Developing and Managing Project Teams - Coursework Example

Developing and Managing Project Teams Name Date Abstract Working in a team is a very good learning experience. In a team, one learns how to interact and work with other people regardless of the differences in personality, attitude, beliefs, and perception on certain issues. A team involves a group of people who come together and are linked together by a common objective. Most teams are made up of individuals that have complimentary knowledge and skills so that they are able to achieve the objectives of their team through coordination. Every member maximizes on his or her strengths and work on improving his or her weaknesses. There are benefits and drawbacks of working in teamwork. One of the benefits is that responsibilities and tasks are shared so that it is easy to work on activities and to account for any part that goes wrong. Additionally, team embers share knowledge and skills amongst themselves, which gives them new perspectives, enhances communication, and promotes qualities of leadership. Moreover, teamwork leads to synergy and improved performance. However, if not well managed, teams can have conflicts due to blame games, unequal participation of the members, and ideas clash, which makes it hard to solve problems and make decisions. Generally, working in teams is one of the most productive ways for best outcome of the activity being carried out. Introduction One of the many activities that we carried out during the semester involved a project that we did in a team where we were working on activities and studies related to Management of Change and Organisational development (Waddell et al., 2014). Through the development of the project team and interaction with other members, I was able to learn a lot about how teams function. Some of the tasks that we were responsible of achieving were carried out effectively and satisfactory while some were not as satisfactory and ass forthcoming as expected. This essay will reflect on the participation of the project team to identify what went wrong and what went right, evaluate the functioning and development process of the team using relevant theories and provide recommendations on what could have been done differently to enhance the satisfaction and performance of the team and individual members. Evaluation of Group Experience Team Development The project team in which I was a member had five members all from the same class. However, each one of us had different skills and abilities in relation to the activities to be undertaken, which summed up to completing a research paper on management of change and organizational development. . The development of the project team followed the model of Tuckman stages of team development. According to Tuckman, a team undergoes through four stages although not all teams complete the process. These stages include forming, storming, norming, and performing (Fransen, Weinberger & Kirschner, 2013). The five-team members met to identify the responsibilities, challenges, and opportunities that the team has. The team also set the goals and objectives of the project and divided the tasks amongst the members to know who is going to be responsible of which task. For instance, my responsibility was to do thorough research on the project’s subject and create a rough report about it. At the forming stage, every member seemed to behave in an independent way and everyone seemed to get along with each other in a polite and positive manner (Hammersley & Reid, 2014). The leader had minimal responsibility since team members had no clear ideas of their roles though they had been shared among themselves. During the storming stage, team members started to air their opinions about each other at the same time questioning the decisions and actions of leader concerning roles allocation. As suggested by Hammersley and Reid (2014), some conflict and disagreement were experienced where some individuals felt that they had been given greater responsibilities than others had. Moreover, diversity in opinions whereby some members wanted to dominate the rest of the team led into conflict. However, as Fransen, Weinberger, and Kirschner (2013) suggests, the team leader was able to listen to everyone’s idea and opinions and involve everyone in making decisions regarding responsibility sharing to try and ensure that everyone was satisfied with their roles. Fortunately, the team managed to go beyond this stage, which according to Hammersley and Reid (2014) is the toughest of all. The team managed to go through this stage through collaboration, open communication, ensuring every members opinion is considered during decision making and creating an interactive environment that enhanced trust and confidence among members. This is because it is the stage at which teams start falling apart. At the norming stage, team members had a clear idea of the goals and their roles, and they started becoming comfortable working with each other. At this stage, conflict and disagreements were resolved, which made it easier for all of us to work together towards achieving our projects goals. In addition, we become more committed to the project focusing our abilities in ensuring that we provide the best results for our project. With our commitment and collaboration, we were able to get to the performing stage. At this stage, the team’s performance was focused on achieving the project’s common goal. In accordance with Fransen, Weinberger, and Kirschner (2013), the team was more knowledgeable, motivated and competent enough to carry out their tasks and roles through collaboration. At this stage, it was easy to make decisions without having any disagreements or conflicts. The functioning of the team was driven by the allocation of roles and the fact that we sought to use Belbin’s team roles theory to ensure that the team is functioning as per expectations. By the time the team was getting to the norming stage, we had identified the team members who could drive the functioning of the team as per the roles of Belbin’s theory. Among the five members, we identified an implementer, a resource investigator, a plant, a monitor, a shaper, a coordinator, a team worker, a specialist, and a complete