,

Chapter 8

Developing the Project Team

The PMP® exam content from the Executing the Project, and monitoring and controlling the project performance domains covered in this chapter includes the following:

• Task 2: Execute the tasks as defined in the project plan in order to achieve the project deliverables within budget and schedule.
• Task 6: Maximize team performance through leading, mentoring, training, and motivating team members.
• Task 6: Communicate project status to stakeholders for their feedback, in order to ensure the project aligns with business needs.
• Knowledge and Skills:
  • Project monitoring tools and techniques
  • Interaction of work breakdown structure elements within the project schedule

This chapter begins the project Executing process group. I’ll cover four of the processes in this chapter: Direct and Manage Project Execution, Acquire Project Team, Develop Project Team, and Manage Project Team. I’ll cover the remaining four Executing processes in the next chapter.

Direct and Manage Project Execution is the action process. This is where you’ll put the plans into action and begin working on the project activities. Execution also involves keeping the project in line with the original project plan and bringing wayward activities back into alignment.

The Acquire, Develop, and Manage Project Team processes are all interrelated, as you can imagine, and work together to help obtain the best project team available.

Several things happen during the Executing processes. The majority of the project budget will be spent during this process group, and often the majority of the project time is expended here as well. The greatest conflicts you’ll see during the project Executing processes are schedule conflicts. In addition, the product description will be finalized here and contain more detail than it did in the Planning processes.

There might be several exam questions from every process within the Executing process group. Don’t skip studying these processes and the ones in Chapter 9, Conducting Procurements and Sharing Information,” because 30 percent of the exam questions concern the Executing process group. Are you ready to dive into Executing? Let’s go.

Executing the Project Plan

The purpose of the Direct and Manage Project Execution process is to carry out the project plan. This is where your project comes to life and the work of the project happens. The work is authorized to begin and activities are performed. Resources are committed and carry out their assigned activities to create the product, result, or service of the project. Funds are spent to accomplish project objectives. Performing project activities, training, selecting sellers, collecting project data, utilizing resources, and so on are all integrated with or are part of this process.

Direct and Manage Project Execution is where the rubber meets the road. If you’ve done a good job planning the project, things should go relatively smoothly for you during this process. The deliverables and requirements are agreed upon, the resources have been identified and are ready to go, and the stakeholders know exactly where you’re headed because you had them review, agree to, and approve the project plan.

Some project managers think this is the time for them to kick back and put their feet up. After all, the project plan is done, everyone knows what to do and what’s expected of them, and the work of the project should almost carry itself out because your project plan is a work of genius, right? Wrong! You must stay involved. Your job now is a matter of overseeing the actual work, staying on top of issues and problems, and keeping the work lined up with the project plan.

One of the most difficult aspects of this process is coordinating and integrating all the elements of the project. Although you do have the project plan as your guide, you still have a lot of balls in the air. You’ll find yourself coordinating and monitoring many project elements—occasionally all at the same time—during the course of the Direct and Manage Project Execution process. You might be negotiating for team members at the same time you’re negotiating with vendors at the same time you’re working with another manager to get a project component completed so your deliverables stay on schedule. You should monitor risks and risk triggers closely. The Plan Procurements process might need intervention or cause you delays. The organizational, technical, and interpersonal interfaces might require intense coordination and oversight. Of course, you should always be concerned about the pulse of your stakeholders. Are they actively involved in the project? Are they throwing up roadblocks now that the work has started?

According to the PMBOK® Guide, this process also requires implementing corrective actions to bring the work of the project back into alignment with the project plan, preventive actions to reduce the probability of negative consequences, and defect repairs to correct product defects discovered during the quality processes.

As you can see, your work as project manager is not done yet. Many elements of the project require your attention, so let’s get to work.

Executing Inputs

Direct and Manage Project Execution has four inputs:

• Project management plan
• Approved change requests
• Enterprise environmental factors
• Organization process assets

The project management plan documents the collection of outputs of the Planning processes and describes and defines how the project should be executed, monitored, controlled, and closed. The project management plan documents the goals of the project and the actual work you and the team will execute in order to meet those goals. Once the project plan is complete, you will know all of the work and actions needed to meet the deliverables of the project and will have a plan for executing those actions. You’ll take a brief look at each of the other inputs next.

Approved Change Requests

Approved change requests come about as a result of the change request status updates output of the Perform Integrated Change Control process. (We’ll cover this process in Chapter 10, “Measuring and Controlling Project Performance.”) Change requests are approved or denied during this process, and once the decision has been made, approved changes come back through the Direct and Manage Project Execution process for the project team to implement.

Approved changes might either expand or reduce project scope and may also cause revisions to project budgets, schedules, procedures, project management plans, and so on. Change requests can be internal or external to the project or organization. For example, you may need to make changes because of a new law that affects your project.

Enterprise Environmental Factors

When performing this process, you will need to consider several enterprise environmental factors, including the company culture and organizational structure, the facilities available to the project team, personnel guidelines and hiring practices, risk tolerance levels, and project management information systems.

Organizational Process Assets

Like many of the other processes we’ve covered, historical information from past projects, organizational guidelines, and work processes are some of the organizational process assets you should consider when performing this process. In addition, measurement databases and issue and defect databases can be used in this process to compare past projects to the current project and to capture information about the current project for future reference.

Tools and Techniques of Direct and Manage Project Execution

The tools and techniques of the Direct and Manage Project Execution process are expert judgment and project management information system. You’ve looked at both of these before. Remember that in the Executing processes, you’ll be actively using both of these tools; consulting with stakeholders, professionals, and others; employing the project management methodology you developed in the Planning processes; and using the project management information system to update and track progress.

Some of the outputs of this process are going to look familiar and some are new. We’ll examine them next.

Outputs of Direct and Manage Project Execution

The outputs of the Direct and Manage Project Execution process are as follows:

• Deliverables
• Work performance information
• Change requests
• Project management plan updates
• Project document updates

The three most important outputs of this process are deliverables (meaning actually accomplishing the activities leading to the completion of the product, result, or service you set out to produce), work performance information, and change requests. Almost every process you’ve performed up to this point has defined and outlined what the work of the project entails and what the final results should look like. Now you’re ready to begin performing the work. Let’s look at these three outputs that will help us document our progress.

Deliverables

During Direct and Manage Project Execution, you’ll gather and record information regarding the outcomes of the work, including activity completion dates, milestone completions, the status of the deliverables, the quality of the deliverables, costs, schedule progress and updates, and so on. Deliverables aren’t always tangible. For example, perhaps your team members require training on a piece of specialized equipment. Completion of the training is recorded as a work result. Capabilities required to perform a service that’s described in the project management plan are also considered a deliverable. All of this information gets used during the Report Performance process, which I’ll discuss during the Monitoring and Controlling processes.

Executing and Monitoring and Controlling are two process groups that work hand in hand. As you gather the information from work results, you’ll measure the outputs and take corrective actions where necessary. This means you’ll loop back through the Executing processes to put the corrections into place. The PMBOK® Guide breaks these processes up for ease of explanation, but in practice, you’ll work through several of the Executing and Monitoring and Controlling processes together.

Work Performance Information

Work performance information concerns gathering, documenting, and recording the status of project activities. The types of information you might gather during this process include some of the following:

• Schedule status and progress
• Status of deliverable completion
• Progress and status of schedule activities
• Adherence to quality standards
• Status of costs (those authorized and costs incurred to date)
• Schedule activity completion estimates for those activities started
• Schedule activities percent complete
• Lessons learned
• Resource consumption and utilization

Work performance information becomes an input to a few of the Monitoring and Controlling processes where you’ll perform further analysis on the data. It’s important that you document this information so that when you get to the Monitoring and Controlling processes, you don’t have to backtrack.

Change Requests

As a result of working through activities and producing your product, service, or result, you will inevitably come upon things that need to be changed. Changes can also come about from stakeholder requests, external sources, technological advances, and so on. These change requests might encompass schedule, scope, requirement, or resource changes. The list really could go on. Your job as project manager, if you choose to accept it, is to collect the change requests and make determinations about their impact on the project.

Implementation of change requests may incorporate two types of actions: corrective actions or preventive actions. They may also require defect repairs. Each of these topics is described next.

Corrective actions In my organization, a corrective action means an employee is in big trouble. Fortunately, this isn’t what’s meant here. Corrective actions are taken to get the anticipated future project outcomes to align with the project plan. Maybe you’ve discovered that one of your programmers is adding an unplanned feature to the software project because he’s friends with the user. You’ll have to redirect him to the activities assigned to him originally to avoid schedule delays. Perhaps your vendor isn’t able to deliver the laboratory equipment needed for the next project phase. You’ll want to exercise your contract options (let’s hope there’s a clause in the contract that says the vendor must provide rental equipment until they can deliver your order), put your contingency plan into place, and get the lab the equipment that’s needed to keep the project on schedule.

