Managing groups for high performance

Introduction

A successes criterion for a project manager to manage a project to reach its objectives, the team performing is crucial which the following statement from the book PMBOK also highlights: "Teamwork is a critical factor for project success and developing effective project teams is one of the primary responsibilities of the project manager." REF Today it is easy finding tools, techniques and there is even a whole industry providing workshops and guidance about team building REF. The importance of good teamwork is often addressed REF. This will not be questioned, but the two following angels for project manager’s essential role will be examined: • The methods of the establishment of a high-performance team. • The dynamics that makes a team work high-performance and which critical issues causes the opposite. The focus of this article will be on project level and the management of a team working on a single project.

Structure of the article

• In the first section theories of group dynamics, how a group or a team develops, and the most common obstacles, difficulties and issues will be addressed and explained. • The following section will be written with taking the project manager’s role into account when the usage of the tools and techniques are presented. Tools and techniques will be presented to create the best foundation for a high-performance team. Further in this section methods for reassuring high-performance will be outlined, specifically to avoid the obstacles presented in the previous section. • In the section limitations the tools and techniques to be used will be discussed with a critical view of the usage.

Theories of group dynamics

Firstly, the definition of a team will be clarified. Then, theories of group developments and dynamics such as “Five stages of Group Development” will be outlined. Finally, subjects which leads to failure of high-performance will be examined.

Definition of a team

All teams are groups, but not all groups are teams. What distinguishes the two definitions is the intensity of work done together to achieve a common goal or objective. REF CONTEM. In this article the focus will be on teams, hence project work is defined as: intensive work XXX. Despite this, groups will more often be mentioned in the article, as theories are using “group” in the terminology. Most important to keep in mind is that group theories also apply to teams hence all teams are groups.

Group Norms

Group norms are shared guidelines or rules for behavior created by the members themselves which most members follow. This can be guidelines for working hours, dress code, how to share information or how a certain process should be performed. This is something the project manager should suggest the group to discuss or even to right down in a group contract. This helps the group creating a work environment where it is known what the group expects of behavior.

Group Dynamics

Five Stages of Group Development

Despite the fact every group consists of individuals and therefore every group is different, researchers have come up with a model which identify five stages which the majority of groups go through. This model is named Five Stages of Group Development REF CONTEM.

*Figure: Five Stages of Group Development

Forming is the first stage and here members of the group try to get an understanding of each other, align their expectations regarding behavior and clarify what to accomplish. In this stage the PM’s responsibility is to ensure, that each member of the group feels important and valued. The storming stage is known for the appearance of disagreements and conflicts. These are mainly based on the question of who should lead the group and if some members do not meet the demands of another group member. Here the project manager needs to make sure that the conflicts does not escalades. During the third stage, norming, the group members have come to a consensus about their achievements and they have created strong ties between themselves which gives them a good foundation for performing, which is the fourth stage. The performing stage is where the group members accomplish tasks. Here the project manager is of great importance to ensure continuously motivation and effectiveness. The initial construction of the team also has an importance according to the PM role and how actively he or she should involve in the performing stage. The last stage is the adjourning stage only applied to groups that are to be disbanded, such as project groups. During the adjourning stage reports with pros and cons can be written. REF The role and responsibility of the project manager is here in this description outlined to be of great importance. This is due to the assumption that it is the PM role and responsibilities in this case. Another view could have been if the PM had chosen a team leader to be in charge of controlling and leading the team.

