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Motivating and Leading Project Teams

Written by Patti Gilchrist on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on Motivating and Leading Project Teams

As a project manager, you will need to manage people to get the work done. And most of the time, the resources won’t report directly to you. So you need to learn to manage without authority. Thus understanding how to motivate people is critical. Also, you will need to leverage the appropriate leadership style depending on the situation.

Typically relying on saying “because I said so” simply doesn’t work. If you have kids you may have already discovered this. No expert study is required. Fear and intimidation doesn’t really work either, particularly in the long run. You may already have or eventually will encounter this type of manager. They are typically easy to spot. But if you don’t catch on to the numerous unsubtle clues, just look for the department with the high turnover.

I’ll share a true story here to help illustrate the point.

Years ago, at an All Hands meeting, a new HR executive delivered a speech where he revealed in a ranting fashion the new dictates he would mandate. The first question raised was met with the stern response, “if you don’t like it leave. If any of you don’t like, then leave. There’s the door.” It certainly was a very powerful and motivational speech. And it definitely produced results. Although I’m not sure it produced the results he or the company intended.

Within a month, 80% of the IT department walked. They took his advice and found the door. And he got to put on his resume and substantiate any claim of being a “results-oriented” manager delivering an 80% turnover rate in less than 1 month. I learned a lot not only from observing the results, but also from observing the behavioral response of the associates. Everyone pulled together to help and support each other to find meaningful employment elsewhere. Team work in action. Amazing what can be accomplished when a team pulls together. But wouldn’t you rather use this for a productive means and to your advantage to ensure the desired result? Be careful. Power of motivation can work in more than one way.

An alternative approach is empowerment. I’ll share another story from my career.

I was working on a project with a senior colleague who I knew and had an established rapport. So what could go wrong I thought? However, I started to have doubts as I noticed she was acting out of character and insecure, waiting for my every direction to do her job. As I continued to observe her behavior, I wondered why she was feeling intimidated and not empowered to deliver at her full potential. I needed her expertise for any chance of success. So I told her candidly that she had expertise that was critical for the project success. I continued to say that I can’t tell her how to do her job, so I’d be relying on her expertise and guidance. This approach produced results in 30 seconds. She responded immediately, showing confidence and took charge of her deliverables as an empowered team player. Needless to say, the project was a success because we delivered as an empowered and motivated team.

Don`t forget to leave your comments below.

Patti Gilchrist is a Sr. Technical Manager with extensive experience in the field of IT Project Management. Patti has more than 20 years of IT experience and a reputation for effectively implementing strategic enterprise initiatives, with a proven track record of delivering simultaneous large-scale, mission-critical projects on time and budget. Her experience includes ERP implementations, data conversions, business software application development aligned with critical business requirements, IT infrastructure delivery, and process implementation in existing and startup organizations. Patti currently manages a team of project managers and is dedicated to the continued development of her team and knowledge sharing within the project management community.

The Best Virtual Meeting… EVER! 5 Fun Games to Engage Your Virtual Project Group!

Written by Claire Sookman on . Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on The Best Virtual Meeting… EVER! 5 Fun Games to Engage Your Virtual Project Group!

Do you ever have those days when go you off on philosophical tangents? You know, those cold, gloomy mornings when you stare out the window, coffee mug in hand, wondering, “Does a fish know what water is?”, “Is the colour red really universal?” or “Is Robert from marketing a real person?”

We’ve all been there. The truth is it’s hard for virtual project groups to bond on a personal level with other group members…partly (well, mostly) because we may not even know what the other person looks like! Without bonding, the results could be dangerous. The University of California, San Francisco, lists some of the common symptoms of a disengaged team:

  • Decreased productivity
  • Conflicts or hostility among staff members
  • Confusion about assignments, missed signals and unclear relationships
  • Decisions misunderstood or not carried through properly
  • Apathy and lack of involvement

And there’s more:

  • Lack of initiation, imagination, innovation; routine actions taken for solving complex problems
  • Complaints of discrimination or favouritism
  • Ineffective staff meetings, low participation, minimally effective decisions
  • Negative reactions to the manager
  • Complaints about quality of service

And there’s still more! A 2009 article from the Occupational and Environmental Medicine showed that a lack of team spirit can even cause employee depression…But don’t panic!

Before you scurry off to Google, furiously searching “how to engage virtual project groups” — take a breath. We’ve done the work for you. Here are some innovative games that are sure to have your team amused and engaged in no time.

1) Virtual Charades – Charades is a great game that builds group spirit, whether in a traditional workplace or a virtual one. If your company usually sets up video conferences for meetings, this is definitely a game that will have everyone working together, solving problems and having fun along the way. If you’re unfamiliar with the game, Charades requires the player to mime or imitate a certain action or subject that the rest of the team has to figure out. For more information on how to play, click here .