Preventive action Preventive action involves anything that will reduce the potential impacts of risk events should they occur. Contingency plans and risk responses are examples of preventive action. I described these and other risk responses while talking about the Plan Risk Response process in Chapter 6, “Risk Planning.” You should be aware of contingency plans and risk responses so that you’re ready to implement them at the first sign of trouble.

Defect repairs A defect occurs when a project component does not meet the requirements or specifications. Defects might be discovered when conducting quality audits in the Perform Quality Assurance process or when performing inspections during the Perform Quality Control process.

For the exam, you should understand the difference between a validated defect repair and a defect repair. A validated defect repair is the result of a reinspection of the original defect repair. In other words, you found a problem with the product during the Quality processes, you corrected the problem (defect repair), and now you’re reinspecting that repair (validated defect repair) to make certain the fix is accurate, correct, and fixed the problem.

I’ll discuss change requests more in the coming chapters as well. Change requests are an output of several processes, including the Direct and Manage Project Execution process and the Report Performance process in the Monitoring and Controlling process group. Remember that the Executing process group outputs and the Monitoring and Controlling process group outputs feed each other as inputs. In this particular case, approved change requests are an input, and change requests are an output of the same process.

I told you the Executing process group is about performing the work of the project, and in order to do that, you need resources. You’ll look at two processes, Acquire Project Team and Develop Project Team, in the next few sections.

Acquiring the Project Team

The Acquire Project Team process involves attaining and assigning human resources to the project. Project staff might come from inside the company or from outside the company in the form of employees hired specifically for the project or as contract help. In any case, it’s your job as the project manager to ensure that resources are available and skilled in the project activities to which they’re assigned. However, in practice, you might find that you don’t always have control over the selection of team members. Someone else, the big boss for example, might handpick the folks they want working on the project, and it’s up to you to assess their skills and decide where they best fit on the project.

The Acquire Project Team process inputs are as follows:

• Project management plan
• Enterprise environmental factors
• Organizational process assets

The project management plan describes the roles and responsibilities, project organization charts, and staffing management plan by way of the human resource plan.

Enterprise environmental factors in this process account for project activities that might require special skills or knowledge in order to be completed. They may also consider personal interests, cost rates, prior experience, and availability of potential team members before making assignments. For example, consider the previous experience of the staff member you’re thinking of assigning to a specific activity. Have they performed this function before? Do they have the experience necessary for the level of complexity this project activity requires? Are they competent and proficient at these skills?

Personal interests and personal characteristics play a big role as well. If the person you’re thinking of just isn’t interested in the project, they aren’t likely to perform at their best. If you can, think about assigning someone else in a case like this. Unfortunately, some people just don’t play well with others. When you’re assigning staff, if at all possible, don’t put the only two people in the whole company who can’t get along together on the same project. If a staff member you need has a skill no one else has or they can perform a function like no one else can, you might not have a choice. In this case, you’ll have to employ other techniques to keep the team cohesive and working well together despite the not-so-friendly relationship between the two staff members.

Here’s one final consideration: check on the availability of key team members. If the team member you must have for the activity scheduled in February is on their honeymoon, you probably aren’t going to win the toss.

The organizational process assets input refers to standard processes, policies, and procedures the organization has in place. Recruitment practices are one example to watch for in this process. You’ll want to make certain you’re following the organization’s recruitment procedures and processes when hiring and assigning staff. You should also note that organizational policies that dictate recruitment practices are constraints.

We’ve looked at the other inputs in previous processes, so we’ll move on to the tools and techniques of this process.

Tools and Techniques of Acquire Project Team

The tools and techniques of the Acquire Project Team process are as follows:

• Preassignment
• Negotiation
• Acquisition
• Virtual teams

Preassignment Preassignment can happen when the project is put out for bid and specific team members are promised as part of the proposal or when internal project team members are promised and assigned as a condition of the project. When staff members are promised as part of the project proposal—particularly on internal projects—they should be identified in the project charter.

Negotiation As the project manager, you will use the negotiation technique a lot, so brush up on those skills every chance you get. You’ll have to negotiate with functional managers and other organizational department managers—and sometimes with the vendor to get some of their best people—for resources for your project and for the timing of those resources.

Availability is one part of the negotiating equation. You’ll have to work with the functional manager or other project managers to ensure that the staff member you’re requesting is available when the schedule says they’re needed.

The second part of the equation is the competency level of the staff member they’re assigning to your project. I remember hearing someone once say that availability is not a skill set. Be wary of functional managers who are willing to offer up certain individuals “any time” while others are “never available.” Be certain your negotiations include discussions about the skills and personal characteristics of the team members you want on your project.

Acquisition Acquisition involves hiring individuals or teams of people for certain project activities, either as employees or as contract help during the course of the project or project phase or for specific project activities. Procurement is usually required when the organization does not have employees with the required skills and competencies available to work on the project.

Virtual teams Virtual teams are the last tool and technique of this process. Virtual teams don’t necessarily work in the same location, but their members all share the goals of the project and have a role to fulfill. This type of team allows you to include folks from different geographic locations, those who work different hours or shifts than the other team members, those with mobility limitations, and so on. According to the PMBOK® Guide, “Virtual teams can be defined as groups of people with a shared goal, who fulfill their roles with little or no time spent meeting face to face.” In today’s wonderful world of technology, team members can use the Internet, email, videoconferencing, teleconferencing, and more to meet and communicate on a regular basis. This of course brings to light the importance of communication. Make certain all team members are aware of the protocols for communicating in a virtual team environment, understand the expectations, and are clear regarding decision-making processes.

It’s vital in this type of team structure that you, as the project manager, give credit to the appropriate team members for their performance and actions on the project. You might be the only one who fully understands the contributions individual team members have made. When teams are co-located, members have the opportunity to see for themselves the extraordinary efforts others are making on the project. Virtual team members don’t necessarily know what their teammates have contributed to the project (or the level of effort they’ve exerted), so it’s up to you to let everyone know about outstanding performance.

Outputs of Acquire Project Team

The resulting outputs of the Acquire Project Team process are as follows:

• Project staff assignment
• Resource calendars
• Project management plan updates

Project staff assignment Your ability to influence the selection of resources (using the negotiating technique) will impact the project staff assignment output. After determining elements such as the roles and responsibilities, reviewing recruitment practices, and negotiating for staff, you assign project team members to project activities. Along with this output, a project team directory is published listing the names of all project team members and stakeholders. Don’t forget to also include team member names in project organization charts, RAM charts, and other planning documents if their assignments or names weren’t known when you created those documents.

Resource calendars Resource calendars show the team members’ availability and the times they are scheduled to work on the project. A composite resource calendar includes availability information for potential resources as well as their capabilities and skills. (Resource calendars are an input to the Estimate Activity Resources process.) This comes in handy when you’re creating the final schedule and assigning resources to activities.

Project management plan updates The time periods your project staff are available are documented in the resource calendars output. The human resource plan and staffing management plan might require updates to document the project roles and responsibilities of the staff assigned to the project. These documents might require updates throughout the project if staff members leave because of a promotion or, heaven forbid, if they leave for employment in another company (unless you want them to leave—that’s another story).

Now that you have the team, what do you do with them? You’ll look at topics such as motivation, rewards, and recognition in the next process, Develop Project Team.

Developing the Project Team

Projects exist to create a unique product, result, or service within a limited time frame. Projects are performed by people, and most projects require more than one person to perform all of the activities. If you’ve got more than one person working on your project, you’ve got a team. If you’ve got a team, you’ve got a wide assortment of personalities, skills, needs, and issues in the mix. Couple this with part-time team members, teams based in functional organizations whose loyalty lies with the functional manager, teams based in matrix organizations that report to you for project-related activities and another manager for their functional duties, or teams with members who are scattered around the globe, and you could have some real challenges on your hands. Good luck! OK, I won’t leave you hanging like that.

The Develop Project Team process is about creating an open, encouraging environment for your team and developing it into an effective, functioning, coordinated group. Projects are performed by individuals, and the better they work together, the smoother and the more efficient the execution of the project will be. I’m sure you have had the experience of working with a team who pitched in and shared workloads when the work became unbalanced. I’m also sure you have worked with teams who didn’t do this—teams whose members took on a “me first” attitude and couldn’t care less about the plight of their fellow team members. I’d much rather work with a team like the first example.

Develop Project Team inputs include project staff assignments, project management plan, and resource calendars. Funny thing is, these inputs are all outputs that I discussed in the Acquire Project Team process, so we’ll move on.

Tools and Techniques of Develop Project Team

The tools and techniques of Develop Project Team are as follows:

• Interpersonal skills
• Training
• Team-building activities
• Ground rules
• Co-location
• Recognition and rewards

I’ll cover all these tools and techniques next.

Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are often referred to as soft skills. Soft skills include such things as leadership, influence, negotiation, communications, empathy, and creativity. For example, it’s important for you as the project manager to understand your project team members’ attitudes and opinions about their work. Bad attitudes, like the saying goes, are contagious. It doesn’t mean the person who has the attitude is bad, but if you’re paying attention to your team members and taking the appropriate amount of time to listen to their legitimate concerns and issues, and taking action on them, you can go a long way toward stemming bad attitudes.

Soft skills can be learned, but in my experience they are more often inherent in project managers’ personalities. However, just because certain soft skills may not be in your nature, it doesn’t mean you can’t observe this behavior in others and incorporate those skills into your management techniques.

One other issue to consider regarding this tool and technique is that you’ll have resources from other departments who have assignments on the project that you’re responsible for overseeing. For example, the finance department and the marketing department might have assigned project activities, and as the project manager, you’ll manage their progress. This implies that you’ll need general knowledge management skills to understand what the assignments entail and strong leadership and negotiation skills to influence the departments to stay on schedule.

Training

Training is a matter of assessing your team members’ skills and abilities, assessing the project needs, and providing the training necessary for the team members to carry out their assigned activities. Training can sometimes be a reward as well. In the software industry, programmers seek out positions that offer training on the latest and greatest technologies, and they consider it a benefit or bonus to attend training on the company dollar and time. If you know early in the Planning processes that training is necessary, include the details of this in the staffing management plan. During the course of the project, you might observe team members who need training, or they might ask for training. Update the staffing management plan with this information.

Team-Building Activities

Many times, project teams consist of folks who don’t know each other. They aren’t necessarily aware of the project objectives and might not even want to be a part of the team. The project manager might not have worked with the people assigned to the project team before either. Does this sound like a recipe for disaster? It’s not. Thousands of projects are started with team members and project managers who don’t know each other, and those projects come to a successful completion. How is that done? It’s a result of the project manager’s team-building and communication skills.

The project manager’s job is to bring the team together, get its members all headed in the right direction, and provide motivation, reward, and recognition to keep the team in tip-top shape. This is done using a variety of team-building techniques and exercises. Team building is simply getting a diverse group of people to work together in the most efficient and effective manner possible. This might involve events organized by the management team or individual actions designed to improve team performance. There are Entire volumes on this subject, and it’s beyond the scope of this book to go into all the team-building possibilities. The exam tends to focus more on the theories behind team building and the characteristics of effective teams, so that’s what you’ll spend your time exploring.

Dr. Bruce Tuckman and Mary Ann Jensen developed a model that describes how teams develop and mature. According to Tuckman-Jensen, all newly formed teams go through five stages of development:

Tuckman-Jensen originally devised this theory using the first four stages of development. Based on later research by the Tuckman-Jensen team, a fifth stage of development was added called adjourning. You’ve probably seen this model elsewhere, but because these stages might show up on the exam, you’ll want to memorize them. Take a brief look at each of them:

Forming This one is easy. Forming is the beginning stage of team formation, when all the members are brought together, introduced, and told the objectives of the project. This is where team members learn why they’re working together. During this stage, team members tend to be formal and reserved and take on an “all-business” approach.

Your role as the project manager in this stage of development is communication. If the team is small, I recommend meeting with each of the members one-on-one and as a group to discuss the questions (and answers) previously outlined. In my experience, team members who clearly understand why they are assigned to the project, their expectations regarding individual and team deliverables, and how to inform the project manager of their needs and issues will generally out perform their peers who do not have or understand this information.

Storming Storming is where the action begins. Team members become confrontational with each other as they’re vying for position and control during this stage. They’re working through who is going to be the top dog and jockeying for status.

Your role as the project manager during this stage is to remind the team of the project goals and keep everyone centered on those goals. Conflicts aren’t bad in this case; they’re actually necessary to get the team into the next stage. During this stage, it is best if you can limit your intervention and let team members resolve their own issues as often as possible. Team members need to get a feel for where they stand, where the extent of their responsibility lies, and how they’ll accomplish their tasks working with the other personalities of the team, and that usually involves some tussles. Questioning and conflict help clarify the goals of the project for everyone on the team, not just the person in conflict, so encourage your team members to ask questions and discuss conflicts openly. However, you won’t progress to the next stage until the team has resolved the conflicts.

Norming Now things begin to calm down. Team members know each other fairly well by now. They’re comfortable with their positions in the team, and they begin to deal with project problems instead of people problems. In the norming stage, they confront the project concerns and problems instead of each other. Decisions are made jointly at this stage, and team members exhibit mutual respect and familiarity with one another.

As the project manager, you should continue to hold team meetings, especially during this stage, because team members can fall back into the storming stage if left to their own devices. During this stage, you should intervene more often when conflicts arise to keep the team moving forward. Monitor each team member’s participation, and encourage the team to continue to remain focused on the project’s goals and alert you of any problems as soon as they arise.

Teams in the norming stage are efficient, functioning teams. If your team has progressed to this stage, they’ll likely be productive and work effectively toward meeting the project goals. They still aren’t performing at their absolute best, though—that happens in the next stage.

Performing Ahh, perfection. Well, almost, anyway. This is where great teams end up. This stage is where the team is productive and effective. The level of trust among team members is high, and great things are achieved. This is the mature development stage.

Your role as project manager during this stage should be more focused on the project management processes than on the team itself. Teams in this stage are usually self-directed and will hum along smoothly, provided you continue to update them on project progress and keep the lines of communication open.

Adjourning As the name implies, this phase refers to the breakup of the team after the work is completed.

As the project manager, you need to realize that many team members may experience a sense of loss at the end of the project, particularly long-term projects. Guide the team through a closure process. Team celebrations at the conclusion of the project are one way to accomplish this. Acknowledge their contributions and let them know you are grateful for their efforts and for any sacrifices they’ve made during the course of the project.

According to Tuckman-Jensen, leaders adapt their leadership styles as the teams develop maturity and progress through the development stages. For example, early in the forming stage, leaders take on a direct style of leadership. As the team progresses, their leaders will employ a coaching, participating, and then delegating style of leadership to match the level of development the team has achieved.

You’ll now take a closer look at focusing your team members throughout these stages of development, along with some of the characteristics of effective teams.

Team Focus

Have you ever watched any of those old pirate movies on late-night TV? Remember the scenes where the captain goes down into the bowels of the ship to check on the teams of rowers? He scrutinizes the crew and literally whips the rowers who aren’t pulling their weight into shape. I don’t recommend this as a team-building technique, but imagine for a minute that your project team members are like those rowing teams. If the members on the left are rowing one way and the members on the right are rowing another, you’re creating a lot of energy and looking busy, but in the end you aren’t making any progress.

It’s paramount that the team members know and understand the goals and objectives of the project. They should all understand the direction you’re headed and work toward that end. After all, that’s the reason they were brought together in the first place. Keep in mind that people see and hear things from their own perspective. A room full of people attending a speech will each come away with something a little different because what was said speaks to their particular situation in life at the time. In other words, their own perceptions filter what they hear. It’s your job as project manager to make certain the team members understand the project goals and their own assignments correctly. I suggest you use solid communication skills to get your point across. Ask your team members to tell you in their own words what they believe the project goals are. This is a great way to know whether you’ve got everyone on board and a great opportunity for you to clarify any misunderstandings regarding the project goals.

Effective Team Characteristics

Effective teams are typically very energetic teams. They often are characterized as high-performance teams and are motivated by results and the successful completion of tasks. Their enthusiasm is contagious, and it feeds on itself. They generate a lot of creativity and become good problem solvers. Teams like this are every project manager’s dream. Investing yourself in team building as well as relationship building—especially when you don’t think you have the time to do so—will bring many benefits. Here’s a sample of the benefits:

• Better conflict resolution
• Commitment to the project
• Commitment to the project team members and project manager
• High job satisfaction
• Enhanced communication
• A sense of belonging and purpose
• A successful project

Dysfunctional teams will typically produce the opposite results of the benefits just listed. Dysfunctional teams don’t just happen by themselves any more than great teams do. Sure, sometimes you’re lucky enough to get the right combination of folks together right off the bat. But usually, team building takes work and dedication on the part of the project manager. Even in the situations where you do get that dynamite combination of people, they will benefit from team-building exercises and feedback.