Conformity and Deviance in Groups

Conformity in groups happens for several reasons. One is to behave to achieve rewards and avoid punishments, another one is when a member copies another members behavior because the person like or admire him or her. The last reason is to behave accordingly to what the norm is in the group, which the members have incarnated as being the right and proper way. Deviance happens when a member does not conform to the norms in the group and therefore signals that the group can not control its members’ behavior. Groups often respond to a member by three different ways. One is to convince the deviant to change his or her behavior in order to conform to the group by presenting consequence scenarios. Another way is simply to expel the member where the last way is the change the groups norms to fit the deviant’s behavior. Balance of conformity and deviance is important to achieve a high-performance team as the figure demonstrates. Too much conformity will result in a behavior, that is not critical towards the groups norms and behavior. The consequence could for example be that dysfunctional norms are not corrected or acted against to replace them with better and more functional ones. The right amount of deviance will make group members reflect on the group norms and behaviors and change them when needed. On the other hand will too much deviance also result in low performance hence the group cannot control its members and therefore does not succeed to create a good working environment. The project managers can help guiding the group to find the right balance. There are three ways the PM can be a help. • The PM can encourage, support and accept suggestions from a group member about change in procedures or norms. This together with explaining that conformity should not outshine the need of change and improvements. • Secondly, the PM should let the group members know, that there are always ways to improve group processes and opportunities to replace norms to get a higher performance level. • Third and lastly, PM should encourage groups or teams to review their norms and processes regularly and make changes if needed.

• Figure: Balancing Conformity and Deviance in Groups

Critical issues that prevents high-performance

The following examples on issues will briefly be explained where the tools and techniques in the following chapter will address the issues.

Too much or too little cohesiveness (Level of cohesiveness)

Group cohesiveness is seen as a good thing when talking about group dynamics hence it is the degree to which group members are loyal or attracted to their group. When there is too much cohesiveness the groups tend to be less effective due to non-work-related talks for example during meetings. Groups with high level of cohesiveness will also have trouble acting on the best for the organizational goals if it is at the expense of achieving group goals. Too low cohesiveness leads to too much deviance and the group is not able to complete tasks. The factors which leads to a balanced cohesiveness and high-performance teams will be outlined in the next section.

Social loafing

Social loafing is a consequence of...

Partial conclusion

From this section the identified key factors that determines success or failure are group size, roles, development, leadership, norms and cohesiveness.  

Application

What can a project manager do? In this section it is assumed that the PM can chose the most optimal team based on the theories. The limitations to actual cases will be explained in the next section.

Putting the team together

When a PM stands across the job of putting a team together many factors are to be considered. Some of which the PM can aim for and also a technique based on interpersonal skills.

Group roles and its size

Size There are many advantages in keeping the size of the teams relatively small somewhere between 2 and nine members due to the following reasons: • The group members interact more with each other and the coordination of efforts gets easier. • Members of smaller groups feel more committed, motivated and satisfied. • It is easier to share information. • It gets easier, especially for the PM, to see and acknowledge individual contributions. If the team is too small it has fewer resources to drag from, and it can be on the expense of skills, knowledge and experience. MORE REF One of the issues that a good group size prevents to a certain degree is social loafing. It gets harder for the individual member to hide and not deliver if he or she is deviant to the group norms. Diversity Diversity is a key word when forming a team. The diversity can both be measured in expertise, experience, knowledge and skills or as a composition of members from different divisions e.g. marketing, production, engineering and finance. The strength is avoidance of groupthink. Groupthink is when the team faulty strive for reaching an agreement at the expense of a more correct appraisal. REF CONTEM page 363 A tool to be used to establish a diverse team is too dig deeper into interpersonal skills which can be done with a test called Belbin’s team roles. Here you will get an indication of the team members preferences in team work. MORE REF

A balanced diversity in groups has many good side effects! The change of getting a more balanced cohesiveness is higher. The same regards having a moderate level of deviance in the group to keep challenging the norms without it getting out of hand.

Manage a high-performance team

• Training
• Teambuilding
• Appraisals

To prevent social loafing there is different methods to be used by the project manager.

Limitations

Limitations of money Project manager may not put his or her team together The theory of composing a team with great diversity is the optimal solution. The limitations for the project manager lies in the issue of finding the right people for exactly that project within the company who has the time to join a project group. In the cases where it is not possible to collect a team the project manager needs to hire new employees dedicated to a specific project or to project work in general. Other examples of putting together the right team is when the management choose to hire a consultant team to do the project. This is often done when it is known, that the time issue is too big of a obstacle, the expenses of hiring new employees are too big or that the expertise for the given project is not to be found in-house. If a team is established from different departments within a company, silo thinking can be a limitation for a project manager to reach high motivation from all team members if the project only gets a recognition in a certain department. Here a reward system should be applied REF How do you know the needs People develops, take that into account

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The limitations for the project manager