Project Management: Forming Effective Teams
27 June 2008
Topics: project management, team building, quality management
Managers face huge challenges building effective teams. This video outlines a method to address this frustration.
Project managers and functional managers are under great pressure to accomplish more with less. They know they have to get more out of their people. Yet, they find it difficult communicating a vision and winning their team's commitment. Too often, team members appear busy, but in reality they are not working on critical tasks. Execution suffers. Priorities are neglected. And management resorts to firefighting.
This video provides show how to develop a dynamic, high-performing team.
If you are working with a team, consider doing the following:
- Evaluate the needs of your customers, of your organization, and of your stakeholders
- Prioritize your work using financial analysis or other tools to find the great opportunities
- Identify leaders for various assignments
- Put these people squarely in control of their work
- Coach their efforts
- Use quality management tools
I assure you that these principles work. You can accomplish miracles--even with inexperienced personnel--if you apply vision, ownership, and quality management.
Script
One of the concerns I hear from managers is their frustration building effective teams. They find it difficult to communicate vision and achieve full commitment. They indicate that team members may stay busy, but they do not always work on the most critical priorities. Vital items are neglected. People fail to connect to their work. The project team ignores stakeholders interests. Firefighting dominates management attention. And execution suffers.
I have been able to help managers and technical professionals deal with this issue, and I believe you can apply these principles to more effectively build performing teams.
A situation I will share illustrates how to develop a dynamic, high-performance team. A few years ago, I managed 32 engineers and technicians, who were responsible for process control and technical support at two large processing plants. Business circumstances offered the opportunity to initiate a large number of plant betterment and optimization projects.
However, two obstacles block our way. First our staff was generally young and inexperienced. And second, our organization lacked the project management framework to support a large number of technically challenging projects.
We commenced our work by evaluating what most needed doing. Where were the greatest financial opportunities?
I then sought out the engineers and a few technicians with strong technical skills to lead projects. I made my decision by evaluating their enthusiasm and interest. I put these leaders squarely in control of their work, and I coached their efforts. A Japanese engineer and myself taught and modeled quality management principles. We applied the teachings of Deming, Ishikawa, Crosby, and others to underpin our efforts. Although our project managers were generally inexperienced, they preformed very well. Projects came in on or close to budget. Plant performance surged ahead. And team moral soared.
It proved to me that vision, ownership, and quality management principles work wonders.