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Project Management from Simple to Complex

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Chapter 5Working with People on Projects

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Learning Objectives

• Describe emotional intelligence

• Describe personality types and tools used to describe them

• Describe the relationships between leadership styles and personality type

• Describe people skills that are necessary for negotiation and conflict resolution

• Describe how work is delegated

• Describe individual goals that are related to personality types

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Learning Objectives

• Describe the value of trust and how it relates to contracts and complex projects

• Identify four types of trust

• Describe how a project manager can build trust

• Identify three common meeting types and then describe how they differ

• Identity types of teams

• Describe the HUMM method of measuring project performance

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Learning Objectives

• Describe the importance of developing a project story

• Describe how project culture is developed and enforced

• Describe how differences in culture between stakeholders can influence the project

• Describe the role of innovation on projects

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Emotional Intelligence

• The ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumens of emotions

• Emotional intelligence includes:

– Self-awareness

– Self-regulation

– Empathy

– Relationship management

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Personality Types

• Personality types refer to the difference among people

• Knowledge of personality types helps in understanding:

– Personal tendencies and strengths in different situations

– The contributions of various team members

– The various needs of the client

• Tool for helping people assess personality types — DISC and MBTI

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Personality Types

• DISC

– Dominance — Control, power, and assertiveness

– Influence — Social situations and communication

– Steadiness — Patience, persistence, and thoughtfulness

– Conscientiousness — Structure and organization

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Personality Types

• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) identifies sixteen personality types based on four preferences derived from the questionnaire

– Extroversion (E)-Introversion (I)

– Sensing (S)-Intuition (N)

– Thinking (T)-Feeling (F)

– Judging (J)-Perceiving (P)

• There is no best type

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Leadership Styles

• A function of both the personal characteristics of the leader and the environment in which the leadership must occur

– Autocratic or democratic

– Pathfinders, problem solvers, or implementers

– Transactional or transformational

– Contingency theory

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Leadership Styles

• Match the leadership style to the complexity profile of the project

• Each project phase may require a different leadership approach

• Balance the benefit of matching the right leadership approach with the cost of disrupting the project

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Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

• All project problems are connected to skills needed by the project manager:

– Breakdown in communication — Lack of communication skills

– Uncommitted team members — Lack of team-building skills

– Role confusion — Lack of organizational skills

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Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

• The ability to listen actively

– Place yourself in the speaker’s position

– Understand the communication from the speaker’s point of view

– Listen to body language and environmental cues

– Strive not just to hear, but to understand

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Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

• The ability to negotiate effectively

– Separate people from the problem

– Focus on common interests

– Generate options that advance shared interests

– Develop results based on standard criteria

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Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

• The ability to resolve conflicts

– Avoiding

– Forcing

– Collaborating

– Compromising

– Accommodating

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Delegation

• Delegation involves:

– Understanding the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to manage work

– Matching the team members with the right skills to do the work

• Finding the right balance of delegation is important

– Too much delegation may result in delays or increased cost to the project

– Too little may cause delays due to the lack of action or timely decisions

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Setting Individual Goals

• Individual goals can be set for:

– Improving ability to deal with projects and project phases that are not natural personality strengths

– Improving conflict resolution styles

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Trust

• It is the foundation for all relationships within a project

• It is the filter through which we screen information that is received and shared

• Contracts are not conducive to establishing a trusting project culture

– Smaller, less complex projects can operate with a legal contract

– Larger, more complex projects rely on relationships of mutual trust

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Trust

• Four kinds of trust

– Objective credibility

– Attribution of benevolence

– Nonmanipulative trust

– High cost of lying

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Trust

• Establish trust by:

– Assigning a project manager with a high trust reputation

– Allowing for informal communication

– Establishing a high cost of lying

– Communicating the expectation of honesty

– Creating an atmosphere of trust

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Common Meeting Types

• Action item meetings develop a common understanding of:

– Short-term priorities of the project

– Individual roles

– Expectations for specific activities

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Common Meeting Types

• Management meetings are oriented toward:

– Developing plans

– Tracking progress of existing plans

– Making adjustments to plans in response to new information

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Common Meeting Types

• Leadership meetings are used to:

– Reflect on the project

– Explore the larger issues of the project

– Back away from the day-to-day problem solving

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Types of Teams

• Functional teams

– Team approach related to the project functions

• Cross-functional teams

– Address issues and work processes that include two or more functional teams

• Problem-solving teams

– Address specific issues that arise during the life of the project

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Qualitative Assessment of Project Performance

• The Humm Factor

– A survey that is developed during the early phases of the project

– Qualitative responses are converted to a score from 1 to 10

– The survey is distributed depending on the complexity profile of the project

– Responses are tracked by individual and by total project

– The project team looks for trends that indicate an issue may be emerging

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Developing a Project Story

• A project story:

– Is a short explanation given by project members when asked about the project

– Often expresses important aspects of the project

– Can create a positive picture of the project or one that is less appealing

• Creation of the project story is an active process

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Developing a Project Story

• Advantages of a positive project story:

– Invites people and helps with the recruitment of talent to the project

– Helps when services are needed from functional departments within the company

– Helps in developing management support for the project

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Project Culture

• The shared norms, beliefs, values, and assumptions of the project team

• Culture is developed through the communication of:

– The priority

– The given status

– The alignment of official and operational rules

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Culture of Stakeholders

• Project management must cope with cultural differences of project stakeholders

• Aspects of cultural difference that can affect a project:

– Communications

– Negotiations

– Decision making

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Innovation on Projects

• Innovation on projects is influenced by the nature of the project

• It is a creative process that requires both fun and focus

• Innovation is important to develop methods of:

– Lowering costs

– Shortening the schedule