Team Building in the Construction Industry - Report Example

Management 4 a) It has become extremely challenging for present day organizations to have the right blend of team and that can have constrained in the building industry. The building industry will comprise a construction team that will be having architect or the engineer, owner of the construction and the contractor. (John H. Zenger, Joe Folkman,2002)The owner can be a public entity that can be government funding and it can be also a private entity which can mean an individual. The contractor will be building the project in a competitive environment. The other participants that can influence the team will be public participation and government regulators. The team members in the construction company should be having a common goal of finishing the project construction and any conflicting and competing interest will be affecting the viability of the project .These conflicting interest can be caused by a team that is not having team work and the lack of team work can be caused more by the fractured nature of the industry. There will be cases of new members with each project and that can mean different perspective and priorities that will be present in every project. The construction process will be a very competitive environment like the owner desiring the best value and highest quality for their money. The design team will be under pressure to achieve the objective of the owner and will be also under the additional pressure of operating a business. The competitive nature of the participants will be causing a breakdown of team work that will be a crucial factor to the success of the project. The normal breakdown of the project will be the untimely information flow, excessive distrust among the members, the excessive documentation, the expensive delays, and certain events that can influence the cost and schedule of the project. Team building has to be designed to improve a project performance and the objective of the team building activities will be to build communications, encourage coordination, and avoid any problems that can be potential, disputes and keeping the moral high. The construction manager should be the primary part in building a team. The primary step in building a good team in the construction industry will be defining the team goals. The best way to build a good time will be to start with a preconstruction meeting and partnering session that can be done with the entire project stakeholders. The meeting will be the base for the process of team members to know each other well and that will be developing a team that will be having a win-win attitude The team should be made to agree upon the common team and project goals and that means goals should be specific, measurable, relevant and time-bound. The secondary step in building the right team will be depending on the building of trust and respect within the construction team. People from different backgrounds will be joining hands together in construction industry and they will be approaching the issue from different perspectives. Team work will not be possible when there is cynicism among others motive and that means better understanding will be builded up in a team that has better understanding of team members. Understanding of team members can build a value of trust and that can build a successful relationship among team members that can lead to better project management. Every team member should be a clear role about building the duties, rights and responsibilities and that can mean design engineer will not be required to make the field visits for contract compliance but will be only required to get the approval for design. There will be also a brainstorming event that will help the project risk to be identified among team members and there should be an understanding among team members that there will be up and downs among the project and every team member should take collective team effort to get the project back on trail. There should be a clear idea among team members that the arguments among the team members will be helping to focus more on the battle at hand rather than to move over the problems. That means the team members will be taught to focus on the problems rather than on the personalities. The relationship between the members should be open and honest and talking behind the back will be creating a problem in the team. The team members should be encouraged any form of negative talk that can affect the morale of the team. There can be also a change of venue that can influence the decision making process. Ineffective communication will be causing undue stress and tension among team members and effective team will be builder up by developing open and clear communication among the team members. The main key elements of effective project communication can be said as relevance, responsiveness and occurrence. Relevant communication should be focused, concise and task oriented. Responsive communication can be said as the willingness to gather information from others, active listening, building in ideas and views of others, and Occurrence has been established communication methods and timely responses. Procrastination of communication can lead to problems and that need not be encouraged. The team meeting and team members should be encouraged not to judge a person or team member idea by criticizing, name calling, and other bad things. The solutions that can be found should not by any method of ultimatums, threatening, or any other methods. There should not be avoiding the other’s persons concerns by diverting, the issues. (Richard Hudson Clough, Glenn A. Sears, S. Keoki Sears,2000)The team members should be encouraged not to indulge in any silent treatment like avoiding calls, delayed responses, and avoiding uncomfortable issues. Weekly team meetings can be done to build an effective