traits, the PM must be given the level of responsibility and authority necessary to perform the job.
The PM's actual role depends on the structure of his/her organization, which can be function-oriented, project-oriented, or some type of matrix in between. In a heavily project-oriented organization, the PM may have relatively unlimited authority, answering only to upper management. At the other end of the spectrum is an organization that manages by function. The PM must deal with functional managers as equals, or possibly even superiors, and negotiate for resources. Most organizations fall somewhere in between these two extremes. Through the efforts of the Project Management Institute (“PMI”), an understanding of the importance of "people" to the success of a project has developed rapidly over the last several years. The major thrusts are perhaps best portrayed graphically as shown in figure:
With these attributes in mind, the following definition is a simple, yet comprehensive distillation of leadership thought in the project context.
Managers and Leaders
PMI defines a project manager as one who is responsible for project management, and now defines project management as the application of knowledge, tools and techniques to project activities. However, these definitions only focus on the administrative aspects of project work. Many well-known authors have written about managers and, especially recently, about leadership. Generally, these authors see a distinction according to the primary focus of the leader or manager.
This table shows the respective positions of leaders and managers on a number of issues. It is a truism that leaders focus on doing "the right thing" while managers focus on doing "the thing right".
Subject | Managers focus on | Leaders focus on |
---|---|---|
Seeks | Goals & Objectives | Vision |
Wants | Results | Achievements |
Persuasion | Telling How & When | Selling What & Why |
Horizon | Short-term | Long-term |
Essence | Stability | Change |
Dynamic | Reactive | Proactive |
Consistency | Flexibility | |
Style | Transactional[1] | Transformational[2] |
Focus | Managing organization, structure & work | Leading people |
Approach | Plans detail | Sets direction |
Rules | Makes | Breaks |
Procedures | Policy | |
Direction | Existing roads | New roads |
Have | Subordinates | Followers |
Appeal to | Head | Heart |
Exchange | Money for work | Excitement for work & challenging |
Power | Formal authority | Personal charisma |
Decision | Makes | Facilitates |
Autocracy | Democracy | |
Likes | Action | Striving |
Energy | Control | Passion/Directing |
Culture | Enacts | Shapes |
Conforming | Enabling | |
Maintaining | Developing | |
Imitating | Originating | |
Administrating | Innovating | |
Bottom line | Top line | |
Conflict | Avoids | Uses |
Risk | Minimizes | Takes |
Risk-accidence | Risk-opportunity | |
Truth | Establishes | Seeks |
Credit | Takes | Gives |
Blame | Blames | Takes |
Concern | Being right | What is right |
Good Managers do Things Right | Good Leaders do Right Things | |
What about doing right things right?! |
[1] People are motivated by reward and punishment. Social systems work best with a clear chain of command. When people have agreed to do a job, a part of the deal is that they cede all authority to their manager. The prime purpose of a subordinate is to do what their manager tells them to do.
[2] People will follow a person who inspires them. A person with vision and passion can achieve great things. The way to get things done is by injecting enthusiasm and energy.
This is, of course, an illustrative characterization, and there is a whole spectrum between either ends of these scales along which each role can range. And many people lead and manage at the same time, and so may display a combination of behaviors.
Can a Manager be a Leader and a Leader be a Manager?
The answer to the question is "yes." The skills to be a leader or a manager are not exclusive in nature. A leader who only displays leadership skills will be ineffective when it comes to checking time cards, completing employee reviews, and scheduling employee vacation time; things that employers require their managers to do on timely bases. Similarly, a manager who spends all his/her time completing paperwork and reading reports; only creates more problems for him or her because they lack a developing relationship with their employees.
If you are a manager who has spent too much time managing and not leading his/her employees, start spending 10% of your time each week leading until you can establish 25% of your time in leadership practices. If you are a leader who only likes to lead, either become a politician, hire an assistant to be the manager, or start spending 50% of your time getting the paperwork done.
Building your Team
“The 'P' in 'PM' is as much about 'People Management' as it is about 'Project Management'.” - Cornelius Fichtner |