18

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Project Teams and Style

Culture – the way we do things around here

Culture has two fundamental elements:¹

• the norms and behaviours of a group;
• unconscious programming of the mind leading to a set of similar collective habits, behaviours and mind sets.

While this book is not primarily aimed at culture, interpersonal skills and the often named ‘soft’ aspects of project management, it would be remiss not to summarise the key aspects which have been shown to encourage success in a projects environment.

As Obeng has pointed out, ‘People create change and people constrain change’, and culture is what people are about. Let us remind ourselves of the fundamental differences between working in a project, as opposed to in a line environment.

The managers of these environments do not necessarily share the same skills and competences, nevertheless, an organisational environment must be set up such that the two aspects of management (steady state and change) can coexist. This is at the heart of matrix management.

Project teams

In line management, the manager or the supervisor has the power and authority to instruct a person in his/her duties. In many organisations, however, the project managers have little authority of this nature. Ideally, they should have this authority, but that is not always the reality. They have to deliver the project using a less visible power base, which is more rooted in the shared commitment of the team than in directives. No matter how good a project proposal is or how thoroughly the investigative stages have been undertaken, the bottom line is that success is rarely achieved by a poorly led, ill-motivated group of individuals. (Notice that I have not used the word ‘team’.) It is widely recognised that team work and team spirit in line roles leads to better results than sticks and sanctions. In projects, team working is even more crucial. A project team has a short time to form, normalise its behaviours and start performing. In addition:

• a team may be dispersed geographically;
• its members may have other duties to attend to;
• the most appropriate people may not be available.

This can place demands on individuals, particularly those new to projects, as it can set the stage for conflicts of loyalties, which the project manager and others must recognise and try to avoid. The project manager must be the leading player in creating and fostering a team spirit and enrolling the commitment of those associated with the project. The project sponsor and line managers of the project team members have a similar responsibility. Their behaviour and actions can derail a project just as drastically, or even more so, than any by the project manager. Clear reporting lines, good information flow, realistic work plans and defined project roles will also help ‘ease’ the pathway.

Leadership style and team values are also important. An open, even-handed approach which encourages good communication and gives those in the project the confidence to raise potential problems tends to be the most effective. An environment in which energy is expended on blame and fault finding, rather than looking for solutions to problems, will damage morale and hinder the performance of any team. This approach must be present in fact as well as theory. For example, most project-scheduling software shows which activities were completed late. What’s the point of reporting on them if you can’t do anything about it? What is important is knowing which ones count (are critical) and which are likely to be late.

When dealing with your team, or indeed any other stakeholders, assume they will act to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Assume they won’t really care about anything else. If you concentrate on inconsequential trivia and absolute adherence to process, so will they. Publicly reward the behaviours you want to encourage. Success depends on the commitment and willingness of each team member to succeed.

‘He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.’

SAMUEL BUTLER

Leadership and influence

There are probably more books and seminars on effective personal style than any other management topic, and yet time and time again projects go wrong for very human reasons. During the 1990s it was estimated that ten academic papers a day were published on the subject and nowadays virtually every organisation includes leadership as a topic within their management or executive development programmes, but few actually include ‘project sponsorship’ in those programmes. Project management roles are interesting in this respect as they challenge many of the traditional assumptions associated with power and leadership. Prime amongst these is the likelihood of the following:

• You may be leading or managing across the organisation, impacting people and capabilities outside your traditional line management remit and even from other organisations; further, these people may be from different disciplines with different ways of working, language and values.
• Traditional hierarchy and ranks may be side-stepped, with apparently senior line managers accountable to managers they perceive to be more junior.
• You may have no direct authority over the team you are accountable for as seen from a line management perspective. As such, the normal disciplinary sanctions for non-performance of individuals may not exist – you have no ‘big stick.’

