Team Projects

Karen O’Hara

November, 2012

A Project is…

• a temporary endeavor

• focused on achieving a goal

• an allocation of resources: time, money, people, equipment…

• bound by constraints: time, budget, scope

Professional Project Management

• Organizations: Project Management Institute (PMI)

• Body of Knowledge: PMBOK

• Software: Microsoft Project Server, others

http://ebookee.org

PMBOK Process Groups, a.k.a. project lifecycle

Wikimedia Commons

Theories of teams & personality

Tuckman’s Team Stages (1965)

• Forming

• Storming

• Norming

• Performing

• Adjourning (added 1977)

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)1962

Measures psychological preferences in how people perceive the world & make decisions

•Grew out of theories proposed by Carl Jung (1920s) and Katharine Cook Briggs & her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers (1940s)

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

Learning about your own style

Belbin’s Team Roles (1981)

Dr. Meredith Belbin & his research team at Henley Management College observed that•Success for a team was dependent on clusters of behavior, or “Team Roles”

– Team Roles mark a tendency to behave, contribute & interrelate with others in a particular way

•Different individuals displayed different Team Roles to varying degrees

www.belbin.com

9 Team RolesCoordinator (Chairperson): sets agenda, tracks, coordinates

Resource Investigator: finds new info, new ideas

Team Worker: looks for his/her part, gets work done

Shaper: focuses on action tasks, completing project

Implementor (Company worker): turns plans into actions

Completer/Finisher: detail-oriented, schedule-aware

Monitor/Evaluator: IDs flaws, focuses on outcomes

Plant: creative, focuses on big picture

Specialist: adds depth, masters a specific topic/area

www.belbin.com

Making a project plan

Identify Mission & Objectives

• Start with a one-sentence description of the project’s main goal

• Break main goal into smaller pieces (objectives)

Tie Objectives to Outcomes

Using the objectives, devise outcomes

Example:

Objective: To educate nurses about risk of infection in nursing home populations

Outcome: Create a laminated informational poster that will hang in staff break room

Google Drive & collaboration

• Use as a substitute for MS Office

• Upload MS Office docs & collaborate on them

• Download Google Docs items to Word, Excel, etc.

• Control who can view and edit your docs

• Track versions & see who has participated.

More things to do with Google Docs

• See who is currently viewing/editing the document (and open a chat if desired)

• Add comments, similar to MS Word “track changes”

• Create a simple online survey or form that will gather responses into a spreadsheet for easy analysis

• Organize docs by folder

• Store large files in the “cloud” for freeTake a look

The ultimate secret to project success

COMMUNICATION• Planning

• Common vision (sharing ideas, setting goals, understanding scope)

• Time management (running meetings, setting schedules)

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The End