For those who use voice chat instead of video chat, there’s a fun alternative for you too — Voice Charades. For Voice Charades, create a secret list of objects, animals or famous people. To decide who will go first, enter all team member names onto a site such as Random.org and choose the first name that shows up. Email or send an individual/private instant message to this team member letting them know what they will be acting out. Remember to keep the clues work-appropriate and respectful of others. Have fun guessing what/who the person is imitating. Some entertaining suggestions are:

  • Printer sound
  • Al Pacino impersonation
  • Star Wars Light saber
  • Monday traffic
  • Radio anchorman

2) Spin a Tale – This fun game fosters creativity and helps team members think on their feet. During a meeting, make up the first line of a story. Then ask team members to take turns and add each subsequent line until a whole plot develops! Let the story go along on its own path and deviations. This is the fun part of the game; you never know what perils or fortunes can occur next! The best thing is, even though your team may develop favourite start tags, the story will never end up the same! In other words, you learn how to think innovatively. Here are some ways you can start your tale:

  • I woke up at 9am — that was when we were supposed to Skype in for the meeting…
  • Jared looked over the ledge of his balcony, wondering why the crowd had gathered…
  • The email had no subject line…I hate it when he does that…
  • Fifteen years, 15 days, 15 hours and finally the letter had come…
  • As Sophia hid behind the red SUV in the parking lot, she tried to remember how exactly she had gotten there…and why there was that giant scar on her arm…

3) Situation Puzzles – Situation puzzles are an exciting way to exercise creative problem-solving skills while also building team unity. In a situation puzzle, the team leader states one mysterious sentence such as, “a bell rings, a man dies, a bell rings”.* The rest of the team must now solve the situation by asking “Yes” or “No” questions. As each question unearths new information, the team can creatively build on each other’s thought patterns and ideas until all the loose ends are tied. A great reservoir of situation puzzles can be found here!   *(Click here for the answer)

4) PowerPoint Game – You will never look at PowerPoint presentations in the same light after this game! This is a great way to get group members thinking on their feet while having loads of fun. To play the PowerPoint game, go online and find a series of complicated or extremely nonsensical PowerPoint presentations (try SlideShare). Then ask team members to improvise a presentation with the slides they’re using. Hilarity is bound to ensue! Go here for more information about the PowerPoint game.

5) 2-Minute LOL – This is another improvisation game that will get everyone thinking fast, learning about team members and literally laughing out loud. First, divide the team into smaller groups or partners. Then give each group a topic or let them choose one. Allow each team about five to ten minutes to create a set of jokes based on their topic. Make sure they have this discussion in a separate virtual conversation so that the rest of the team does not hear the punch lines beforehand. When everyone regroups, randomly choose a group to go first while timing their comedy improvisation for two minutes. Once again, remember to keep all jokes respectful and workplace-appropriate. Award the funniest team with a gift card or some other form of prize!

And there you have it — five amazing ways to engage your virtual project group! Try them out and let us know which game your team liked the best! And if five tips aren’t enough, here’s a whole book full of tips! Across the Hall, Around the World is the ultimate archive of virtual team-building tips that’s sure to get your team engaged!

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Claire Sookman is the driving force behind Virtual Team Builders, Claire brings to the table over a decade’s worth of corporate and public sector training experience, working with over 4,500 managers in the past three years. Specializing in virtual team building and communication strategies, Virtual Team Builders provides training that enables global teams to work more efficiently.

Managing a “Dangerous Opportunity” Project

Written by Harry B. Mingail on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Managing a “Dangerous Opportunity” Project

I call projects like this “a dangerous opportunity”. I inherited a troubled initiative, which not only did not know what they were really trying to deliver, but they were delivering badly.

My client contact was under severe pressure from the parent company to fall in line and develop a multifunctional enterprise computer system from scratch. Application software packages wouldn’t do because they “already looked at them”. And of course the project was “to be completed yesterday” To make matters worse, my client’s boss was an exceedingly intelligent and charismatic individual who lacked experience, yet had the dominating, strong-willed and demanding presence to prolong the project damage.

Why did I take on this “death wish” project? Suffice it to say that once upon a time I skydived while these days I go out of my way to find challenging, turnaround initiatives. Here are some of the things I did.

