Belbin Team Roles Model - Case Study Example

Section 1 Selection of the project team Belbin team roles model identifies nine team roles categorized into three groups which are action oriented, people oriented and thought oriented. Each of the teams has interpersonal and behavioral strengths (Kousholt, 2007). Belbin team roles identified below helped in the execution of the selection process. i. People motivated to improve the team performance by helping to find best solutions to a challenge. ii. People who are good in getting things done. They are responsible for turning people’s ideas into actions and plans. iii. Completers/finishers: these are people who ensure that the project is completed thoroughly with no errors. iv. Coordinator: these are people responsible for leading the team in achieving their objectives. v. Team workers: these are people who ensure that the team works together effectively. vi. Resource investigators: are innovative and curious individuals who explore all available options to acquire resources on behalf of the team. vii. Planters: these are creative innovators who explore new ideas and ways of accomplishing tasks. viii. Monitor-evaluators: these are people who analyze and evaluate ideas that other people come up with. ix. Specialists: these are individuals with specialized knowledge required to get the job done effectively (Lester, 2007). Based on these Belbin team roles ideas, the team selection is as follows: Employee name Job description M/F Experience Daily cost (£) Days at work Total cost (£) Bill Gates Business Analyst M 5 years 100 Martin Heideggerý Business Analyst M 1 year 80 Xristine Faulkner Developer F 6 years 145 Bruno Latour Developer M 11 years 195 Manuel De Landa IT Specialist M 3 years 150 Steve Krug Network Specialist M 5 years 155 Tim Breners-Lee Operations Expert M 2 years 180 Jenny Preece Programmer F 3 years 125 Donald Norman Programmer M 5 years 130 Michel Foucaultý Senior Developer M 7 years 185 Nicolas Negroponte Senior Programmer M 8 years 250 Jakob Nielsen Test Engineer M 1 year 100 Total Rationale for the selection of the above project team The initial task in this project entails project requirements collection. This task needs an individual who possesses great analytical experience and skills in order to identify the project needs and evaluate business processes involved (Kousholt, 2007). In this case, the most appropriate members of the team proposed for the project include: Bill Gates: this is a male business analyst who has work experience of five years. His daily cost is £ 100 and has work quality score of four. Bill Gates rating for team work is six and his communication skills score is eight. These scores are appropriate for the nature of his role as he will help in the achievement of the project objectives. Additionally, Gates has a score of eight in terms of work behavior, a crucial requirement for achieving success in the project. Manuel De Landa: this is a male IT specialist with a work experience of three years and a daily cost of £ 150. Besides, Manuel’s work quality is rated six, while his team work performance score is four. He also has communication skills rating of four and a work behavior performance score of six. His skills, ratings, and experience are essential in aiding the successful undertaking of the project role. The second stage of the project work, which also refers to the initial design, requires a competent IT specialist and a business analyst. The following team members were assigned this role: Manuel De Landa: As mentioned above was also chosen to undertake this role in the project planning. Martin Heideggerý: This is another male business analyst with a work experience of one year and a daily cost of £80. Although he is utterly new in the field, his inclusion in the project will be highly beneficial as he will complement others’ skills and experience. He is also has a team worker’s rating of five and communication skills score of eight. In terms of work behavior, Martin has a rating of seven, which is suitable for his role. Therefore, the combination of the two analysts’ low costs, ratings, skills and experience will highly boost the project’s success. The project will also involve a second stage; development that has three phases including software design, software programming or coding, and software implementation. In software design, the appropriate team member is: Bruno Latour: This is a male developer who has worked for 11 years, and has a daily cost of £ 195. His team work score is seven, whereas the communication skills are rated five. Additionally, his work behavior is good with a score of seven, and the quality score is eight. In the second phase of project development; software programming or coding, three specialists are required and they include: Xristine Faulkner: This