communication and that can help building the team and stakeholder’s presence can be there so that the team meeting becomes more organized and steps should be taken that instant messaging communications will not be any confusing. Team building will be the best way to ensure the success of the project. b)It has been seen that all projects will be sharing common goals among themselves and that include projection of ideas and activities into new endevaour.There is element of risk that can determine whether every project will be finished on time. (Peter R. Scholtes, Brian L. Joiner, Barbara J. Streibel,2003)Every project will be sharing the common element of novelty and that can conclude the fact that every project will be entering into the unknown. Even a project that will be looking like repeated will be different from others and that can mean that every project is unique. The common sharing factors will be that there will be a time frame for completing a project, a resource for completion of project and that can include administrative or commercial aspect. There will be human resource that will be involved in successfully completing the project and there will be a budgetary provision for completing the project and that can include either meeting the budget or cost overrun. Every project will be having an aim to achieve and that can also mean the objective of meeting the project.Every project will be having a life cycle that will be attached to the project and successfully completing the project will start with successfully completing all the part of life cycles. That does not mean that every project that has completed all life cycles will be over to the desired effect. The project will be successful if it has completed within the proposed time frame and within the proposed budget.( James P. Lewis, 2004) The role of the project manager throughout the world has been misunderstood and that means project manager are always considered as technical jobs. (James P. Lewis, 2004)The duty of the project manager will be changing as each day progresses and during the initiation phase the role of the project manager will be to create a vision for the project. In the planning phases the project manager will be working with various stakeholders like managers, customers and other stake holders. That will help to reach the consensus and goal of the project. When the project will proceed to the execution phase, the the role of the project manager will be that of supporting, coaching and guiding people to reach the completion of the project. (Sunny Baker, Kim Baker, G. Michael Campbell, 2003)As the project will be proceeding the project manager will be spending more time with the stakeholders to ensure that all will be updated about the progress made by the project. The project manager should be ready to take over all the blame game when anything in the project derails and that means all the credit should go to the team members and project leader will be taking the blame. 6 1. ii.70 days it will take to complete the project Iii.The critical activities can be said as Brick work to dpc and brickwork to eves. Reference James P. Lewis, 2004,"role of project manager”, Team-Based Project Management, pp.19-31. John H. Zenger, Joe Folkman, 2002,"simplyfying leadership”, the extraordinary leader pp.51-83 Peter R. Scholtes, Brian L. Joiner, Barbara J. Streibel, 2003,"team leaders”, the team handbook, pp.25-50. Richard Hudson Clough, Glenn A. Sears, S. Keoki Sears, 2000,"project planning”, Construction project management, pp.55-76 Sunny Baker, Kim Baker, G. Michael Campbell,2003,"taking the bull by horns”, Complete idiot's guide to project management ,pp.225-256. LAW 1. a) i.Terms of contract The employees will be having an employment contract with their employer and these need not be in writing always. The contract will be created or started the moment ,employee starts to work for the employer. The employment contract that can be stated as contract of employment will be agreement between employer and employee and will be the base thing that will set the employment rights, responsibilities and duties. These terms are called the terms of contract. There are terms of contract that can be said as obvious or assumed and that means it need not be written down and even if it is written down it will be assumed that it has to be written down. The example can be the clause of sick pay in employment contract as it is obvious and can be assumed that it will not be paid in definitely .There are terms of contract that can be implied by custom and practice and they are arrangements that have never been clearly agreed but over time have become part of the contract and these can include getting bonus on every new year and closing the business on very weekends a little early. If a company practice has become a part of your contract then your employer must stick to it, and cannot normally change it without your agreement.( Employment contract terms) There will be terms like refusal of order that will be in terms of contract like the company will be reserving the right to accept and refuse any order that will be placed by the customer on the basis of quotations and the company will not be having any liability when it comes to consumer law. ii.Frustration of contract Frustration of contract will be occurring when the main provision of the contract cannot be performed due to unforeseen circumstances that can beyond control of either party and that were not provided in the contract. That can mean a house has been agreed for renting and if the house has been burned down or destroyed then the contract or the agreement will not be taking place.