Unfortunately, sour attitudes are just as contagious as enthusiasm. Watch for these symptoms among your team members, and take action to correct the situation before the entire team is affected:

• Lack of motivation or “don’t care” attitudes
• Project work that isn’t satisfactory
• Status meetings that turn into whining sessions
• Poor communication
• Lack of respect and lack of trust for the project manager

Ground Rules

Ground rules are expectations set by the project manager and project team that describe acceptable team behavior. For example, one of my pet peeves is team members who interrupt each other. In this case, one of the ground rules is one person speaks at a time during a meeting. Another ground rule might be reporting potential issues as soon as the team member becomes aware of them. Outlining ground rules like this helps the team understand expectations regarding acceptable behavior and increases productivity.

Co-location

Team members are often in the same physical location—for example, the same office building or meeting space. This tool and technique is called co-location. Co-location enables teams to function more effectively than if they’re spread out among different localities. Many times on large projects, the project manager will make provisions in the project budget to bring the team together at the same location. (It’s difficult, but not impossible, to manage project team members who are not physically located together.) One way to achieve co-location might be to set aside a common meeting room, sometimes called a war room, for team members who are located in different buildings or across town to meet and exchange information.

Multiple locations can also be a big time waster for you as the project manager and for your team members. If some team members are located in one part of town and another set of team members are located across town, you’ll find yourself in the car (or the bus) driving back and forth to make face-to-face contact and get status updates. Conducting team meetings also becomes a hassle as one set of team members or the other must drive to another location (or both to a central location) to have a meeting.

Our busy, conflicting schedules and differences in location don’t always allow for face-to-face communication, so email is the next best thing. I’m a huge email fan—it’s one of my favorite forms of communication. Email can keep the information flowing when you aren’t able to meet in person, and it can even help take the heat out of conflicts that might escalate if you were meeting one on one. However, email cannot reveal tone of voice, facial expressions, or body language. Sometimes those nonverbal cues are more important than what’s being said. If you don’t know your team members or stakeholders well, I recommend meeting with them personally whenever you can. Once you’ve established good relationships with them, you should be able to balance the use of email and personal interactions and know when it’s time to call a face-to-face meeting. In reality, it’s often difficult to get your team together physically. A good solution in lieu of having people relocate is videoconferencing or conference calling. Team members scattered across the country have access to the telephone, and it’s relatively easy to find a time everyone can meet over the phone. Videoconferencing is the best option if it’s available because it allows intonation and nonverbal behaviors to be part of the communication process.

Recognition and Rewards

I have quite a bit of ground to cover with recognition and rewards. As I said earlier, you could see several exam questions regarding team building, so dig out all your favorite memorization techniques and put them to use.

Team building starts with project planning and doesn’t stop until the project is completed. It involves employing techniques to improve your team’s performance and keeping team members motivated. Motivation helps people work more efficiently and produce better results. If clear expectations, clear procedures, and the right motivational tools are used, project teams will excel.

Motivation can be extrinsic or intrinsic. Extrinsic motivators are material rewards and might include bonuses, the use of a company car, stock options, gift certificates, training opportunities, extra time off, and so on.

Intrinsic motivators are specific to the individual. Some people are just naturally driven to achieve—it’s part of their nature. (I suspect this is a motivator for you since you’re reading this book.) Cultural and religious influences are forms of intrinsic motivators as well. Reward and recognition—a tool and technique of the Develop Project Team process—are examples of extrinsic motivators. We’ll look at them next.

Recognition and rewards are important parts of team motivation. They are formal ways of recognizing and promoting desirable behavior and are most effective when carried out by the management team and the project manager. You should develop and document the criteria for rewards, especially monetary awards. Although rewards and recognition help build a team, they can also kill morale if you don’t have an established method or criteria for handing them out. Track who is receiving awards throughout the project. For example, if you have consistent overachievers on the team, you could kill morale by consistently rewarding the same one or two people repeatedly. It could also be perceived that you’re playing favorites. If team members believe the rewards are win-lose (also known as zero-sum) and that only certain team members will be rewarded, you might end up hurting morale more than helping. If you find yourself in this position, consider team awards. This is a win-win because all team members are recognized for their contributions. Recognition and rewards should be proportional to the achievement. In other words, appropriately link the reward to the performance. For example, a project manager who has responsibility for the project budget and the procurement process and keeps the costs substantially under budget without sacrificing the results of the project should be rewarded for this achievement. However, if these responsibilities are assigned to a functional manager in the organization, it wouldn’t be appropriate to reward a project manager who was not the one responsible for keeping the costs in line.

Team members should be rewarded for going above and beyond the call of duty. Perhaps they put in a significant amount of overtime to meet a project goal or spent nights round-the-clock babysitting ill-performing equipment. These types of behaviors should be rewarded and formally recognized by the project manager and the management team. On the other hand, if the ill-performing equipment was a direct result of mistakes made or if it happened because of poor planning, rewards would not be appropriate, obviously.

Consider individual preferences and cultural differences when using rewards and recognitions. Some people don’t like to be recognized in front of a group; others thrive on it. Some people appreciate an honest thank-you with minimal fanfare, and others just won’t accept individual rewards because their culture doesn’t allow it. Keep this in mind when devising your reward system.

There are many theories on motivation. As a project manager, it’s important to understand them so that you can tailor your recognition and rewards programs to take into account the reasons people do what they do. You might encounter questions on these theories on the exam, so we’ll discuss their primary points in the following sections.

Motivational Theories

Motivational theories came about during the modern age. Prior to today’s information- and service-type jobs and yesterday’s factory work, the majority of people worked the land and barely kept enough food on the table to feed their family. No one was concerned about motivation at work. You worked because you wouldn’t have anything to eat if you didn’t. Fortunately, that isn’t the only reason most people work today.

Today we have a new set of problems in the workplace. Workers in the service- and knowledge-based industries aren’t concerned with starvation—that need has been replaced with other needs such as job satisfaction, a sense of belonging and commitment to the project, good working conditions, and so on. Motivational theories present ideas on why people act the way they do and how you can influence them to act in certain ways to get the results you want. Again, there are libraries full of books on this topic. I’ll cover four of those theories here.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

You have probably seen this classic example of motivational theory. Abraham Maslow theorized that humans have five basic needs arranged in hierarchical order. The first needs are physical needs, such as the need for food, clothing, and shelter. The idea is that these needs must be met before the person can move to the next level of needs in the hierarchy, which includes safety and security needs. Here, the concern is for the person’s physical welfare and the security of their belongings. Once that need is met, they progress to the next level, and so on.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory suggests that once a lower-level need has been met, it no longer serves as a motivator and the next higher level becomes the driving motivator in a person’s life. Maslow conjectures that humans are always in one state of need or another. Here is a recap of each of the needs, starting with the highest level and ending with the lowest:

Self-actualization Performing at your peak potential

Self-esteem needs Accomplishment, respect for self, capability

Social needs A sense of belonging, love, acceptance, friendship

Safety and security needs Your physical welfare and the security of your belongings

Basic physical needs Food, clothing, shelter

The highest level of motivation in this theory is the state of self-actualization. A few years ago, the United States Army had a slogan that I think encapsulates self-actualization very well: “Be all that you can be.” When all the physical, safety, social, and self-esteem needs have been met, a person reaches a state of independence where they’re able to express themselves and perform at their peak. They’ll do good work just for the sake of doing good work. Recognition and self-esteem are the motivators at lower levels; now the need for being the best they can be is reached.

Hygiene Theory

Frederick Herzberg came up with the Hygiene Theory, also known as the Motivation-Hygiene Theory. He postulates that two factors contribute to motivation: hygiene factors and motivators. Hygiene factors deal with work environment issues. The thing to remember about hygiene factors is that they prevent dissatisfaction. Examples of hygiene factors are pay, benefits, the conditions of the work environment, and relationships with peers and managers. Pay is considered a hygiene factor because Herzberg believed that over the long term, pay is not a motivator. Being paid for the work prevents dissatisfaction but doesn’t necessarily bring satisfaction in and of itself. He believed this to be true as long as the pay system is equitable. If two workers performing the same functions have large disparities in pay, then pay can become a motivator.

Motivators deal with the substance of the work itself and the satisfaction one derives from performing the functions of the job. Motivators lead to satisfaction. The ability to advance, the opportunity to learn new skills, and the challenges involved in the work are all motivators according to Herzberg.

Expectancy Theory

The Expectancy Theory, first proposed by Victor Vroom, says that the expectation of a positive outcome drives motivation. People will behave in certain ways if they think there will be good rewards for doing so. Also note that this theory says the strength of the expectancy drives the behavior. This means the expectation or likelihood of the reward is linked to the behavior. For example, if you tell your two-year-old to put the toys back in the toy box and you’ll give her a cookie to do so, chances are she’ll put the toys away. This is a reasonable reward for a reasonable action. However, if you promise your project team members vacations in Hawaii if they get the project done early and they know there is no way you can deliver that reward, there is little motivation to work toward it. Also make certain you are using rewards that motivate your team members. If you make a trip to Hawaii the reward, and you can make good on that promise in this example, but your team members are deathly afraid of flying, the reward won’t have a motivating effect.

