Team Workers - Essay Example

? Project Management Mock Exam Paper Word Count: 2,616 (10 pages i) Write an account of the ideas of group roles as presented by Meredith Belbin in his 1981 research publications. (300 words) Working with a large group of people, there are most definitely inherently going to be several positive engaging aspects present in each worker as well as negative aspects present in each worker. “Meredith Belbin (1981) argues that a good team of people will have compensating strengths and weaknesses, and that as a group they will be able to perform a series of necessary and related tasks” (Thompson and Martin, 2005, pp. 231). In order to know how to best motivate workers, Belbin’s Team-Role Theory makes the most sense to study and understand. “The benefit of utilising and understanding Belbin Team Roles is that not only do we learn more about ourselves, but also a lot about our work colleagues and how to get the best out of them” (“Belbin Team-Role Theory,” 2011, pgh. 3). In Belbin’s theory, his specified team roles help delineate what kind of worker each person is within a group setting at work. It is obvious from the “Belbin Team-Role Summary Sheet” that every individual contributing in a group—either as a plant, a resource investigator, a coordinator, a shaper, a monitor evaluator, a teamworker, an implementer, a completer finisher, or a specialist—has particular strengths and weaknesses (2011, pp. 1). Here is a short explanation of what each team role consists of: a) plant—figures out solutions to difficult and complex problems b) resource investigator—looks for opportunities and builds contacts c) coordinator—clarifies and defines the decision-making process d) shaper—decides how to conquer various difficulties in the project at hand e) monitor evaluator—evaluates the situation accurately f) teamworker—is a peacemaker and team builder g) implementer—makes ideas turn into reality h) completer finisher—delivers products by the deadline and checks for mistakes i) specialist—contributes rare knowledge and a unique skills set ii) Describe two examples of Belbin’s group types, giving some explanation of their characteristics. (100 words) There are three group types in Belbin’s team-role theory: Action-Oriented Roles; People-Oriented Roles; and Thought-Oriented Roles. Teamworkers are People-Oriented Roles. Teamworkers want to make the flow of the group smooth, and will do anything to be cooperative. In fact, they will go out of their way to make any project operate like a well-oiled machine. Teamworkers are diplomatic. Not only do they avoid friction and drama, but they try to build a team instead of break it down. Typical teamworkers will always try to repair any fractures within the infrastructure of the team. Teamworkers are good to have around because they are beneficial alliances in the event that other workers are upset with the manager. Specialists are Thought-Oriented Roles. Specialists are self-starting, dedicated types who evaluates research. Additionally, this person finds specialized information that is difficult to find. The weakness of a specialist is that he or she tends to get weighed down in technicalities. These prevent him or her from becoming an integral part of any team. Although the specialist’s skills are invaluable, he or she might have to be dropped from the team if he or she cannot get past the fact that it is important to coordinate with the other team members. Without doing this, the team will not be supported and could have other additional problems—thus ruining the teamwork. iii) Imagine an unbalanced team was formed in the group project, e.g. lack of one group type in the project team. What happens then? (329 words) Basically, Belbin’s theory of team-roles definitely seemed to make sense. Even in the face of an unbalanced team, various people can step up into place in order to take leadership in the team. One of the group members on the team who would be a specialist—having specific knowledge about the activity trying to be completed—could definitely help out a teamworker who has lost his or her direction. He can some pointed advice regarding the task at hand, which, if it were not offered, could cost the team time as a team working together. Specialists definitely have a rare sort of knowledge. However, specialists can get frustrated by technicalities. In that case, someone else on the team whose personality is definitely evocative of a teamworker can work with that person. This person would probably be a team player in every sense of the word—in fact, many of the other people on the team may get involved if it suits their particular team roles. Action-oriented group members may help those who are more Thought-based. People-oriented group members may help those who are more Action-oriented. The teamworker just wants everyone to succeed, and that is the teamworker’s greatest strength—therefore, this is the person who can unify the entire team. At all stages of executing a team’s plans to reach a goal, teamworkers are immensely helpful in being able to coordinate with people and also be peacemakers when rifts start to develop. Before problems even begin, teamworkers try to be the people who will stop the problems from developing and taking shape so they don’t snowball into huge problems. It is best to have the teamworker around when involved as a team in the decision-making process. However, as the theory suggested, teamworkers can become indecisive when it came to the point where a decision has to be made. That is why all members of the team must learn how to compensate for each other when the team seems unbalanced. ? 2.) ?i) Discuss the process of requirements analysis (585 words) a) Identify Stakeholders. Knowing one’s stakeholders is key. In order to identify stakeholders, one must have a good understanding about who is participating in the organization’s overall success. Knowing who the stakeholders are will better help the organization have better customer service. One of the issues that an organization faces which is crucial in the beginning is its ability to properly identify stakeholders. There are many ways to address this issue. One way to address the issue is to narrow down who is a stakeholder and who is not by checking one’s records and data. Your organization will probably have a known list of people who have already had projects which were supported by various people, who would be one’s stakeholders. The stakeholders are key to the success of the project, because in essence these will be the people backing the project. b) Gather Requirements. It is important to know before the project starts what the requirements are for the project. Having clearly defined goals and an outline will definitely help make the process go smoother. Requirements for the project may change midstream, which