Concept of Team Building

Team building is also a science. There are formally identified stages of team formation and development. The stages are:

1. Forming: People are brought together as a team

2. Storming: There are disagreements as people learn to work together

3. Norming: Team members begin to build good working relationships

4. Performing: The team becomes efficient and works effectively together

5. Adjourning: The project ends and the team is disbanded

Team Building Activites:

Team building activities help the project team work as a cohesive group working for the best interest of the project and thus enhances the project performance. A few things include:

• It is a project managers job to guide, manage, and improve the interactions of team members

• Trust and cohesiveness amongst team members should be improved by the project manager

• All project activities should include team-building activities

• Throughout the life of the project, team building activities require concerted efforts and continued focus

• WBS creation is a team-building tool

• Team building should start early in the life of the project

Training

Training opportunities for team members help improve their skills. They also decreases overall project cost and schedule by increasing efficiency. Conducting training is a cost to the project and should be paid by the project. It should be documented in the human resource plan.

Ground Rules

Ground rules help establish standards and expectations for the team. The rules can address:

• Honesty in all communications

• Conflict resolution methods

• Escalation procedures

• Whether it is allowable for people to interrupt with another team member

• Acceptable ways to interrupt when someone is talking during the meeting.

• Consequences of late attendance

• Rules for taking phone calls, email etiquettes, reading text messages during the meeting

Setting rules can help eliminate conflicts or problems with the team during the project because everyone knows what is expected of them. For virtual teams, ground rules are especially important.

Co-Location (OR War Room)

A project manager might try to arrange for the entire team in each city to have offices together in one place or one room. This is called co-location and helps improve communication, decrease the impact of conflict (since all the parties are right there), and improves identify for the project team and for management in a matrix organization. A war room is a central location for project coordination. A war room is used for creating WBS, network diagram, schedule, etc.

Rewards And Recognition

As defined in the human resource plan, the project manager appraises performance and gives out team-member-appropriate rewards and recognition in the Develop Project Team process.

Team Performance Assessment

The project manager completes formal and informal team performance assessments as part of developing the project team. These assessments evaluate and enhance the effectiveness of the team as a whole.

Manage Project Team

Manage project team involves day to day management of people. Developing the team is different from managing the project team. It involves:

• Encouraging good communication

• Working with other organizations

• Using negotiation skills

• Using leadership skills

• Observing what is happening

• Using an issue log

• Keeping in touch

• Completing project performance appraisals

• Making good decisions

• Influencing the stakeholders

• Being a leader

Actively looking for and helping resolve conflicts that the team members cannot resolve on their own

Observation And Conversation

A little attention to things such as tone of emails, phone conversations can tell us whats happening in the project (even for virtual teams). A project manager should continue to talk to people instead of just looking at the reports to understand the nerve of the project.

Project Performance Appraisals

Evaluation of employees performance by their supervisors is termed as Project Performance Appraisal. These days a 360-degree review has started taking place, where feedback from supervisors, subordinates and even co-workers is included. It helps in providing a clear picture of actual performance.