This theory also says that people become what you expect of them. If you openly praise your project team members and treat them like valuable contributors, you’ll likely have a high-performing team on your hands. Conversely, when you publicly criticize people or let them know that you have low expectations regarding their performance, they’ll likely live up (or down as the case might be) to that expectation as well.

Achievement Theory

Achievement Theory, attributed to David McClelland, says that people are motivated by the need for three things: achievement, power, and affiliation. The achievement motivation is obviously the need to achieve or succeed. The power motivation involves a desire for influencing the behavior of others, and the need for affiliation is relationship oriented. Workers want to have friendships with their co-workers and a sense of camaraderie with their fellow team members. The strength of your team members’ desire for each of these will drive their performance on various activities.

I’ll cover two more theories in the leadership section, which is next. They deal specifically with how leaders interact with their project team members.

Leadership versus Management

Chapter 1, “What Is a Project?” introduced the differences between leaders and managers. I’ll add a bit more information here regarding leadership theories and the types of power leaders possess, but first I’ll recap leadership and management.

Recall that leadership is about imparting vision and rallying people around that vision. Leaders motivate and inspire and are concerned with strategic vision. Leaders have a knack for getting others to do what needs to be done.

Two of the techniques they use to do this are power and politics. Power is the ability to get people to do what they wouldn’t do ordinarily. It’s also the ability to influence behavior. Politics imparts pressure to conform regardless of whether people agree with the decision. Leaders understand the difference between power and politics and when to employ each technique. I’ll talk more about power shortly.

Good leaders have committed team members who believe in the vision of the leader. Leaders set direction and time frames and have the ability to attract good talent to work for them. Leaders inspire a vision and get things done through others by earning loyalty, respect, and cooperation from team members. They set the course and lead the way. Good leaders are directive in their approach but allow for plenty of feedback and input. Good leaders commonly have strong interpersonal skills and are well respected.

Managers are generally task-oriented and concerned with issues such as plans, controls, budgets, policies, and procedures. They’re generalists with a broad base of planning and organizational skills, and their primary goal is satisfying stakeholder needs. They also possess motivational skills and the ability to recognize and reward behavior.

I’ll discuss six theories regarding leadership and management. They are Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, Dr. William Ouchi’s Theory Z, Contingency Theory, the Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum Management Theory, and Situational Leadership Theory. Then I’ll discuss the types of power leaders use and the outputs of Develop Project Team.

Theory X, Theory Y, and Theory Z

Douglas McGregor defined two models of worker behavior, Theory X and Theory Y, that attempt to explain how different managers deal with their team members. Theory X managers believe most people do not like work and will try to steer clear of it; they believe people have little to no ambition, need constant supervision, and won’t actually perform the duties of their job unless threatened. As a result, Theory X managers are like dictators and impose very rigid controls over their people. They believe people are motivated only by punishment, money, or position. Unfortunately for the team members, Theory X managers unknowingly also subscribe to the Expectancy Theory. If they expect people to be lazy and unproductive and treat them as such, their team members probably will be lazy and unproductive.

Theory Y managers believe people are interested in performing their best given the right motivation and proper expectations. These managers provide support to their teams, are concerned about their team members, and are good listeners. Theory Y managers believe people are creative and committed to the project goals, that they like responsibility and seek it out, and that they are able to perform the functions of their positions with limited supervision.

Theory Z was developed by Dr. William Ouchi. This theory is concerned with increasing employee loyalty to their organizations. It came about in Japan in the 1980s when jobs were often offered for life. This theory results in increased productivity, it puts an emphasis on the well-being of the employees both at work and outside of work, it encourages steady employment, and it leads to high employee satisfaction and morale.

Contingency Theory

The Contingency Theory builds on a combination of Theory Y behaviors and the Hygiene Theory. The Contingency Theory, in a nutshell, says that people are motivated to achieve levels of competency and will continue to be motivated by this need even after competency is reached.

Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum Management Theory

Robert Tannenbaum and Warren Schmidt developed a leadership theory, called the Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum Management Theory, that describes the level of authority a manager exerts on the team versus the freedom a team has to make decisions (under the guidance of the manager.) They outline seven levels of delegated freedom ranging from the manager making all decisions and announcing them to the team to the manager allowing the team to identify the problem, determine alternatives, and make the final recommendation regarding the action needed to solve the problem. The level of freedom you use depends on the maturity and experience of the team and the manager. As the team progresses, their decision-making matures, and more and more freedom can be delegated. The manager is always engaged at all levels of this model, but their authority level will decrease as they delegate decision making responsibility to the team.

Situational Leadership Theory

Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard developed the Situational Leadership Theory during the mid-1970s. This theory’s main premise is that the leadership style you use depends on the situation. For example, perhaps you have a new employee fresh out of school, and they are learning a new task. Obviously, this employee will need a lot more guidance and direction than an employee who has been with the organization for some time and knows how to perform the task at hand. Both Hersey and Blanchard went on to develop their own situational leadership models. Blanchard’s model, Situational Leadership II, describes four styles of leadership that depend on the situation: directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating.

The Power of Leaders

As stated earlier, power is the ability to influence others to do what you want them to do. This can be used in a positive manner or a negative one. But, that old saying of your grandmother’s about attracting more flies with honey than vinegar still holds true today.

Leaders, managers, and project managers use power to convince others to do tasks a specific way. The kind of power they use to accomplish this depends on their personality, their personal values, and the company culture.

A project manager might use several forms of power. I’ve already talked about reward power, which is the ability to grant bonuses or incentive awards for a job well done. Here are a few more:

Punishment power Punishment, also known as coercive or penalty power, is just the opposite of reward power. The employee is threatened with consequences if expectations are not met.

Expert power Expert power occurs when the person being influenced believes the manager, or the person doing the influencing, is knowledgeable about the subject or has special abilities that make them an expert. The person goes along just because they think the influencer knows what they’re doing and it’s the best thing for the situation.

Legitimate power Legitimate, or formal, power comes about as a result of the influencer’s position. Because that person is the project manager, executive vice president, or CEO, they have the power to call the shots and make decisions.

Referent power Referent power is inferred to the influencer by their subordinates. Project team members who have a great deal of respect and high regard for their project managers willingly go along with decisions made by the project manager because of referent power.

Punishment power should be used as a last resort and only after all other forms have been exhausted. Sometimes, you’ll have to use this method, but I hope much less often than the other three forms of power. Sometimes, you’ll have team members who won’t live up to expectations and their performance suffers as a result. This is a case where punishment power is enacted to get the employee to correct their behavior.

Leadership Styles

Extensive research has been done in the area of leadership styles. I will highlight a few of the well-known styles for exam purposes, but I encourage you to read more about leadership on your own. You can train almost anyone to follow the principles and practices of sound project management, but you won’t have much of a team to lead if you haven’t mastered the art of great leadership.

Autocratic Autocratic leaders are essentially dictators. All decisions are made by the leader with little to no input from the team.

Laissez-faire This leadership style is the opposite of the autocratic style. The leader allows the team to drive decisions and recommend actions and has little involvement in the process.

Democratic Democratic, or participative, driven leaders gather all the facts and ask for input from the team before making a decision. In this style, all team members participate in the decision-making process.

Situational As we discussed in the last section, the Blanchard theory of situational leadership has four styles. Directive is used when a team member needs to know the step-by-step procedures for the problem. Coaching is used with team members who have limited experience with the task at hand. They can perform some minor functions of the task, but need direction with the majority of the task. Supporting is used with team members who have completed the same types of tasks in the past and are able to complete the majority of the task at hand on their own. They may need to ask a question or two to obtain guidance along the way. Delegating is used when team members have performed the same tasks in the past and are capable of making decisions regarding unexpected issues that may occur. Delegating involves little to no input from the leader.

Transactional and Transformational Transactional and transformational leadership styles were first developed by Bernard Bass who was a professor emeritus in the School of Management at Binghamton. He describes transactional leaders as autocratic, activity focused, autonomous, and they use contingent reward systems and then to manage by exception.

Transformational leaders tend to focus on relationships rather than activities, they are collaborative, influential, and inspire and motivate their teams to perform. Bass describes transformational leaders as empowering and concerned with social justice, equity, and fairness.

Outputs of Develop Project Team

You’re now ready to close out the Develop Project Team process. This process has only two outputs, team performance assessment and enterprise environmental factors updates. Team performance assessment involves determining a team’s effectiveness. As a result of positive team-building experiences, you’ll see individuals improving their skills, team behaviors and relationships improving, conflict resolutions going smoothly, and team members recommending ways to improve the work of the project. I talked about effective team characteristics earlier in this chapter. Assessing these characteristics will help you determine where (or whether) the project team needs improvements.

