There are plenty of factors that affect project success or failure, such as qualified project managers, proper change control process, time and scope management, and team management. Human resources are the most important assets for any organization, without them projects won’t be executed. Project manager should have the organizational skill that helps him or her to manage and lead project team. Some projects have limited number of human resources, and others could exceed thousands, and some projects might have resources spread in different geographical regions.
People management and leadership theories helped us understand people needs, behaviors, and personal traits. Project manager should understand motivational factors for team members, depending on team member personality; they could be motivated through more challenging tasks, and this called intrinsic motivation. While others could be motivated if being rewarded and appreciated for their work, or through punishment, this is called extrinsic motivation. As well project managers should understand Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and that team members won’t be innovative and creative if their deficiency needs are not satisfied (Schwalbe, 2010, p.354). It’s crucial to understand differences between team members to be able to manage them and reach synergy.
There are techniques and tools that help project managers understand their team differences, motivational factors and help in managing them effectively, Schwalbe highlighted those tools as:
· Observation and conversation: project managers should reach team members either on a personal and friendly manner, or through professional project related conversations. This will help in understating team members issues and help resolving them, a key factor to achieve this could be in enhanced communication tools, or management by walking around (Schwalbe, 2010, p.368)
· Project performance appraisals: it’s a common practice in organizations to evaluate employees performance, this usually helps managers to better understand employees strengths, weaknesses and insure departmental and organizational objectives are fulfilled. Same applies to projects, its important to evaluate team members performance, such appraisal will help project manger to track tasks, and identify any factors that might delay it.
· Conflict management: conflict between colleagues and team members is expected at any work place or project, its critical and could result in project delays or failures if not handled properly. Project manager should know how to handle conflicts, understand cultural differences between team members, and help them understand each other to reduce conflict impact on the project.
· Issue logs: its good practice to keep log of team potential conflict issues such as differences, concerns that might affect team performance to work on resolving it before it affect the project.
· Interpersonal skills: project manager should have influencing skills, ability to lead team members and great decision making skills.
Virtual team whose members are spread across different geographical locations are more difficult to manage that teams whose members are physically at the same location, studies have shown that non virtual teams have more sense of belonging to the company or a team, as well they tend to socialize after working hours which enhance team synergy (Johnston & Rosin, 2011). Due to virtual team nature, management of such teams requires more concentration on communication, either by email, video conferencing or the use of collaboration tools to get the team to know each other and reduce potential conflicts. More serious conflicts could rise due to cultural differences, time zone difference and personal traits within team members. “Research has shown that it is extremely important that the use of collaborative software is correctly managed in order to facilitate team cohesion, if not managed correctly this can have adverse effects on the communication of the team” (Johnston & Rosin, 2011).
To effectively manager project teams, project manager should enhance and define communication tools such as email, video conferencing, and collaboration software. Team members should be coached to resolve conflicts and be open to different cultures and different team members. Project manager should have the interpersonal skills that help him in leading and managing project teams.
Reference:
'Manage a Virtual Team' 2005, Journal Of Accountancy, 199, 6, p. 34, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 24 December 2011.
Johnston, K.A.; Rosin, K.; , "Global Virtual Teams: How to Manage Them," Computer and Management (CAMAN), 2011 International Conference on , vol., no., pp.1-4, 19-21 May 2011, doi: 10.1109/CAMAN.2011.5778849
[Online]. Available from: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5778849&isnumber=5778726
(Accessed 24 December 2011)
Schwalbe, K., (2010), Information Technology Project Management (with Microsoft Project 2007 CD-ROM), 6th ed., Course Technology, 2010, ISBN 978-0-324-78692-7
Weiss, WH 2002, 'building and managing teams', Supervision, 63, 11, p. 19, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 24 December 2011
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