Manage the Project

Team
Duration: 60 Minutes

Develop the Project Team

You are the project manager of the Hillsdale Museum Project for your
organization. This project will take all of the historical photos, documents, and
other artifacts of the Hillsdale Museum and scan the documents and store them
into a central database for users in your community. All of the images your
project team will create will be indexed, searchable, and available through the
Internet for research and education. Your organization has completed similar
projects in the past, but nothing with this public profile.

1. Your project team has 15 project team members with varying cultural and
educational backgrounds. The project team has never worked together
before, so you need to determine how to facilitate the team-building
process for your project. What are some things you need to understand
about your project team in order to do team development?

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2. Your project team includes several people that are located around the
world. How will you include these people in team development?

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3. Management has agreed to allow you to bring all of the project team
members to a central location for three days of project planning and team
building. You have a budget of $5,000 just for team-building activities. What
type of a team-building activity would you like to do for this project team?

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Assignment: Manage the Project Team ©Instructing.com, LLC 2

4. What are some ground rules that you would recommend that this project
team consider for the project work and the virtual team environment to be
included in the team charter?

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5. What types of reward and recognition do you think would encourage the
project team members to do good work on the project?

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Assignment: Manage the Project Team ©Instructing.com, LLC 3

Manage the Project Team

Thomas is the project manager of the GullyC Project for his projectized
organization. This project will last for 18 months and has a co-located project
team of 24 people. Because many of the project team members have never
worked together before, Thomas led them through several team development
exercises. Part of the team development also included training for the new type
of materials this project team would be using. The project is now in month four,
and the project team is making progress toward completing the first project
milestone.

1. What are some activities that you believe Thomas should be doing to
manage this project team?

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Assignment: Manage the Project Team ©Instructing.com, LLC 4

2. Thomas is meeting with the project team to address some issues with team
morale. Some of the project team members, Thomas has learned, are not
interested in the project work because they feel they won’t be using the
materials much after this project. What recommendations would you
recommend to Thomas in this situation?

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3. Sam and Sally, two project team members on the GullyC Project, are
having a disagreement about how a particular assignment in the project
plan should be completed. Sam is the senior engineer on the project, and
he believes the work should be completed like a similar project he’s worked
on in the past. Sally is a junior engineer, but she’s had in-depth experience
with this type of project work and feels strongly about the work in another
approach. Using this information, provide a sample scenario for how Sam
and Sally’s disagreement could be resolved through these conflict
resolution methods:

Forcing: _________________________________________________________

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Collaborating: _____________________________________________________

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Avoiding: ________________________________________________________

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Assignment: Manage the Project Team ©Instructing.com, LLC 5

Compromising: ____________________________________________________

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Smoothing: _______________________________________________________

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Lab Analysis Test

1. Describe how Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation can help a project manager

manage and lead a project team?

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2. What is the value a project manager can realize when using a RACI chart?

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3. Virtual teams create new challenges for project team management. What
can a project manager do to better manage a virtual team?

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4. Describe some team-building activities a project manager can do with a

small budget.

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5. How can conflict among the project team actually help a project?

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Lab Solution: Developing the Project Team

1. Your project team has 15 project team members with varying cultural and
educational backgrounds. The project team has never worked together
before, so you need to determine how to facilitate the team-building
process for your project. What are some things you need to understand
about your project team in order to do team development?

If the project manager is going to facilitate team development, she must

understand the values, cultural beliefs, work attitudes, and performance
norms for the people on the project team. Understanding what motivates the
project team members, what areas of the project excite the project team, and
some insight into the personalities on the project team can help the project
manager shape an effective team-building exercise.

2. Your project team includes several people that are located around the
world. How will you include these people in team development?

Virtual teams can still move through team development exercises, but it’s
more challenging when team members aren’t operating face-to-face. Online
experiences, collaborative software, and videoconferences can increase the
effectiveness of team building with virtual teams.

Assignment: Manage the Project Team ©Instructing.com, LLC 8

3. Management has agreed to allow you to bring all of the project team
members to a central location for three days of project planning and team
building. You have a budget of $5,000 just for team-building activities. What
type of a team-building activity would you like to do for this project team?

There are many activities you could create for the project team’s team-
building experience. With a budget of $5,000 a facilitated events, such as a
training program, a motivational speaker and workshop, or an offsite
experience are all feasible activities to help the project team become more
cohesive.

4. What are some ground rules that you would recommend that this project
team consider for the project work and the virtual team environment?