Managing Project Teams

The Manage Project Team process is concerned with tracking and reporting on the performance of individual team members. During this process, performance appraisals are prepared and conducted, issues are identified and resolved, and feedback is given to the team members. Some team behavior is also observed during this process, but the main focus here is on individuals and their performance.

With the exception of performance reports, you’ve seen all the inputs to this process before:

• Project staff assignments
• Project management plan
• Team performance assessments
• Performance reports
• Organizational process assets

Performance reports document the status of the project compared to the forecasts. We’ll talk more at length about performance reports in Chapter 10. Keep in mind that this is another example of an input to an Executing process coming from an output of a Monitoring and Controlling process.

Tools and Techniques for Managing Teams

Most of the tools and techniques for this process are new. Don’t skip studying any of them because you’ll likely see exam questions regarding them. The tools and techniques of the Manage Project Team process are as follows:

• Observation and conversation
• Project performance appraisals
• Conflict management
• Issue log
• Interpersonal skills

We’ll take a closer look at each of these tools in the following sections.

Observation and Conversation

Observation and conversation is another one of those tools and techniques that is self-evident. To assess team member performance, you have to observe it. I hope you’ve also learned how important communication is to the success of the project. This includes communicating with your team members. I know project managers who are reticent to engage their teams in conversation unless it’s official project business. I’ve even known project managers who’ve instructed their administrative assistants to give specific directions to other team members. It’s difficult to understand a team member’s attitude or viewpoint toward the project if you’re communicating through someone else. Establish an open door policy with your team members and live up to it. The benefits are so great that it’s worth a few minutes a day of chitchat to establish that feeling of trust and camaraderie. If your team perceives you as open, honest, and willing to listen, you’ll be the first person they come to when issues arise.

Project Performance Appraisal

Project performance appraisals are typically annual or semiannual affairs where managers let their employees know what they think of their performance over the past year and rate them accordingly. These are usually manager-to-employee exchanges but can incorporate a 360-degree review, which takes in feedback from just about everyone the team member interacts with, including stakeholders, customers, project manager, peers, subordinates, and the delivery person if they have a significant amount of project interaction. I’m not a fan of 360-degree reviews because they make most nonmanager types uncomfortable. “I don’t want to rate my peer” is a typical response. I also find 360-degree reviews are biased. At best you’ll get a response like this: “Oh, Ken is great, just great. No problems—a good guy.” Or you’ll get exactly the opposite if the person you’re speaking with doesn’t like the team member you’re reviewing. Performance appraisal should be a bit more constructive than this. Nonetheless, understand the 360-degree concept for the exam.

No matter what type of appraisal is conducted, project managers should contribute to the performance appraisals of all project team members. You should be aware of potential loyalty issues when you’re working in a matrix organizational structure. The team member in this structure reports to both you (as the project manager) and a functional manager. If the project manager does not have an equal say, or at least some say about the employee’s performance, it will cause the team member to be loyal to the functional manager and show little loyalty to the project or project manager. Managing these dual reporting relationships is often a critical success factor for the project, and it is the project manager’s responsibility to assure that these relationships are managed effectively.

Performance appraisal time is also a good time to explore training needs, to clarify roles and responsibilities, to set goals for the future, and so on.

Conflict Management

I said earlier in this chapter that if you have more than one person working on your project, you have a team. Here’s another fact: if you have more than one person working on your project, you’ll have conflict.

Everyone has desires, needs, and goals. Conflict comes into the picture when the desires, needs, or goals of one party are incompatible with the desires, needs, or goals of another party (or parties). Conflict, simply put, is the incompatibility of goals, which often leads to one party resisting or blocking the other party from attaining their goals. Wait—this doesn’t sound like a party!

There are six ways of resolving conflict that might show up on the exam:

Forcing Forcing is just as it sounds. One person forces a solution on the other parties. This is where the boss puts on the “Because I’m the boss and I said so” hat. Although this is a permanent solution, it isn’t necessarily the best solution. People will go along with it because, well, they’re forced to go along with it. It doesn’t mean they agree with the solution. This isn’t the best technique to use when you’re trying to build a team. This is an example of a win-lose conflict resolution technique. The forcing party wins, and the losers are those who are forced to go along with the decision.

Smoothing/accommodating Smoothing does not lead to a permanent solution. It’s a temporary way to resolve conflict where the areas of agreement are emphasized over the areas of difference so the real issue stays buried. Smoothing can also occur when someone attempts to make the conflict appear less important than it is. Everyone looks at each other and scratches their head and wonders why they thought the conflict was such a big deal anyway. As a result, a compromise is reached, and everyone feels good about the solution until they get back to their desk and start thinking about the issue again. When they realize that the conflict was smoothed over and really is more important than they were led to believe, or that they never dealt with the real issue at hand, they’ll be back at it, and the conflict will resurface. This is an example of a lose-lose conflict resolution technique because neither side wins. Smoothing is also known as accommodating.

Compromise Compromise is achieved when each of the parties involved in the conflict gives up something to reach a solution. Everyone involved decides what they will give on and what they won’t give on, and eventually through all the give and take, a solution is reached. Neither side wins or loses in this situation. As a result, neither side is really gung ho about the decision that was reached. They will drag their feet and reluctantly trudge along. If, however, both parties make firm commitments to the resolution, then the solution becomes a permanent one.

Confrontation/problem solving Confrontation is also called problem solving and is the best way to resolve conflict. One of the key actions you’ll perform with this technique is a fact-finding mission. The thinking here is that one right solution to a problem exists and the facts will bear out the solution. Once the facts are uncovered, they’re presented to the parties and the decision will be clear. Thus, the solution becomes a permanent one and the conflict expires. This is the conflict resolution approach project managers use most often and is an example of a win-win conflict resolution technique.

Collaborating Collaborating occurs when multiple viewpoints are discussed and shared and team members have the opportunity to examine all the perspectives of the issue. Collaborating will lead to true consensus where team members commit to the decision.

Withdrawal/avoidance Withdrawal or avoidance never results in resolution. This occurs when one of the parties gets up and leaves and refuses to discuss the conflict. It is probably the worst of all the techniques because nothing gets resolved. This is an example of a lose-lose conflict resolution technique.

During the Manage Project Team process, it’s important to note that, as in any situation, you’ll want to deal with conflict as soon as it arises. According to the PMBOK® Guide, when you have successfully resolved conflict, it will result in increased productivity and better, more positive working relationships.

Most conflicts come about in the Manage Project Team process as a result of schedule issues, availability of resources (usually the lack of availability), or personal work habits. When project team members are having a conflict, address them first in private with the person who has the issue. Work in a direct and collaborative manner, but be prepared to escalate the issue into a more formalized procedure (potentially even disciplinary action) if needed.

If conflicts exist between the team members, encourage resolution between them without intervention on your part. The best conflict resolution will come about when they can work out the issues between them. When that isn’t possible, you’ll have to step in and help resolve the matter.

Remember that solid ground rules and established policies and procedures will help mitigate conflict before it arises.

Issue Log

The issue log is a place to document the issues that keep the project team from meeting project goals. These can range from differences of opinion to newly surfaced responsibilities that need to be assigned to a project team member. Each issue should be recorded in the log along with the person responsible for resolving it. You should also note the date the resolution is needed.

Interpersonal Skills

We talked about interpersonal skills in the Develop Project Team process, but you should know for the exam that the PMBOK® Guide points out three types of interpersonal skills used most often in this process. They are leadership, influencing, and effective decision making. We’ve already covered leadership and influencing. Effective decision making concerns making decisions in a timely manner and making decisions that reflect and support the goals of the project. Effective decisions should bring about a good result for the project, the stakeholders, and the team members. They also help you take advantage of opportunities and minimize negative risks. As project managers, and good leaders, we have a responsibility to put the good of project and the organization over our own needs, so use sound judgment when making decisions.

Managing Project Team Outputs

The outputs of the Manage Project Team process are the result of the conversations, performance appraisals, and conflict resolution I’ve talked about previously. This process has four outputs:

• Enterprise environmental factors updates
• Organizational process assets updates
• Change requests
• Project management plan updates

Remember that the elements of these outputs pertain to human resources. For example, change requests might come about as a result of a change in staffing, corrective actions might come about because of disciplinary actions or training needs, and preventive actions might be needed to reduce the impact of potential human resource issues. Any of these actions might cause changes to the staffing management plan or the human resource plan, which means you should update the project management plan.

The enterprise environmental process updates has two components that may need updating as a result of this process. They are input to organizational performance appraisals and personnel skill updates. The input to organizational performance appraisals comes from team members with significant interactions with the project and each other.

The organizational process asset updates output has three components: historical information/lessons learned documentation, templates, and organizational standard processes.

