Project Teams and Leadership

Date: 24th March, 2021

 Why work in teams?

 Distributing the workload

 Reinforcing individual capabilities

 Creating participation and involvement.

Stages in Team Building

Forming
Storming

Norming

Performing
 Stage 1: FORMING

 Team Building  Task

 Define team  Define problem and strategy

 Determine individual roles  Identify information needed

 Develop trust and

communication

 Develop norms
 Stage 2: STORMING

During the Storming stage team members:

 Realize that the task is more difficult than they imagined

 Have fluctuations in attitude about chances of success

 May be resistant to the task and, have poor collaboration.

Storming Diagnosis
 Do we have common goals and objectives?

 Do we agree on roles and responsibilities?

 Do our task, communication, and decision systems work?

 Do we have adequate interpersonal skills?

 Stage 3: Norming
 During this stage members accept:

 their team

 team rules and procedures

 their roles in the team

 the individuality of fellow members

 Team members realize that they are not going to crash-and-burn

and start helping each other.
Giving Constructive Feedback

 Be descriptive.

 Don’t exaggerate.

 Don’t be judgmental.

 Speak for yourself.

Stage 4: PERFORMING

Team members have:

 Gained insight into personal and team processes;

A better understanding of each other’s strengths and

weaknesses;

 Gained the ability to prevent or work through group conflict

and resolve differences; and,

 Developed a close attachment to the team.

Form - Storm - Norm - Perform

Effectiveness

Perform

Form Norm

Storm

Time
 Project Teams and Individuals

People like working in teams because :

 Satisfies the social needs of the individual
 Means of sharing risk with other team members
 The team provides a psychological home for the individual
 The team should provide support and a means of testing out ideas
How big should the team be?
 Project Complexity
 What technical expertise is required by the project
 Increase the size of the team increase the chances of conflict
 Large teams tend to be unwieldy
 Large teams subdivide and form cliques
 Team Roles
“the essence of a team is that its members form a
co-operative association through a division of labor that best
reflects the contribution that each can make towards the
common objective”

 Not everyone is the same

 People can contribute in different ways
Team Roles - Leader

 Encourage and maintain open communication.

 Help the team develop and follow team norms.

 Help the team focus on the task.

 Deal constructively with conflict.

Leadership behaviour and
styles

 Autocratic

 Democratic

 Participative
Project Manager
Expert or Generalist ?
 Generalist
 More concerned with people, costs coordinating multi-
disciplinary teams rather than the technical issues
 If the project manager is a technical expert he may suppress
innovation
 Can argue that good project management does not require
technical knowledge of the project
Project Manager
Expert or Generalist ?

 Expert
 Better placed to apply judgment and forecast problems
 Aid with team selection from a technical point of view
 Involved in the whole project from feasibility study to
completion
 Gain respect from the project members because of technical
expertise
 Most companies look for technical experts as project managers.