finisher depending on each member’s weaknesses, abilities, and strengths. Each of these traits is crucial and important in focusing the team towards achieving its objectives and ensuring that every activity undertaken by the team is productive. Every member was given the role of being a team worker, monitor and specialist since we all had to ensure that we work as a team and monitor each other to ensure that the team functions effectively (Utley, 2010). This role division helped the project team function smoothly and effectively leading the team in achieving the expected outcome. It also allowed flexibility, collaboration, and ensured that unhealthy competitions were avoided. Positive Team Experiences The greatest positive experience we had as a team is that we were able to achieve the goals and objectives of our project. The purpose of our project was to create change management and organizational developmental strategic plan that would be practical for any type of business. Our collaboration, minimal disagreements, and conflict resolution strategy held us to focus on our project’s goals hence being able to achieve the expected results. Another positive experience that the team experienced was the fact that team members were able to share positive energy when the team seemed to rag behind (Siha & Campbell, 2015). This enhanced individuals’ performance, morale, and motivation to focus on their roles and tasks towards achieving the projects goal. The team also had equal contribution from each member. This was made possible by the fact that before we started, we identified all the tasks and activities ahead of us and delegated each member of the team with equal roles. This move ensured that none of the team member felt overworked or undermined. Another great experience is the way we handled different opinions and perspectives. We ensured that each member’s opinions were heard and we decided as a team how to combine bits of the opinions to come up with a comprehensive solution or idea (Tombaugh & Mayfield, 2014). This approach enhanced the result of the project and improved unanimity in the team. The use of Maslow’s theory also contributed to our positive experience and team success. According to this theory there are several needs that individuals have to satisfy so that they can work effectively. Maslow’s theory identifies a hierarchy of needs that people want satisfied so that they focus on their responsibilities. The first level in the hierarchy is psychological needs followed by safety needs. Belongingness and love needs are followed by esteem needs and lastly the self-actualization needs (Heldman & Mangano, 2011). To ensure that members work effectively and remained focused to their tasks, we decided to incorporate the theory into our team and try to provide to most of the needs. For psychological needs, we ensured that when we had meetings, we would meet in a conducive environment and had snacks after or before our meetings. As for the safety needs, we always ensured we worked within the school where it is safe. Once members were assured of their personal safety, they we could focus on our task. For the belongingness needs, we created relationships amongst ourselves where we could share ideas and opinions and work as a team without having conflicts. The esteem needs were satisfied by ensuring that every member felt part of the project by allocating equal responsibilities to each member and ensure no one felt that he or she was more superior to the rest (Maslow, 2013). Our focus was not only to finish the project, but we also focused on personal growth. We each had personal goals that were in line with those of the project and as we worked on the project we at the same time worked to enhance our knowledge and skills in the topic of study. Team Issues While working as a team, there is always a chance of the teamwork being disrupted by problems and issues due to different factors. Our team was no exception since we also experienced some problems as we developed the team into a working unit. One of the issues that the team experienced was in the process of making decisions and in solving problems that the team encountered. Before team members were able to interact calmly and before individuals created a consensus on how decisions and solution will be made, the team experienced many disagreements that led to conflict that almost made the team unable to move on working together. This resulted due to lack of open communication and skills that could have negotiated task allocation and identify ways to solve arising problems (Lee, 2014). This problem was also characterized by the issue of difficulties resolving conflicts since every member wanted their opinion and ideas to be considered without considering the best opinion or decision for the project. In cases of conflict like this, negotiation skills and problem solving skills are some of the strategies that can be used to solve it. In the beginning, the team also experienced poor communication. During meetings, team members used to talk over each other while other interrupted others while they were trying to communicate. Some members were also dormant in airing their opinions, which made it difficult to coordinate roles and tasks without problems that could have been solved if there was coordination in communication. Though the team had done a personality test during the forming stage using Meyers and Briggs theory (MBTI personality indicator) to identify each individual’s personality, it was hard to manage the personality difference of the team. Most of the individuals in the team were extroverts, which means that they were expressive and all wanted their opinions to be considered without compromising. It was hard to control and manage team members given their difference in personality and perspective at the beginning, which made the process of tasks allocation and objective setting complicated thereby ragging us behind the time we had been given to complete the project (Lee, 2014). However, the MBTI personality test allowed us to identify the personalities in the team and how to manage it for success through effective communication skills, effective problem solving skills, teamwork and negation skills. Recommendations