Lessons learned encompasses everything you’ve learned about the human resources aspect during this project, including documentation that can be used as templates on future projects (such as org charts, position descriptions, and the staffing management plan), techniques used to resolve conflict, the types of conflict that came up during the project, ground rules, when and how virtual teams were used on the project and the procedures associated with them, the staffing management plan, special skills needed during the project that weren’t known about during the Planning processes, and the issue log.

In the next chapter, we’ll wrap up the Executing process group and examine the processes associated with conducting procurements, providing quality assurance, distributing information, and managing the expectations of stakeholders.

Understanding How This Applies to Your Next Project

The topics in this chapter are some of my favorites because this is where project management shines—dynamic teams working under the direction of a capable, responsible leader who can effectively balance the needs of the team with the needs of the project (and ultimately the organization) and pull it all off successfully. There aren’t many things better in an organization than a high-performing team working together to accomplish a well-understood goal. It doesn’t really matter whether the team members are all in the same company, department, or country. When they’re working toward a common goal and functioning at the performing level, there’s almost nothing they can’t accomplish. The movies Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, and Ocean’s Thirteen are good examples of strong leadership and dynamic teamwork at play. Although I’m certainly not advocating you turn to a life of crime, you can pick up a few pointers on how effective teams work from George Clooney and the gang.

So, how does this apply? As the project manager, it’s your responsibility, and dare I say duty, to acquire the best team members possible for your project. In my experience, this doesn’t always mean all my team members are highly qualified. To me, team fit and team dynamics are as important as the team members’ skills. I know some will disagree with me on this next point, but I believe it’s easier to train someone on a new skill (given they have the aptitude) than it is to take on a team member with an abrasive personality who is imminently qualified but can’t get along with anyone else on the team. Sometimes you really don’t have much choice when it comes to picking team members, as referenced in the sidebar “The Only Candidate” earlier in this chapter. When you find yourself in this situation, I recommend you lay down clear ground rules for communication, problem escalation, work assignments, and so on.

Make it a habit to read at least a couple of leadership books a quarter. You may already be familiar with the topic and think there is nothing new to learn. However, staying current on the topic will reinforce concepts that you already know and will remind you of other points that you forgot about and haven’t yet developed but know you should. Occasionally, you will pick up a gold nugget of information that is new and immediately applicable to your situation.

Leadership skills are invaluable, but communication skills are just as important. In my opinion, it’s difficult to be an effective leader without also being an effective communicator. My guess is that if you take a close look at the leaders you respect and admire, you’ll discover they are also good communicators—and communication is mostly listening, not talking. I make it a habit to practice active listening. It’s amazing what people will tell you when you smile politely and ask an open-ended question or two.

Let me stress again that you cannot successfully manage a project team without communicating with them on a regular basis. The last thing you want is for a stakeholder to follow you into the elevator to inform you about a major problem with the project that you weren’t aware of. That will happen if you haven’t established a relationship with your team. If they don’t believe you’re trustworthy or they don’t know you well enough to know whether you’ll stand by them, you’ll be one of the last people to find out what’s happening. I know managers and project managers who subscribe to the “don’t get too close to your team” theory. I subscribe to the “all things in moderation” theory. You do want to establish relationships and prove your loyalty to the team, but you also have to know where to draw the line. When it comes time to hold a team member accountable, it can be difficult to do if you have become very close on a personal basis. However, I advocate erring on the side of developing a relationship with the team. My teams have to trust me to the point that they know they can come to me—at any time, with all types of news, good or bad—and I’ll help them resolve the problem.

Summary

This chapter described four processes from the Executing process group: Direct and Manage Project Execution, Acquire Project Team, Develop Project Team, and Manage Project Team.

In Direct and Manage Project Execution, the project plans come to life; activities are authorized to begin; and the product, result, or service of the project is produced. Status review meetings are held to inform stakeholders of project progress and updates.

Acquire Project Team involves negotiation with other functional managers, project managers, and organizational personnel to obtain human resources to complete the work of the project. The project manager might not have control over who will be a part of the team. Availability, ability, experience, interests, and costs are all enterprise environmental factors that should be considered when you are able to choose team members.

Develop Project Team involves creating an open, inviting atmosphere where project team members will become efficient and cooperative, increasing productivity during the course of the project. It’s the project manager’s job to bring the team together into a functioning, productive group.

According to the Tuckman-Jensen model, team development has five stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. All groups proceed through these stages, and the introduction of a new team member will always start the process over again.

Co-location is physically placing team members together in the same location. This might also include a common meeting room or gathering area where team members can meet and collaborate on the project.

Several motivational theories exist, including reward and recognition, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the Hygiene Theory, the Expectancy Theory, and the Achievement Theory. These theories conjecture that motivation is driven by several desires; including physical, social, and psychological needs; anticipation of expected outcomes; and needs for achievement, power, or affiliation. The Hygiene Theory proposes that hygiene factors prevent dissatisfaction.

Leaders inspire vision and rally people around common goals. Theory X leaders think most people are motivated only through punishment, money, or position. Theory Y leaders think most people want to perform the best job they can. The Contingency Theory says that people naturally want to achieve levels of competency and will continue to be motivated by the desire for competency even after competency is reached. The Tannenbaum-Schmidt Continuum Management Theory involves seven levels of delegated freedom regarding decision making and problem solving. The Blanchard version of the Situational Leadership Theory describes four leadership styles to use depending on the situation.

Leaders exhibit five types of power: reward, punishment, expert, legitimate, and referent power.

Communication skills are the most important skills a project manager exercises. People who send messages are responsible for making sure the messages are clear, concise, and complete. Receivers are responsible for understanding the messages correctly and making sure they’ve received all the information.

Listening skills put speakers at ease. Several techniques tell your speaker you’re listening attentively, including making eye contact, nodding, asking clarifying questions, and limiting interruptions.

Manage Project Teams involves tracking and reporting on project team member performance. Performance appraisals are performed during this process, and feedback is provided to the team members.

Exam Essentials

Be able to identify the distinguishing characteristics of Direct and Manage Project Execution. Direct and Manage Project Execution is where the work of the project is performed, and the majority of the project budget is spent during this process.

Be able to name the five stages of group formation. The five stages of group formation are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

Be able to define Maslow’s highest level of motivation. Self-actualization occurs when a person performs at their peak and all lower-level needs have been met.

Be able to name the five types of power. The five levels of power are reward, punishment, expert, legitimate, and referent.

Be able to identify the six styles of conflict resolution. The six styles of conflict resolution are forcing, smoothing, compromise, confrontation, collaborating, and withdrawal.

Be able to name the tools and techniques of the Manage Project Team process. The tools and techniques of Manage Project Team are observation and conversation, project performance appraisal, conflict management, issue log, and interpersonal skills.

Key Terms

I’ve discussed in detail the processes you’ll use while developing your project team. You need to understand each of these processes to effectively build your team and know them by the names used in the PMBOK® Guide to be successful on the exam:

Acquire Project Team

Develop Project Team

Direct and Manage Project Execution

Manage Project Team

You learned a lot of new key words in this chapter. PMI® has worked hard to develop and define standard project management terms that apply across industries. Here is a list of some of the terms you came across in this chapter:

Achievement Theory	Motivation-Hygiene Theory
collaborating	politics
co-location	power
conflict	preassignment
confrontation	recognition and rewards
Contingency Theory	Situational Leadership Theory
corrective actions	team building
Expectancy Theory	Tannenbaum and Schmidt Continuum Management Theory
Hygiene Theory	Theory X
Theory Z	Theory Y
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs	virtual teams

Review Questions

1. You are a project manager for a growing dairy farm. It offers organic dairy products regionally and is expanding its operations to the West Coast. It is in the process of purchasing and leasing dairy farms to get operations underway. You are in charge of the network operations part of this project. An important deadline that depends on the successful completion of the testing phase is approaching. You’ve detected some problems with your hardware in the testing phase and discover that the hardware is not compatible with other network equipment. You take corrective action and exchange the hardware for more compatible equipment. Which of the following statements is true?

A. This is not a corrective action because corrective action involves human resources, not project resources.

B. Corrective action is taken here to make sure the future project outcomes are aligned with the project management plan.

C. Corrective action is not necessary in this case because the future project outcomes aren’t affected.

D. Corrective action serves as the change request to authorize exchanging the equipment.

2. You are a project manager for a growing dairy farm. It offers organic dairy products regionally and is expanding its operations to the West Coast. It’s in the process of purchasing and leasing dairy farms to get operations underway. The subproject manager in charge of network operations has reported some hardware problems to you. You’re also having some other problems coordinating and integrating other elements of the project. Which of the following statements is true?