  1. I suspected that building an enterprise initiative from scratch was unwise. My predecessor really didn’t do problem solving due diligence. Yet my client’s boss, all of the executives and the parent company thought otherwise. To make a long story short, I asked their indulgence to quickly define some key aspects of their business needs, after which they convinced themselves that customized route was suspect and then unanimously chose an enterprise ERP package as their solution. Because a project manager has to influence without complete authority in a matrix environment, one of the best ways to do so is to allow management to convince themselves with solid and objective problem-solving.
  2. Okay, so they were on the right path but I now had to conquer the complexities of preparing and implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). These monster projects impact every business function, are highly complex and demand high priority attention from most of an organization’s management and staff. To ensure that stakeholders were on the same page I collaboratively prepared a project charter as the foundation and beacon for a shared project vision and a basis for future project budgets and schedules.
  3. Given the high project profile, a team size of 50 with other indirect participants, organizational inexperience, a lengthy project time horizon, a budget which was 5% of sales and immature implementation practices, I helped management to identify project risks as extremely high. By doing, I garnered support for a strong risk management program.
  4. Now it was time for me to “delegate in detail”. Ensuring that the team estimated in detail and applied productive work-breakdown structure methods, I fostered a project schedule and critical path, taking care to include all major stakeholders in order to win their commitment, support and hopefully passion.
  5. Turnaround projects demand change, especially for ERP’s. To this end, I empowered two influential project members as change agent champions.
  6. My predecessor over-supervised the people. In contrast, I began supervising the work, giving creative and highly specialized workers a zone of freedom to allow them to feel empowered.
  7. To inspire trust and open the lines of communication I also cultivated relationships with subordinate project leads. And, my open door policy ensured that team members were always welcome to discuss and action project issues.
  8. To foster a more timely emergence of the classic “norming stage” of project, I worked with the team to record agreed norms including: strive to do better than budget and schedule commitments, continually share knowledge and criticize the behaviour not the person.
  9. In sessions with individual staff member I asked “What do you want from your job?” Subsequently I proceeded to fulfill as many of these expectations as possible.
  10. I engaged my time-tested qualities when recruiting for the team: trustworthy, genuine, conscientious, at least moderately intelligent, positive problem-solver, hardworking, a team player, willing to learn and happy with the gift of their existence. After that, the rest tends to be much easier.

Innovation is always a primary part of the “modes operendi” I culitivate. I encouraged my project reports to “think out of the box”.

We continuously improved the practices to the familiar tune from hecklers that “It Cannot Be Done”. … Well, we did it. Another “project parachute jumps” safely landed.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

Harry B. Mingail, combines a Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Business Analyst Professional (CBAP), Mathematics/Computer Science and Business Administration designations with 25 years of BA, PM and management consulting as well delivery of webinars, workshops, mentoring and keynotes.

Be Nice!

Written by Kiron Bondale on . Posted in Articles. 6 Comments on Be Nice!

It’s one of the most frustrating issues that a project manager can face – everyone is working hard to achieve a seemingly impossible project milestone, but there is one stakeholder that is disengaged or unwilling to commit themselves to the required work. 
In those circumstances where the project manager is vested with formal authority, they could act decisively in the best interests of the project, but in most cases they will need to use influence instead of direct action.
It’s very easy for the project manager to get defensive, take the situation personally and let it affect their productivity or work-life balance.
A combination of the following techniques may help to resolve the situation.

  1. Apply Stephen Covey’s Habit 5 – Seek first to understand, then to be understood.  While this may not be material to the desired outcome, understanding what might be driving the negative behavior could provide you with alternatives.  Meet with the individual to gain this understanding, and then ensure that they are aware of the perceptions they are creating and the impacts to the project, the organization AND themselves.
  2. Do your homework.  Analyze the impacts of the behavior on the team and towards the end result – what’s the worst case and best case scenario?  If this behavior is chronic and is not specific to just your project, it’s quite possible that the project team members have developed tried and true workarounds.  In such cases, ask yourself the question “Is this battle worth fighting?”.
  3. Isolate the behavior.  Negative vibes can become infectious, so do what you can to shield the rest of your team from the impacts of the behavior.  One attribute of an effective project manager is that they are able to remove hurdles from the team’s progress and that could mean running interference between them and this individual.
  4. Be water, my friend.  No matter how hard the barrier, water is able to find its way around or eventually wear down resistance.  Don’t own this burden yourself – if your team agrees with your concerns about the impacts of the stakeholder’s behavior, brainstorm with them to come up with alternate paths.
  5. Escalate effectively.  Assuming you have not developed a reputation for “crying wolf”, a good test of project governance is whether real action is taken when a PM escalates a risk or issue.  Focus on communicating the objective impacts of the behavior and avoid anecdotal evidence.  Position the dialog as helping your sponsor or steering committee help you to achieve their expected project benefits.

The Serenity Prayer should be on the office walls of all project managers (regardless of their faith or beliefs), but the following quote from Road House is more appropriate to this situation: “I want you to remember that it’s a job. It’s nothing personal.”