In such situations, certain aspects of ‘pushy’, ‘blue’ or ‘hard’ styles, such as assertion and persuasion, can be ineffective:

• Persuasion is only useful if the issue is open to rational debate and you are perceived as being competent in the topic under discussion. It is notoriously poor if used in a highly charged emotional environment.
• Assertiveness can be powerful if your needs are legitimate and you stand to lose if those needs are not met. The list of accountabilities associated with your role gives you your legitimacy but do check what incentives you can offer or sanctions you can impose to gain agreement or compliance with your wishes. If you can provide neither, assertion can be fruitless.

‘Pull’, ‘green’ or ‘soft’ styles such as bridging and attraction may be more effective:

• Bridging involves gaining others’ commitment and is most valuable if it is seen that you are open to influence and value their opinions. Look at your key stakeholders and you will probably find this form of influence is appropriate for many situations involving them.
• Attraction or envisioning is all about generating enthusiasm and excitement, taking people beyond the everyday to higher plains and new possibilities. It is often seen as totally irrational, but is no less effective for that. If shared values and trust are what you need to achieve your aims, this is a good influencing style.

In summary, the ‘best style’ to use depends on the situation you find yourself in and the person you want to influence. However, on the whole, if you find yourself saying the following, think again:

• ‘Don’t come to me with problems, come with solutions.’
• ‘I only accept “can do” as an option.’
• ‘Don’t come moaning to me; just do it.’
• ‘I want action NOW!’

All these expressions may lead to over-optimistic reports of progress, the truth being hidden and blame being cast on others for failure to deliver. It is more powerful for a leader to surround him/herself with ‘constructive dissenters’ who are prepared to tell the truth or ask awkward questions than with ‘yes men’ who merely repeat what the leader wants to hear.

Remember, the benefits from whatever the project produces will only start to flow once those deliverables have been put into use in the operational environment. If those leading the project have not obtained the consent of the senior managers who will actually operate the ‘new order’, their efforts and that of the team will come to nothing. It would have been more cost effective to send the team and their families on holiday to Spain for three months than to create something which is never used.

I thought you were doing that! – accountability

How many times have you been in a meeting, with your colleagues and the following has happened:

Chairman: Right. That’s agreed then. Bob and Dave, you sort that one out and let us know next week.

Next week …

Chairman: Bob, what happened?

Bob: I don’t know. I thought Dave was doing something on this.

Dave: Oh! I was waiting for you to phone me.

Some clarity on who was actually accountable was needed. Bob and Dave might both have been necessary, as skilled, knowledgeable resources, to carry out the action, but only one of them should have been accountable. This is called ‘single point accountability’.

The person who is accountable is not necessarily the person who does the work, but the one who sees that it is done. This is not only useful in a meeting environment but also in planning projects. We have already introduced the accountabilities of the project sponsor and project manager. The project manager is accountable for managing the work on a day-to-day basis, ensuring the deliverables are in place at the required time, quality and cost. He or she cannot do it all, or in many cases manage it all. We have also seen how a project is deconstructed into life cycle stages (see p. 58). This decomposition can be followed through with major packages of work being made the accountability of a particular, named, core team member. These work packages may be divided into smaller packages and ultimately into individual activities and tasks. This deconstruction is called a work breakdown structure (see p. 141).

In practice, single point accountability means every task, activity and work package at any level in the work breakdown structure has a person named as accountable for it. This has four advantages:

• It is clear what is expected of each person.
• Overlaps should be eliminated as no deliverable can be created within two different work packages.
• If a gap in accountability appears (due to loss of a team member, for example), the next person up the tree is accountable to fix it.
• If scope, cost or time proves to be inadequate to create the deliverables, it is clear who is accountable for raising these issues.

In practice, accountability is shown in the way that project plans (bar charts) are designed. The examples given in Chapter 21 clearly show accountability.

You may be accountable for ensuring a computer system functions correctly. I would be acting responsibly if I told you of any defects I observed.

In projects it is essential that accountabilities are clearly stated and are unambiguous so everyone knows who is called to account and who they are accountable to. Similarly, team commitment should be fostered, which promotes responsible and open behaviour by all team members.

’The business of everybody is the business of nobody.’

LORD MCCAULAY