can be frustrating. However, this problem can be solved by simply figuring out what the firm requirements are in advance and then making all of the details coordinate with that schema. It is important not to underestimate the potential of the customer to change his or her necessity for a product, which can encumber the process unless the requirements of the project are clearly communicated. This is why adequate communication is necessary between everyone who is on the software development team. c) Organize Requirements. It’s important that requirements are organized in order to streamline services. Customer service will only be at its best if all the requirements of the project are thoroughly thought through in advance. Having organized requirements not only looks professional, but it shows the stakeholders that one is serious about one’s job. No one wants to keep someone employed who is not being conscientious enough about their job to do sloppy work. That is why it is so important to maintain requirements in an organized fashion which is visible for everyone on the team to see. The requirements should be clear to everyone—and if they’re not, some rearranging and rewriting must be completed before moving on to the next step. d) Check Requirements. It only makes sense to always double-check the requirements of the project as they are stated before beginning the project endeavor. Failing to complete this step may lead one to dive head-first into a project that does not have clear goals, clearly-defined stakeholders, and other backers and support for the project. It is necessary that someone (or a team of people) check all of the requirements many times before the project is implemented. This will save time and money later on down the road, and it prohibits a team from making mistakes once information has been passed on to a manager. A manager doesn’t want to have to scrap the whole project because one of the underlings made mistakes in its design. That is not only very unprofessional but wastes a lot of peoples’ time and money. Therefore, it makes sense to always check the requirements necessary before starting new endeavors. e) Review Baseline Requirements. It’s always important to review these baseline requirements from time to time to make sure that everyone understands what is going on within the organization. Baseline requirements help the organization stay on-task and focused. That is the situation’s crux. ii) Detail the main problems in requirements analysis, suggest possible solutions ?? (300 words) One of the problems is that customers don’t know what they want. There may be a way to assuage this problem—in fact, there are many ways. But one surefire way of making sure that a customer doesn’t have difficulty choosing a direction for the project is to have templates in place which the customer can choose from. Perhaps your organization might have a portfolio of projects that have already been completed in an effort to help the customer decide on an overall direction for the project so that the development team isn’t left in the lurch wondering what they are going to try to accomplish together. Having a clear goal or at least a skeleton of an idea which can be fleshed out later is better than being completely directionless. Another problem is that requirements can change in the midst of completing the project. This can be most frustrating, but, in order not to lose projects, it is important to remember that “the customer is always right.” Making sure that customer service is excellent will solve this problem. Yet another problem is that customers have unreasonable timelines, which can be negotiated between the client and the development team. Also, communication problems can exist between members of the development team and the customer—including infighting within the group developing the product. That is why it is important to be clear. One of the worst aspects of requirements analysis is when the development team doesn’t comprehend the politics of the customer’s organization. It’s important that the client makes it clear what the organization wants so the developing team knows how to go about the process. Making sure that the developing team and the client clearly understand each other will go a long way in determining a successful outcome for the project. 3.) ?i) Discuss software quality (140 words) ? Software quality is only as good as its development team. If the development team doesn’t come up with good answers to the solutions of the problems at hand with the software, it is going to be useless. Good software quality also is a necessity for quality control (QC) officials. Software must be inspected after having been developed so that if there are any defects, they can be caught early and debugged. It only makes sense that software quality obviously depends upon the person who has developed the software and their level of comfort with the software. Without having a clearly-developed idea about what the software can accomplish, it might take a lot of effort on the part of the software developers to make amends. It is this commitment to excellence that will separate the wheat from the chaff regarding quality. ii) How it can be measured (140 words)? Software quality can be measured by the ability of the users to utilize the application. User-friendly interfaces can help significantly in the ability of the user to interact with the application. Obviously, those types of applications which are easier to use are going to gain the most popularity. The more difficult a piece of software is to use, it is most likely the less successful it is going to be. User-friendly software is a good way to measure a software’s particular relative success or failure. Software quality is measured in large part on its impact on one’s daily life. A good software application project can revolutionize someone’s life. Depending upon what it does, software has the potential to make a person’s life much easier. That is the goal of measuring the effectiveness of certain software and its relative efficacy. iii) How it can be controlled (70 words)? Software quality can be controlled by making sure there is a quality control (QC) manager hired in order to oversee the software development. With someone available in order to oversee the quality of the overall project, the project will most likely have a better chance at success. Quality control is an essential component in maintaining software quality. Without quality control, it makes sense that software programs are bound to fail. iv) Discuss risks in projects (175 words) Risks in projects are always going to be potential problems that could crop up during the process of a project. Fortunately, risk management is the answer to most problems, which can control, manage, or at least minimize the risks inherent in