is a female developer with a long period working experience of six years. Her daily cost is a moderate amount of £145 and she has very good communication skills score of nine. She also has a good rating of seven for team work performance, work quality and work behavior. Jenny Preece: this is a female programmer with three years experience and a daily cost of £125. Her work quality is rated seven, whereas team work, communication skills, and work behavior rating is eight. Her inclusion is beneficial as it significantly adds the number of female members in the project team. Tim Breners-Lee: this is a male operations expert with a work experience of two years and a daily cost of £180. His work quality and work behavior are rated eight, while his team work score is graded six. Besides, Tim’s appropriateness is motivated by his communication skills’ rating of seven. The third phase of project development involves software testing and it requires three experts that include a developer, programmer, and operations expert. The appropriate personnel for this role include: Xristine Faulkner: is previously suggested will undertake this role. Donald Norman: this is another male programmer who has work experience of five years and a daily cost of £130. The long work experience is to the advantage of the team as he has had adequate exposure to similar projects in the past. He has a high work quality and team work rating of seven and a rating of six for communication skills. As regards work behavior, Donald is rated eight. Time Breners-Lee: is previously suggested will undertake this role. The last phase of project development entails software implementation and this will be undertaken by: Bruno Latour: who was previously nominated will be in charge of the phase. The third stage of project planning involves network implementation. This stage is sub-divided into two phases: network development and network test. The team members nominated for this include: Steve Krug: this is a male network specialist with a work experience of five years and a daily cost of £155. His work behavior and team work rating is eight. He also has a score of six for both work quality and communication skills. In the second phase, which entails network test, the member involved is: Steve Krug: mentioned previously, he was chosen to carry out the network test in the project planning. The fourth stage in project planning involves integration. The right person to do the integration testing is: Jakob Nielsen: this is a male test engineer with one year experience. He has a rating of seven for work quality, communication skills, and work behavior. Besides, his team work rating is eight. Test and review is the fifth stage in project planning. It has two phases including user acceptance test and system test. The suitable team members nominated for this are: Jakob Nielsen: he is previously mentioned Bill Gates: he is also previously mentioned The sixth stage involves project end, which is also referred to as the end of the project. The aforementioned team members will be responsible for the project planning stages and phases to ensure effectiveness and efficiency. The following is a Gantt chart that demonstrates work the work plan and provisional dates of project deliverables at each stage. Task name Activity predecessor Efforts (days) Select one or more of the available team members for the project activity 1. Design 1.1 Requirement gathering 1 6 Business analyst It specialist 1.2 Initial design 2 8 Business analyst It specialist 2. Development 2.1 software design 3 8 Developer 2.2 software programming/Coding 4 18 Developer Programmer Operations expert 2.3 Software testing 5 5 Developer Programmer Operations expert 2.4 software implementation 6 3 Developer 3. Network implementation 3.1 network development 76 5 Network spec/Ops 3.2 Network test 8 4. Integration 4.1 integration testing 9 Test engineer 5. Test and review 5.1 user acceptance test 10 Test engineer Business analyst 5.2 system test 11 Test engineer Business analyst 6. Project End 6.1 End of project 12 72 Activity table Task duration table Task Predecessor Duration A 5 B A 10 C B 10 D C 25 E D 3 F E 3 G 5 H G 2 I F 5 J I 2 K J 5 L H,K 1 Network diagram and dependencies Project cost with critical rationale Employee Name Job description M/F Experience Daily cost (£) Days at work Total cost (£) Bill Gates Business Analyst M 5 years 100 20 2000 Martin Heideggerý Business Analyst M 1 year 80 12 960 Xristine Faulkner Developer F 6 years 145 10 1450 Bruno Latour Developer M 11 years 195 12 2340 Manuel De Landa IT Specialist M 3 years 150 10 1500 Steve Krug Network Specialist M 5 years 155 20 3100 Tim Breners-Lee Operations Expert M 2 years 180 5 900 Jenny Preece Programmer F 3 years 125 5 625 Donald Norman Programmer M 5 years 130 3 390 Michel Foucaultý Senior Developer