There are several things that could have been done differently to avoid team issues that occurred during the project and to increase the effectiveness of the team. This would allow the team to finish the project within the stipulated time. There are several recommendable strategies and methods that the team can use to increase its effectiveness in the future. The first strategy is using the theory of 4Es that include Engage, Empower, Enable, and Enroll (Rocine 2010). This model relates to this discussion since it is a good approach of changing members so that they focus on the goals of the project instead of focusing on their own personal needs. The 4E’s of this theory relate to the issues of teamwork as follows: Engaging is involving the team members in a conversation. Enrolling involves indication of needs and giving hope for the future of team members. Enabling involves giving members important skills, training, knowledge, and information important for the success of the team. Empowering involves allowing members to explore, experiment, and learn so that they are able to come up with the best solutions and decisions for the team hence enhancing the team’s performance (Rocine 2010). In addition, it could have helped members to achieve self-satisfaction Another recommendation that the team could use to enhance its performance is identifying creative problem solving techniques such as the paradigm preserving or stretching techniques to solve issues affecting the team. This could come in handy especially in decision-making and resolving conflicts. It would also help if the team considered using strategies that enhanced adaptability, mutual trust, and closed looped communication to ensure that all members were on the same page and able to collaborate with other regardless of their personality. Consequently, this would ensure that each member’s opinions and ideas are heard and considered to avoid conflict and disagreements (Holsapple, 2013). Another recommendation for the team is to ensure that their leader is able to control the rest of the members, have skills for situation monitoring, enhance mutual support among members, enhance open communication, and lead as an example which is also translated to individuals’ satisfaction. Conclusion Reflecting and evaluating the project experience including its formation, the positive experiences and the problems, there is a lot that one can learn from what leads to positive experiences in a team such as good communication, shared goals, mutual understanding, to the causes of team problems, to the different ways that a team performance can be enhanced. The knowledge learnt from this analysis can be transformed into practical strategies by ensuring that key issues such as communication, relationships among team members, management of different personality, collaboration, and common goals are considered and well evaluated before the team embarks on its roles to avoid delays and conflicts. In addition, theories such as the 4E model can be used in reality to ensure that a team is made more effective. For example in a team where teamwork is poor the 4E’s identified above can be practically used to enhance productivity. Appendix I: Individual Reflection Considering the teamwork experience that I experienced during the semester, I was able to learn a lot of skills on how to behave and interact with individuals while working in a team. One thing I learnt was that individuals are different and they possess different personalities that make them perceive and view issues differently. As we were working on our project I was able to work with individuals with different personality traits which allowed me to learn how to deal with individuals who have different personality trait from that of mine. I also got an opportunity to learn different skills especially in communication. I learnt how to negotiate especially while making decision as a group or while trying to identify which opinion best aligns to the objectives of the project. I also got a chance to be involved in the process of solving problems as a team and at the end of the project I had gained skills on how to ensure that the right decision is made without neglecting any team member’s opinion. Teamwork also allowed me to identify my strengths and weaknesses while working with other individuals and I learnt how to solve conflicts in a group. Working as a team had always been a challenge to me since I do not like conflicts. However being involved in this activity as a team I am now able to appreciate the importance of working as a team and I can now easily interact , work with other individuals and engage in healthy arguments that do not end up in conflicts. Reference Fransen, J., Weinberger, A., & Kirschner, P. A. (2013). Team effectiveness and team development in CSCL. Education Psychologist, 448(1), 9-24. Hammersley, R. & Reid, M. (2014). Communicating successfully in groups: A practical guide for the workplace. East Sussex: Routledge. Heldman, K. & Mangano, V. (2011). PMP: Project management professional exam review guide. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Holsapple, C. (2013). Handbook on knowledge management 1: Knowledge matters. Heidelberg: Springer. Lee, M. R. (2014). Leading virtual project teams: Adapting leadership theories and communication techniques to 21stcentury organisations. Boca Raton: Taylor & Francis Group. Maslow, A. H. (2012). A theory of human motivation. New York: Start Publishing, LLC. Rocine, V. (2010). Increasing meetings and team effectiveness. Egham: HCL-Axon. Siha, S. & Campbell, S. (2015). Teamwork: faculty and students experience. ProQuest, 1-21. Tombaugh, J. R. & Mayfield, C. (2014). Teams on teams: Using advice from peers to create a more effective student team experiences. Academics of Educational Leadership Journal, 18(4), 69-83. Utley, R. A. (2010). Theory and research for academic nurse educators: Application to practice. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. Waddell, D. M., Creed, A., Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C.G. (2014). Organisational change, development & transformation (Asia Pacific 5th ed.). South Melbourne Vic: Cengage Learning Australia. ISBN 9780170236577. Read More