developing a software project. One of the best ways to avoid risks is to not only listen to the customer, but to also realize that the will of the overall group working on a project is most likely (but not always) the right side to side on. For example, if a majority of the software development team believes there is a loophole in the software that would compromise its security, it might make sense to have the most talented white-hat hackers in the development (dev) team try to see if they can hack into the software. A strong software package will have built-in firewalls in order to sustain an attack on the system by the best hackers—whether they be white-hat, black-hat, or grey-hat. It’s important that software is thoroughly tested before being released. v) What methods can a project team use to reduce the risks (175 words) In order to reduce the risks associated with developing software, the software dev project team should make sure that all of their members are, first of all, ready to sign a non-compete clause contract as well as an NDA. The non-compete clause within a contract for the life of the project is to make sure that no one on the team steals an idea and uses the software for his or her own personal benefit. An NDA (non-disclosure agreement) guarantees that the ideas being used in the software development project are, consequentially, not discussed outside of the office. This can be very helpful—especially because such ideas are native to the project being developed, and, if word leaks out ahead of time before release or product launch, it could be detrimental to the success of the project. Some of the other risks associated with hacking could be referred to an expert in computer programmer, who could debug the system in order to meet specs. A few extra experts might be hired to review all software. 4.) ?You are the project leader for a software project. Present a review of the project risks and your proposed actions to your manager. (761 words) The proposed project is for PRINCE2. The following contains an overview or review of the project, an identification of the risks, an evaluation of the risks, suitable responses to the problems at hand, and various actions that might be suggested to a manager in order to facilitate the software development team’s progress or the progress of the individual program. a) Overview. PRINCE2’s objective is to minimize the risk of the uncertainty of the outcomes of any possible program risks. In addition to this, the person presenting the software project idea must know the demographics involved with starting types of projects like this one. How will it be executed? What is the deadline? How will the software be released? What is the launch date of the software? All these are various questions that must be asked. b) Identify the Risks. The project risks are that Macintosh or Windows might want to sue the people working on the project due to copyright infringement or intellectual property theft. This is understandable, since these companies worked extremely hard in order to get where they are today, including their executives. There are also other various security risks involved with developing software, such as the rights of the employees to have access to said software and the potential risks of intellectual property infringement. Other risks that might be identified within the scope of the software development project include the risks that might be sustained through a DDoS attack, also known as a distributed denial of service attack. This type of attack is usually designed by talented black-hat hackers, who are hackers that hack into systems illegally in order to gain information, steal information, or otherwise disable a company’s ability to do certain things. Any kind of DoS attack is illegal and constitutes a federal crime. However, this type of risk must be taken into consideration as a possibility when designing any software. c) Evaluate the Risks. Preparing the legal department of the company in order to deal with these potential legal issues regarding copyright and intellectual property is paramount. The most important part about the project itself is how its initial idea is going to be presented to management. That is why it is important to find evidence of a precedent of other companies and/or organizations that have attempted similar replications of software similar to what is being done with PRINCE2. Although it may be a bit risky, it might be able to be done. d) Identify Suitable Responses. Various responses could come from management directly. The management will want to think about hiring the appropriate team to take on the software project development task. Once these people are hired, they must be trained appropriately to do their respective jobs. Every team will have to have at least 4 to 10 people working on one aspect of the project. Depending upon how many experts are needed for each team, there may be varying levels of people on each team. The manager would supervise the project in its entirety, but there would be someone below the manager—myself—who would oversee the entire project above the workers but below the manager in the hierarchical scheme of things. e) Selection (of an Action Plan to be Recommended to Manager). Proposed actions to the manager include: a) hiring appropriate personnel to complete the job; b) creating a development team trained to develop the software project; and c) showing a blueprint outline of what the project consists of, with charts, graphs, and a written report containing an executive summary with examples of similar successful projects undertaken by other organizations and/or companies. In addition, an executive summary will have to be prepared, complete with details of what is going to be done within the scope of the project, and what each team member is supposed to be expected to do after each person is trained. In addition to the preparation of an executive summary, it only makes sense that some type of presentation should be constructed using charts, graphs, and tables so people can see the evidence behind the potential success of such a project—ideally presented in a PowerPoint presentation by someone who has notes of a speech written in the bottom of the screen. Not only should the demonstration be a PowerPoint presentation, but it could also be a multi-media presentation that includes an instructional video, and perhaps some extra evidence in the form of an Excel sheet. Evidence of success would be ideal, and having a good speaker present the information about the software development project would be excellent. BIBLIOGRAPHY Belbin team-role summary sheet. (2011). Online. Available: . Belbin team-role theory. (2011). Online. Available: . Thompson JL & Martin F (2005). Strategic management: awareness and change. US: Cengage Brain. ? Read More