Teamwork and Project Management

Teambuilding and Project

Management Perspectives
• Capitalizing on individual differences
• Leading a team to consensus; the importance
of buy-in
• Expanding a team’s capabilities
• Perspectives on the role of project manager
• Key components to project and/or team
success
• Project coordination
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. . . Tomorrow’s corporation is a “collection of
projects”

. . . Everyone needs to learn to work in teams

with multiple independent experts--each will
be dependent upon all the others voluntarily
giving their best.

. . .The new lead actor/boss--the Project

Manager--must learn to command and
coach; that is, to deal with paradox.
From Eight Commandments for Project Managers Tom Peters
Top Three Main Engineering Work Activities

Engineering Total Civil/Architectural

• Design – 36% • Management – 45%
• Computer • Design – 39%
applications – 31% • Computer applications
– 20%
• Management – 29%

Burton, L., Parker, L, & LeBold, W. 1998.

U.S. engineering career trends. ASEE
Prism, 7(9), 18-21.
 Project
A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken
to create a unique product, service, or result
-- Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), 2004

A project is a combination of human and

nonhuman sources pulled together in a
temporary organization to achieve a
specified purpose.
-- Cleland and Kerzner, 1985

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7
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 The Project Management
Body of Knowledge is the
sum of knowledge within
the profession of project
management

PMBOK

www.pmi.org

9
“The Project Management Body of
Knowledge is the sum of knowledge
within the profession of project
10
management” page 3.
Project Management is not just
scheduling (Lewis, p. 8)

It’s the intersection of:

Tools
People
Systems

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Developing Project Management Expertise

• What is expertise?
• What is project management expertise?
• Why is this important?
• How to develop expertise?

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 Expertise Implies:
• a set of cognitive and
metacognitive skills
• an organized body of
knowledge that is deep and
contextualized
• an ability to notice patterns
of information in a new
situation
• flexibility in retrieving and
applying that knowledge to a
new problem

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Bransford, Brown & Cocking. 1999. How people learn. National Academy Press.
 Expert Project Managers
1. Take a moment to recall one of
your expert project managers
2. Describe him or her briefly
3. Listen as others describe their
expert project managers
4. List common characteristics

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 Characteristics of Expert Project Managers

1. ?
2. ??

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What is takes to be a
good project manager Leadership Skills (68%)
--Barry Posner (1987) Sets Example
Energetic
Communications (84% of Vision (big picture)
the respondents listed it) Delegates
Listening Positive
Persuading Coping Skills (59%)
Organizational skills (75%) Flexibility
Planning Creativity
Goal-setting Patience
Analyzing Persistence
Team Building Skills (72%) Technological Skills (46%)
Empathy Experience
Motivation Project Knowledge
Esprit de Corps
 17
http://www-1.ibm.com/services/files/ibv_gray.pdf
 Acquisition of Expertise
• Cognition: Learn from instruction or
observation what knowledge and actions are
appropriate
• Associative: Practice (with feedback) allowing
smooth and accurate performance
• Automaticity: “Compilation” or performance
and associative sequences so that they can
be done without large amounts of cognitive
resources
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 Paradox of Expertise
• The very knowledge we wish to teach
others (as well as the knowledge we
wish to represent in computer
programs) often turns out to be the
knowledge we are least able to talk
about.

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 Teamwork and Project Management Exercise
Project Life Cycle

The engineering method is design under constraints

– Wm. Wulf, President, National Academy of
Engineering

The engineering method is the use of heuristics to

cause the best change in a poorly understood
situation within the available resources – Billy Koen,
Mechanical Engineering Professor, UT-Austin,
author Discussion of the Method
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Team Member Roles
• Task Recorder
• Process Recorder
• Materials Manager

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Design objective
Design and build a tower that can support a concentrated load (standard
book) at a height of least 25 cm. The tower is built from index cards and
office tape.

Design rules
Materials are 100 index cards and one roll of office tape
Cards can be folded but not torn
No piece of tape can be longer than 2 inches
Tower cannot be taped to the floor, ceiling, or any other object
Tower must be in one piece, and easily transported in one hand
Time to design and build: 20 minutes
Height is measured from the ground to the lowest corner of the book
placed on top
Tower must support book for at least 10 seconds before the
measurement is made
Room must be cleaned up before measurements are made.
 Group Processing
Plus/Delta Format
Plus (+) Delta (∆)
Things That Group Did Well Things Group Could Improve
Teamwork & Project Management Heuristics--
Examples

• Identify the weak link and Allocate resources to

the weak link
• Freeze the design--at some stage in the project
(when about 75% of the time or resources are
used up) the design must be frozen
• Discuss the process and ask meta-level
questions, e.g., What are we doing? Why are we
doing it? How does it help?

