The very basis of forming organizations is to bring people together for working on common goals. Organizations are generally managed through creation of divisions, departments, and teams for productivity gains and collaborative efforts. Among these, teams are more productive, flexible, and responsive to change.
The Project Teams book is written for graduate students in business and engineering schools, project management professionals, project managers, and senior executives of any organization. Many managers and executives are involved in developing teams, team processes, and managing them for productivity gains. Although there is ample study and research on teams in disciplines such as sociology, social psychology, organizational behavior, and management, project teams face unique challenges. From the perspective of all these disciplines, this book addresses specific challenges associated with projects and the ways to manage them successfully.
Projects are vehicles for organizations to meet their strategic objectives and operational goals, and they are executed in teams. As such, being a member of a team is an inevitable feature of modern work life. A project team comprises a selected group of individuals with complementary skills and disciplines, who are required to work together on interdependent and interrelated tasks for a predetermined period to meet a specific purpose or goal. Project teams can be traditional colocated teams, virtual teams, and global project teams. Common purpose, goal, interdependence due to mutual accountability and collective responsibility, diverse skills, information sharing, and collaborative efforts characterize project teams.
Uncertainty, uniqueness, complexity, and unfamiliarity are often associated with projects and, as a result, the project manager and the project team are compelled to deal with change. Consequently, successful project performance requires strong leadership, which provides vision and ability to cope with change. Furthermore, efforts are made to align individual aspirations and goals with the project goals, thereby creating synergy, creativity, and participative decision making. Global projects present challenges of political, cultural, virtual, and regional differences. A more formal approach to team development and management processes is necessary and knowledge management and communication are key aspects of global project teams.
The Project Teams book provides an overview of selecting, structuring, developing, and managing project teams. It provides a detailed account of team-development approaches and processes that deal with social and behavioral issues, decision making, conflict resolution, communication, motivation, knowledge sharing, and lessons for continuous improvement. The book also discusses about practices of high performing and successful project teams that lay emphasis on improving cohesion using team charter and by addressing social and behavioral issues to build emotional intelligence and making them self-managed teams.
Vittal S. Anantatmula
Western Carolina University