M 7 years 185 5 925 Nicolas Negroponte Senior Programmer M 8 years 250 5 1250 Jakob Nielsen Test Engineer M 1 year 100 10 1000 Total 117 16440 The total estimated cost for this project is £ 16,440. Gantt chart Network Diagram Section 2 The following problems were faced in the implementation of the project; Walter White was involved in a serious incident which led to the termination of his contract. Since Walter was not part of the project team, his termination will not affect the progress of the project. During the second phase of the project, we lost Donald Norman due to short illness. The loss of Donald was a great blow to the project because he was a very active individual with over 5 year’s experience. The loss of Donald also affected the team morale and we had a day break as a result. The loss affected the project program because the work was only left to the remaining programmer Jenny Preece. In order to resolve this issue, Nicolas Negroponte was called to offer the needed assistance to Jenny. This was also meant to avoid adding another person to replace Donald. Nicolas Negroponte was a good choice because he is an experienced programmer with 8 years experience. He was also not too committed in his position as a senior programmer. During the software programming/coding stage, Jenny Preece started behaving strangely, her work was below expectation and she reported late to work and left early. On following up with her, I discovered that she had relationship issues at home and she was unable to fully immerse herself at work. In order to resolve this issue, I advised Jenny Preece to seek the help of a local psychological counsellor. Upon completing her counselling process, she embarked on her work. This issue caused delays in the implementation of the software programming code and a few days had to be added in order to complete the project as depicted in the adjusted table below. This was also complicated by the fact that we had already lost Donald who could have offered help in the absence of Jenny Preece. During the last phase of the project, we faced a challenge because of Jakob Nielsen lateness to test the completed network and piece of code. On investigating the cause of delays, I discovered that Jakob Nielsen had silently involved himself in another project without informing us. This was against the policy of the project manager and we were forced to dismiss him on this ground. Gilles Deleuzeý was selected to replace him. Gilles was selected because he is a committed individual, with 7 work quality, 8 team work and 7 in work behaviour rating. This was a good replacement for Jakob. As a result of this, there were some delays and we had to adjust the project deadline by a couple of days in order for the new comer to adapt to the project. Employee name Job description M/F Experience Daily cost (£) Days at work Total cost (£) Bill Gates Business Analyst M 5 years 100 20 2000 Martin Heideggerý Business Analyst M 1 year 80 12 960 Xristine Faulkner Developer F 6 years 145 25 3625 Bruno Latour Developer M 11 years 195 20 3900 Manuel De Landa IT Specialist M 3 years 150 10 1500 Steve Krug Network Specialist M 5 years 155 20 3100 Tim Breners-Lee Operations Expert M 2 years 180 10 1800 Jenny Preece Programmer F 3 years 125 7 875 Donald Norman Programmer M 5 years 130 0 Michel Foucaultý Senior Developer M 7 years 185 5 925 Nicolas Negroponte Senior Programmer M 8 years 250 10 2500 Gilles Deleuzeý Test Engineer M 1 year 100 12 1000 Total 151 22185 As evident from the changes above, the total project cost went up from the original 16440 to 22185. The reason for this was because of the loss and changes that added the number of hours from 117 to 151 in order for the project to be completed. Gantt chart after changes Network diagram after changes References Carroll, J. (2012). Effective Project Management in Easy Steps. Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, UK: In Easy Steps Ltd. Pp. 1-20. Chapman, C., & Ward, S. (2007). Project Risk Management Processes, techniques, and Insights. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 1-30. Clements, J.P., & Gido, J. (2012). Effective Project Management. New York, NY: South- Western/Cengage Learning. Pp.12-30. Hillson, D. (2012). Managing Risk in Projects. New York, NY: Gower publishing Ltd. Pp.10-40. Kliem, R. (2007). Effective Communications for Project Management. New York, NY: CRC Press. Pp. 1-25. Kousholt, B. (2007). Project Management: Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Wiley and Sons Ltd. Pp. 20-50. Lester, A. (2007). Project management, planning and control: managing engineering, construction and manufacturing projects to PMI, APM and BSI standards. Amsterdam; Boston ; London : Elsevier/Butterworth-Heinemann. Pp. 15-40. Roberts, P. (2011). 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