Ground rules establish and communicate expectations for all members of the
project team. Some ground rules could be timeliness, effective
communication, agreement for change control, proper form usage, and
respect for one another. Ground rules should also include the importance of
following the established rules and consequences for not following the rules.
It’s all about respect for one another in the project team.

5. What types of reward and recognition do you think would encourage the
project team members to do good work on the project?

Financial rewards are always appreciated in the project, but not always
feasible. The project manager could also offer verbal recognitions,
documented praise for a job well done, and other tokens of appreciation.
People want to feel appreciated and that their contributions are valued.

Solution: Managing the Project Team

1. What are some activities that you believe Thomas should be doing to
manage this project team?

Managing the project team is the project manager’s responsibility to

communicate performance, provide feedback on project work, and to
resolve issues as needed. Thomas needs to monitor not only the project
performance, but also the performance of the project team members in their
assignments, morale, and interest in the project work.

Assignment: Manage the Project Team ©Instructing.com, LLC 9

2. Thomas is meeting with the project team to address some issues with team
morale. Some of the project team members, Thomas has learned, are not
interested in the project work because they feel they won’t be using the
materials much after this project. What recommendations would you
recommend to Thomas in this situation?

When a project team begins to lose interest in the project work, it can be
dangerous for the project schedule, project quality, and for project
completion. Thomas needs to remind the project team of the importance of
the project and the importance of completing project assignments as
planned, and he must link the behavior of the project team to incentives,
employment, and responsibility. Thomas should also communicate with the
project team to address the team’s threats and perceived threats to see if the
fears are valid or not.

3. Sam and Sally, two project team members on the GullyC Project, are
having a disagreement about how a particular assignment in the project
plan should be completed. Sam is the senior engineer on the project, and
he believes the work should be completed like a similar project he’s worked
on in the past. Sally is a junior engineer, but she’s had in-depth experience
with this type of project work and feels strongly about the work in another
approach. Using this information provide a sample scenario for how Sam
and Sally’s disagreement could be resolved through these conflict
resolution methods:
 Forcing The person with the power makes the decision. Sam forces
his decision in the project.

 Collaborating Sam, Sally, and project team members, subject

matter experts, and other stakeholders help the project team find a
good decision for the project.

 Avoiding One person avoids (or withdraws from) the conflict. Sally
simply walks away from the conflict and lets Sam have the decision.

 Compromising Sam and Sally both have to give up something they

want. Compromising is a lose-lose scenario.

 Smoothing Sam or Sally smooth out the conflicts by minimizing the

size of the problem and to keep harmony in their relationship.

Assignment: Manage the Project Team ©Instructing.com, LLC 10

Answers to Lab Analysis Test

1. Describe how Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation can help a project manager

manage and lead a project team?

Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation defines the expected hygiene agents and

the motivating agents for a person. Hygiene agents don’t motivate, but their
absence can de-motivate. If a project manager understands the things that
will motivate a person to higher performance, he can offer rewards that are
of interest to the person to promote the overall performance of the person
for the betterment of the project.

2. What is the value a project manager can realize when using a RACI chart?

A RACI chart is a responsibility assignment matrix, and it maps the

responsibilities of the project to the people on the project team. Each
assignment can be linked through the legend of responsible, accountable,
consult, or inform to the appropriate project team members. The project
manager can scan over the imminent activities and track what each project
team member will be doing in the project. This can help with planning,
communicating, and other project activities.

3. Virtual teams create new challenges for project team management. What
can a project manager do to better manage a virtual team?

Virtual teams are geographically dispersed, and this can make communication
tougher for the project team and for the project manager. The project manager
must increase the efforts for communication–often through videoconferences
and collaboration software. The project manager should schedule a time to
communicate with virtual team members–but be aware of time zones that may
affect a reasonable meeting time for both parties.

4. Describe some team-building activities a project manager can do with a

small budget.

Team-building activities help the team become more cohesive. Ice breakers
activities, status meeting exercises, training, even creating the WBS can
help the project team work together and become a better team. There are
web sites and books that offer activities that are fun and help project team
members learn about one another.

Assignment: Manage the Project Team ©Instructing.com, LLC 11

5. How can conflict among the project team actually help a project?

Conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. Conflict can help the project team
find creative solutions, communicate effectively with one another, and keep
a focus on the project problems rather than tension between project team
members. Conflict can also help a project team feel a sense of achievement
when they’ve created a good solution to a project problem.

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