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The prevailing view of the project life cycle is that projects go
through distinct phases, such as:

• Conceiving and defining the project

• Planning the project
• Implementing the plan
• Completing and evaluating the project
• Operate and maintain project

A typical construction project has the following seven phases

(Kerzner, 1998):

1. Planning, data gathering, and procedures

2. Studies and basic engineering
3. Major review
4. Detail engineering
5. Detail engineering/construction overlap
6. Construction
7. Testing and commissioning
26
The Project 50 – Tom Peters

Traditional The Project 50

• Create – 10% • Create – 30%
• Sell – 0% • Sell – 30%
• Implement – 90% • Implement – 30%
• Exit – 0% • Exit – 10%

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Wysocki & Rudd, Figure 2.8, page 47
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 Project Manager’s Role
Over the Project Life Cycle:

• Planning
• Organizing
• Staffing
• Directing
• Controlling

See Smith (2004) p. 67-68

 Successful Projects
1. Take a moment to recall one
of your most successful
projects
2. Describe it briefly
3. Listen as others describe their
successful projects
4. List common characteristics
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 Characteristics
• ?

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A recent survey of technology projects in
the United States by the Project
Management Institute reveals some
startling percentages. Close to half of the
projects started were never finished, 30%
were completed but took at least twice as
long as expected, some took 5 times as
long. Only 10% of the projects were
finished on time.
Standish Group Survey of Software
Project – 1994 (Lewis, 2000, p. 109)

17% Succeeded
50% Revised
33% Failed
 Critical Success Factors and Their Importance for System Implementation
(Listed in decreasing order of correlation)
[Pinto (1986), See Smith (2004), p. 67]
1.Project mission. Initial clearly defined goals and general directions.
2.Top management support. Willingness of top management to provide the
necessary resources and authority/power for implementation success.
3.Schedule plans. A detailed specification of the individual action steps for system
implementation.
4.Client consultation. Communication, consultation, and active listening to all
parties impacted by the proposed project.
5.Personnel. Recruitment, selection, and training of the necessary personnel for
the implantation project team.
6.Technical tasks. Availability of the required technology and expertise to
accomplish the specific technical action steps to bring the project on-line.
7.Client acceptance. The act of "selling" final product to its ultimate intended
users.
8.Monitoring and feedback. Timely provision of comprehensive control
information at each stage in the implementation process.
9.Communication. The provision of an appropriate network and necessary data to
all key actors in the project implementation process.
10.Troubleshooting. Ability to handle unexpected crises and deviations from plan.
Top Ten Reasons Why Projects
Succeed (Standish Group, 2000)
• Executive management support
• User involvement
• Experienced project manager
• Clear business objectives
• Minimized scope
• Standardized infrastructure
• Firm basic requirements
• Formal methodology
• Reliable estimates
• Skilled staff
Wysocki & Rudd, p. 34 36
Predictors of Lowered Project Success
William M. Hayden
• Unrealistic project work plans
• Inability to deal early with suspected problem
issues
• Technical complexities not well
communicated to team members
• Conflict between client expectations and the
state of deliverables
• Insufficient involvement on the part of senior
management early in the life cycle
 What is a project?
(Cleland and Kerzner, 1985; Nicholas, 1990)

• … a combination of human and nonhuman sources

pulled together in a temporary organization to
achieve a specified purpose.
• Features
– Definable purpose with established goals
– Cost, time and performance requirements
– Multiple resources across organizational lines
– One-time activity
– Element of risk
– Temporary activity
– Process with phases/ project life cycle
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Performance, Cost, and Time
Project Targets

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Project Success: Quadruple Constraint
 Session Summary
(Minute Paper)

Reflect on the session:

1. Most interesting, valuable, useful thing you

learned.
2. Question/Topic/Issue you would like to have
addressed.
3. Comments, suggestions, etc

4. Pace: Too slow 1 . . . . 5 Too fast

5. Relevance: Little 1 . . . 5 Lots
6. Instructional Format: Ugh 1 . . . 5 Ah
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