Category Archives: 3. Dev & Interpersonal Skills

Improving your functional leadership

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Task
• Set standards, and maintain them.
• Monitor and evaluate performance.
• Set realistic and achievable objectives.

 

Team
• Let people know that personal gain is not as important as team achievement.
• Communicate regularly.
• Encourage co-operation and compromise in the event of differences among team members.
• Keep everyone informed of progress.

 

Individual
• Explain what is to be done, why and how.
• Encourage people to be more involved.
• Get to know people. Help people develop their skills.
• Delegate wherever possible.
• Recognize people’s achievements and contributions.
• Make any criticism constructive.

Leadership,

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  • Leadership involves focusing the efforts of a group of people toward a common goal and enabling them to work as a team.
  • In general terms, leadership is the ability to get things done through others. Respect and trust, rather than fear and submission, are the key elements of effective leadership.
  • Throughout the project, the project team leaders are responsible for establishing and maintaining the vision, strategy, and communications; fostering trust and team building; influencing, mentoring, and monitoring; and evaluating the performance of the team and the project.

Building a team,

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Team building,

  • Team building is the process of helping a group of individuals, bound by a common sense of purpose, to work interdependently with each other, the leader, external stakeholders, and the organization. The result of good leadership and good team building is teamwork.
  • Team building activities consist of tasks (establish goals, define, and negotiate roles and procedures) and processes (interpersonal behavior with emphasis on communication, conflict management, motivation, and leadership).
  • While team building is essential during the front end of a project, it is an ongoing process. Changes in a project environment are inevitable. To manage these changes effectively, a continued or renewed team building effort is required. Outcomes of team building include mutual trust, high quality of information exchange, better decision making, and effective project control.

Influencing & Motivation,

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Influencing,

Influencing is a strategy of sharing power and relying on interpersonal skills to get others to cooperate towards common goals. Using the following guidelines can influence team members:

  • Lead by example, and follow through with commitments
  • Clarify how a decision will be made
  • Use a flexible interpersonal style, adjust the style to the audience
  • Apply your power skillfully and cautiously. Think of long-term collaboration

 

Motivation,

  • Project teams are comprised of team members with diverse backgrounds, expectations, and individual objectives. The overall success of the project depends upon the project team’s commitment, which is directly related to their level of motivation.
  • Motivating in a project environment involves creating an environment to meet project objectives while offering maximum self-satisfaction related to what people value most.
  • These values may include job satisfaction, challenging work, a sense of accomplishment, achievement and growth, sufficient financial compensation, and other rewards and recognition the individual considers necessary and important

Decision Making,

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There are four basic decision styles normally used by project managers: command, consultation, consensus, and coin flip (random).

There are four major factors that affect the decision style: time constraints, trust, quality, and acceptance. Project managers may make decisions individually, or they may involve the project team in the decision-making process.

Project managers and project teams sometimes use a decision-making model or process such as the six-phase model shown below.

1. Problem Definition—Fully explore, clarify, and define the problem.

2. Problem Solution Generation—Prolong the new idea generating process by brainstorming multiple solutions and discouraging premature decisions.

3. Ideas to Action—Define evaluation criteria, rate pros and cons of alternatives, select best solution.

4. Solution Action Planning—Involve key participants to gain acceptance and commitment to making the solution work.

5. Solution Evaluation Planning—Post-implementation analysis, evaluation, and lessons learned.

6. Evaluation of the Outcome and Process—Evaluate how well the problem was solved or project goals were achieved (extension of previous phase).