Don’t forget to leave your comments below.

 

 

How to Manage the “Bad Apple”

Written by George Bridges on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on How to Manage the “Bad Apple”

Hanging_Fotolia_4097682_XSEvery fall, my family and I plan a trip to visit one of the many apple orchards in southeast Michigan. Our day is spent on a tractor, going to the many fields of trees to pick some of the finest apples in the world. We fill our basket full of good, fresh apples. In choosing our apples, we generally will pick the best-looking apples. These apples are mostly on the tree and in some cases they have already fallen to the ground. Any blemished or bad apples we will not pick.

After carefully picking our apples, after a few days we discover some apples are going bad. If a decaying apple is left in the same position and allowed to stay with the other apples, it will affect the apples around it and they will start to deteriorate. If not careful, you could end up with a bunch of bad apples.
The principle of this fact, as we know, is that one bad apple can spoil the entire bunch. This fact is true on project teams in many organizations. Project Managers acquire people who are characteristic of bad apples. They are not “bad,” but have developed bad attitudes. A person with a bad attitude can be disgruntled, could be having a bad day or simply have reached a point where their bad know-it-all attitude prevents them from getting along with team members, project manager and stakeholders. What do you, as a project manager, do when you encounter a “bad apple” on your team?

A “bad apple” team member may not always be obvious. But, they will usually show up somewhere during the life of the project. As a manager and project manager, the “bad apple” has to be dealt with properly, promptly and swiftly.

John Maxwell in his book, Seventeen Laws of Teamwork, suggests that a leader, before dealing with a person with a bad attitude, should do some self-reflection and check their own attitude. The person that is leading needs to make sure they are not the problem.

A few simple steps in dealing with the “bad apple” are as follows:

  • First, document the problem or symptoms as they begin to reveal themselves.
    • Make sure you have all the facts and have completed an inspection of the problem areas. In other words, find out the facts and write them down.
    • Look for and isolate areas that may be the cause of the poor behavior, i.e., life changes, health challenges.
    • Has their attitude changed during the course of the project?
  • The next step is to meet one-on-one with the “bad apple” to provide counseling and advice on how to improve the problem that has been encountered.
  • As a Project Manager, you must try to get to the root of the problem and find out what can be done to correct the situation.
  • Once you are assured of the problem, a correction plan or course of action to solve the problem should be initiated. As a Project Manager, you should document the course of action discussed and you and the team member should sign off on this plan.

Finally, after these steps are completed, the team member will need some time to make the necessary agreed-upon changes to correct the problem. Visible results should be seen, documented and praised. However, if no change is observed and the behavior continues, the Project Manager must start the process of removing the team member. It is obvious to everyone on the team that the bad attitude can and has affected the project. The team members are waiting for the Project Manager to take the lead and make corrective action.

A person with a bad attitude has to be dealt with; either correct the problem or remove them from the team. The behavior cannot be allowed to continue because it can result in permanent damage to the deliverables of the project as well as project failure.

Dealing with difficult people is not a new problem in management. Many authors have written books about how to deal with difficult people. John Maxwell has included “The Law of the Bad Apple” as one of the Seventeen Laws of Teamwork. John points out that not everyone who starts with a team or starts out on a journey will be there until the end. This is important for a leader to recognize. Some will leave voluntarily and others will have to be let go.

A Project Manager should keep the lines of communication open with the functional managers where the people resources originate. Letting the functional manager know the problematic issues with the employee can facilitate the negotiation to remove the “bad apple” from the project team.

A few years ago, as Director of an Information Technology team, I experienced a “Bad Apple” on our project. The person was consistently going around the chain of command and created a lot of confusion on the project. The person was eventually terminated. After a few years, the IT manager asked me if he should re-hire this person. I was against the idea, but the manager hired him anyway. The manager had the same type of issues with this person. After much time and frustration, the manager had to release this employee again. Sadly, the bad behavior and bad attitude of this person did not change after many years.

In closing on a positive note, when a team is free from the negative nature of a person with a bad attitude, the team will rise to new heights and the performance will be notice by everyone.

In my thirty years of experience in the managerial industry, I have had experience with teams that have accomplished and succeeded the objective of the project. It is a rewarding experience for all members of the team.

Deal wisely with the “Bad Apples” and watch your team soar to new heights!

Don’t forget to leave your comments below. 

George Bridges is a Director of Business Analysis with more than 25 years of experience in business systems analysis, business process modeling, operations research and Information Technology. George teaches business analysis and project management to hundreds of seminar and class participants every year. He has participated in the analysis and development of business systems for major corporations, such as Ford Motor Company, Unisys Corporations, and for a large church in the Metropolitan Detroit.