A. You are in the Direct and Manage Project Execution process.

B. Your project team doesn’t appear to have the right skills and knowledge needed to perform this project.

C. You are in the Information Distribution process.

D. Your project team could benefit from some team-building exercises.

3. Which of the following processes serve as inputs to each other?

A. Executing, Monitoring and Controlling

B. Executing, Closing

C. Planning, Monitoring and Controlling

D. Executing, Initiation

4. Your team members have just completed training on specialized equipment. This is one of the work results you’ve gathered and recorded. Which of the following outputs of the Direct and Manage Project Execution process does this describe?

A. Work performance information

B. Deliverable

C. Preventive action

D. Project document updates

5. You are reporting on project elements such as schedule status, deliverables completion, lessons learned, and resource utilization. Which of the following outputs of the Direct and Manage Project Execution does this describe?

A. Project management plan updates

B. Deliverable

C. Preventive action

D. Work performance information

6. You are in the process of making project staff assignments. You have several candidates for a position on the project team that requires specific qualifications. All the candidates seem to meet the qualifications. You also consider prior experience, their interest in the project, cost rates, and availability of these potential candidates. Which of the following is true?

A. You are considering the resource calendars input of the Develop Project Team process.

B. You are considering the project staff assignments input of the Develop Project Team process.

C. You are considering the enterprise environmental factors input of the Acquire Project Team process.

D. You are considering the project management plan input of the Acquire Project Team process.

7. During a recent team meeting, you reached a resolution to a problem that’s been troubling the team for several weeks. It turned out that there was a problem with one of the manufactured parts required for the project. Once this was corrected, the remaining production run went off without a hitch. You took responsibility for searching out the facts of this problem and implemented a change request to resolve the issue. Which of the following is true regarding this question?

A. This is a defect repair, which is performed during the Direct and Manage Project Execution process.

B. This is a corrective action, which is performed during the Direct and Manage Project Execution process.

C. This is a preventive action, which is performed during the Direct and Manage Project Execution process.

D. This is an unapproved change request and must first go through the Perform Integrated Change Control process.

8. You are the project manager for a cable service provider. Your team members are amiable with each other and are careful to make project decisions jointly. Which of the following statements is true?

A. They are in the forming stage of team development.

B. They are in the norming stage of team development.

C. They are in the storming stage of team development.

D. They are in the adjourning stage of team development.

9. You are the project manager for a cable service provider. Your project team is researching a new service offering. They have been working together for quite some time and are in the performing stage of team development. A new member has been introduced to the team. Which of the following statements is true?

A. The team will start all over again with the storming stage.

B. The team will continue in the performing stage.

C. The team will start all over again with the forming stage.

D. The team will start all over again at the storming stage but quickly progress to the performing stage.

10. You are the project manager for a cable service provider. Your project team is researching a new service offering. They have been working together for quite some time and have a good understanding of the task at hand. They will not likely need any direction from you to complete this task. According to Blanchard, what type of leadership style does this describe?

A. Supporting

B. Autocratic

C. Laissez-faire

D. Delegating

11. You’ve promised your team two days of paid time off plus a week’s training in the latest technology of their choice if they complete their project ahead of schedule. This is an example of which of the following?

A. Achievement Theory

B. Expectancy Theory

C. Maslow’s theory

D. Contingency Theory

12. Your team is split between two buildings on either side of town. As a result, the team isn’t very cohesive because the members don’t know each other very well. The team is still in the storming stage because of the separation issues. Which of the following should you consider?

A. Corrective action

B. Co-location

C. Training

D. Conflict resolution

13. Which conflict resolution technique offers project managers the best option for resolution?

A. Smoothing

B. Collaborating

C. Confronting

D. Forcing

14. You are a fabulous project manager, and your team thinks highly of you. You are well respected by the stakeholders, management team, and project team. When you make decisions, others follow your lead as a result of which of the following?

A. Referent power

B. Expert power

C. Legitimate power

D. Punishment power

15. Theory Y managers believe which of the following?

A. People are motivated only by money, power, or position.

B. People will perform their best if they’re given proper motivation and expectations.

C. People are motivated to achieve a high level of competency.

D. People are motivated by expectation of good outcomes.

16. When working in a matrix environment, all of the following are true regarding the Manage Project Team process except for which one?

A. Improving competencies, team interactions, and the team environment can help enhance project performance.

B. Managing project teams in a matrix environment is often a critical success factor for the project.

C. It’s the project manager’s responsibility to make certain this dual reporting relationship is managed effectively.

D. Loyalty issues might arise when managing projects in a matrix environment.

17. You are preparing project performance appraisals and have decided you’d like each team member to receive feedback regarding their performance from several sources, including peers, superiors, and subordinates. Which of the following is true?

A. This is called 360-degree feedback and is part of the input to the organizational project performance appraisals, which is part of the organizational process assets updates input of the Manage Project Team process.

B. This is called 360-degree feedback and is considered part of the team performance assessment input of the Manage Project Team process.

C. This is called 360-degree feedback and is considered part of the work performance information input of the Manage Project Team process.

D. This is called 360-degree feedback and is part of the project performance appraisals tool and technique of the Manage Project Team process.

18. Specific team members were promised for your project as part of the project proposal. You speak with the functional managers to assure their availability. All of the following are true regarding this question except for which one?

A. This is a preassignment, which is a tool and technique of the process to which this question refers.

B. Team members promised as part of the project proposal should be noted in the project charter.

C. The other tools and techniques of the process this question refers to are negotiation, virtual teams, and resource availability.

D. Team members might be promised as part of a project that’s put out for bid or of internal projects.

19. These two conflict resolution techniques are known as lose-lose techniques.

A. Accommodating and forcing

B. Smoothing and withdrawal

C. Compromise and confronting

D. Avoidance and forcing

20. You are a project manager who believes people will have high productivity, morale, and satisfaction if offered a job for life. Which theory do you subscribe to?

A. Theory X

B. Hygiene Theory

C. Theory Y

D. Theory Z

Answers to Review Questions

1. B. Corrective action brings anticipated future project outcomes back into alignment with the project management plan. Because an important deadline that depends on a positive outcome of this test is looming, the equipment is exchanged so that the project plan and project schedule are not impacted.

2. A. The most difficult aspect of the Direct and Manage Project Execution process is coordinating and integrating all the project elements. The clue to this question is in the next-to-last sentence.

3. A. The Executing process group and Monitoring and Controlling process group serve as inputs to each other.

4. B. This question describes the deliverable output. Deliverables can be intangibles, such as the completion of training.

5. D. Work performance information includes elements such as schedule status, the status of deliverables completion, lessons learned, and resource utilization.

6. C. The enterprise environmental factors input of the Acquire Project Team process considers elements such as prior experience, interest in working on the project, cost rates, and availability of potential team members.

7. A. This question describes a defect repair that was discovered and implemented. Defect repairs come about as a result of approved changes. Approved changes are implemented in the Direct and Manage Project Execution process. The question implies that the change request was approved because the problem was corrected and the rest of the production run went smoothly.

8. B. Teams in the norming stage of team development exhibit affection and familiarity with one another and make joint decisions.

9. C. The introduction of a new team member will start the formation and development of the team all over again with the forming stage.

10. D. Delegating is a situational leadership style that is used when team members have performed the task before and need little to no input from the manager. The supporting style requires some input from the leader. An autocratic manager makes all the decisions with no input from the team, and the laissez-faire leader lets the team make all the decisions and has little involvement with the team. Neither the autocratic nor laissez-faire leadership style are named styles in the Blanchard Situational Leadership II Model.

11. B. The Expectancy Theory says that people are motivated by the expectation of good outcomes. The outcome must be reasonable and attainable.

12. B. Co-location would bring your team members together in the same location and allow them to function more efficiently as a team. At a minimum, meeting in a common room, such as a war room, for all team meetings would bring the team closer together.

13. C. Confronting is a problem-solving technique that seeks to determine the facts and find solutions based on the facts. That results in a win-win resolution for all parties.

14. A. Referent power is power that is inferred on a leader by their subordinates as a result of the high level of respect for the leader.

15. B. Theory Y managers believe that people will perform their best if they’re provided with the proper motivation and the right expectations.

16. A. Improving competencies, team interactions, and the team environment are characteristics of the Develop Project Team process, not the Manage Team Process.

17. D. This technique is called 360-degree feedback. It’s part of the project performance appraisals tool and technique of the Manage Project Team process.

18. C. This question refers to preassignments, which are a tool and technique of the Acquire Project Team process. The other tools and techniques of this process are negotiation, acquisition, and virtual teams.

19. B. Smoothing (also known as accommodating) and withdrawal (also known as avoidance) are both lose-lose techniques. Forcing is a win-lose technique. Compromise is where neither side wins or loses.

20. D. Theory Z encourages employee loyalty because jobs are offered for life. This leads to increased productivity, morale, and high employee satisfaction.