( Peter Chandler, Christopher Waud,2003) The doctrine of frustration will be usually present in commercial situations and will not be depending on opinion, intention ,or even knowledge and when an event that happens in a situation different from the agreed terms, then the liabilities of the contract will cease. The House of Lords in England has agreed that all contracts that include the contract of employment will be covering the doctrine of frustration. In the employment field they will be covering sickness and imprisonment cases. The significance of doctrine of frustration of contract in employment cases is that an employee who has been frustrated will not be having many of the rights and that include common law and statutory rights. The self induced frustration will not be working to full length and that can be said as an example in which a singer were to lose her voice by walking intentionally without protection in a rain day and singer would be trying to break the contract under any disease, then singer would not be able to respond to claim damage. B)The contract that has been agreed was the verbal contract law in UK.( "The Law & Verbal Agreements",)To form a contract, harry has made an offer but Ian has accepted the offer only by writing and that too at a wrong address. The parties under the consideration Harry and Ian has not agreed on the terms of contract and they were not having intention of entering into contract when the offer was made.( "The Law & Verbal Agreements") The verbal and written contract has been legally binding and that means it will be subject to the formation of contract and in this case Harry has made an offer and the acceptance was not made unequivocally at the time of signing the contract. The offer that has been made by Harry must be certain what must be done and the agreement has been incomplete if certain terms have not been agreed upon.( "The Law & Verbal Agreements") From the point of Harry ,there will not be any legal impediment with Ian as a contract can be said as entered into based on the verbal statements or representations. The binding terms of the contract as in this case the waiting period for acceptance is very difficult to ascertain. The terms of the verbal agreement in this case is not clarified. From the point of Harry, the other point is that the offer has been complete but the verbal agreement has not been complete in the sense that for a verbal agreement to be legally binding ,the agreement should have reached a stage of completeness. That means all terms and conditions have been reached and agreed regarding services and terms of pay and in this case the offer is having cash in the sense that Harry has agreed to sell bike for Pound 500. Agreements will be incomplete when there are still further terms and conditions to be agreed and in this case how the acceptance will be done and how long would be the waiting period before Harry can sell the bike to any other person. Agreements in principle will not usually be upheld in court and will not usually be considered complete verbal agreements and this agreement can be said more as of principle as Harry has thought that Ian would be replying and had waited for a time before agreeing to sell the bike to another person. The court in this case can look into what has happened and can find that Harry has waited for a period and it is no fault on the part of Harry that Ian has written the address wrongly. Moreover the offer that has been made by Harry has been verbally and little more difficult to prove. Then the other big question is was Harry bound to contract when letter was posted and that can be negated by the fact that Ian had made the mistake of writing the correct address. 3. The consumer has many rights and remedies available when the goods sold do not conform to the contract. The right will be dealing with the contractual partner of the consumer that is the final seller. In real terms the problem of liability will be lying elsewhere and globalization and modern economy has meant that goods will be supplied along a distribution chain and any type of mass produced products will not be sold directly to the consumer by the producer directly and they are usually distributed via a series of contracts .The contracts will start with producer, then it will be extended to importer,wholesaler,then it will be transferred to final seller and then it to buyer.( Jane Stapleton,1994) The non conformity of the goods to the prescribed level will be leading to economic loss to the consumer and that can happen from the producer rather than from the final seller as producer will be producing goods having manufacturing defects or making false public statements about the good. That will make a situation in which the producer will be directly liable to the consumer who will be the final buyer.( Jane Stapleton,1994) The Product Liability Directive will not be giving any consumers to stake a direct claim. The purchaser , as the injured party, will be having every right to make a direct claim against the producer if the product is defective and more causing economic loss. The Product Liability Directive will be providing for “consequential loss”, i.e., economic loss that is connected to damage to a person or property of the claimant. The Directive will not require the compensation of loss without antecedent harm to the claimant’s person or property or pure economic loss.( Jane Stapleton,1994) In United kingdom ,the physical damage and all damages has been economic damage and economic loss though the line between these two terms has not been convincing.( Jane Stapleton,1994) Reference "Employment contract terms",viewed on August 12,2009,retireved from http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/EmploymentContractsAndConditions/DG_10037109 Jane Stapleton,1994,"relatively safe boundary",Product liability ,pp.276 Peter Chandler, Christopher Waud,2003,"frustration of contract",Waud's employment law,pp.16-22. "The Law & Verbal Agreements",viewed on August 12,2009,retrieved from http://www.contractsandagreements.co.uk/law-and-verbal-agreements.html Read More