Project Leadership

MPM7002

1
Week 7
• Team Development Phases & Team
Building

2
Schedule
Sunday, 8.30
Introduction to Project Management to 12.30 –
Session 1 Chapters 1 & 2 November 05,
Leadership & Governance with Ethics
2023

Project Leadership and Leadership November 19,

Session 2 Chapters 3 & 5 2023
Behaviours and Skills
December 3,
Session 3 Leadership Theories and Styles Chapter 6 2023
December 10,
Session 4 Emotional Intelligence & Personality Traits Chapters 9 2023
December 17,
Session 5 Power to influence and Resistance to Change Chapter 7 & 8 2023

Chapters 12 & January 7 ,

Session 6 Project teams & Teams Vs. Groups 2024
13
Chapters 14 & January 14,
Session 7 Team Development Phases & Team Building 2024
15
Chapters 22 & January 21,
Session 8 Conflict Resolution and Problem Solving 2024
23
Session 9 Discussions on Assessments
3
Team Development Phases
• Team development is a dynamic
process where the relationships
between the team members pass
through a number of phases as they
get to know each other.
• It is important for project managers, as
team leaders, to be aware of these
development phases so they can
guide the team members through the
stages.
Team Development Phases

• In any team, you might have noticed a

common thread running through all
these programs;
• as the team members get to know
each other and interact, they pass
through a number of distinct team
development phases
Team Development Phases – six
phases of team development

• Forming
• The team members come together to
form a team.
• The individuals are getting to know
each other and finding out where they
fit within the team.
Team Development Phases – six
phases of team development
• Storming
• As the team members begin to work
together they start to express their
opinions and perceptions about how
the team should work together and
how the project should be made.
Team Development Phases – six
phases of team development
• Storming
• If these opinions are different, it will
certainly lead to a healthy debate, but
could also lead to arguments and
interpersonal conflict.
Team Development Phases – six
phases of team development
• Norming
• There is consolidation within the team
and acceptance of differences and an
agreement to work together as a
team.
• The team establishes order and
cohesion.
• The team develops a team charter to
clarify team roles, norms and values
Team Development Phases – six
phases of team development
• Performing
• The team members are now working
effectively together as a team.
• There is cooperation and role fl
exibility between the team members
and effective problem solving and
decision making.
• The team members are now totally
focused on the project.
Team Development Phases – six
phases of team development
• Maturing
• As the team matures it begins to lose
its competitive edge.
• The team members are more
interested in maintaining the status
quo than actively looking for new
ideas and growing the business
Team Focus
• As the team develops, the focus
naturally changes from the individual
to the team and to the task.
Team Focus
• Forming:
• When a team forms, the individuals
will be mostly focusing on themselves,
what is expected from them and how
they fit into the team.
• There will be less focus on the team
and less focus on the task.
Team Focus
• Storming:
• As the team members begin to work
together they start to express their
opinions and perceptions about how
the team should work together and
how the project should be made.
• This means the focus on the task and
the team will increase and there will
be less focus on the individual than in
the forming phase.
Team Focus

• Norming:
• The team tries to establish order by
focusing discussion on all three areas
equally
Team Focus

• Performing:
• All the team members are now
working well together.
• The main focus is now on the task
which, after all, is the main purpose of
forming the team in the first place.
• There is still an important focus on
team maintenance, but less focus on
the individual.
Team Performance
• Forming:
• Initially the team might achieve
moderate performance if it has a
strong leader to give it direction.
• But the performance is unlikely to be
more than moderate because the
team members do not know the other
members’ abilities and how they could
work together as a team.
Team Performance

• Storming:
• The performance falls off in the
storming phase if the disagreements
and arguments lead to interpersonal
confl icts, breakdown in
communications, poor problem solving
and little cooperation.
Team Performance

• Norming:
• The performance starts to increase as
the team charter establishes rules and
norms, and the team members want to
work together.
Team Performance

• Performing:
• The team members are now working
well together, totally task focused, and
the performance continues to
increase.
Team Performance

• Maturing:
• The team begins to lose its
performance edge as the team
members are more interested in
maintaining the status quo.
Team Performance

• Declining:
• The lack of investment and resistance
to change fi nally catches up with the
team and its performance declines.
• The company is just one step away
from closing or being taken over.
Forming Phase
• When strangers come together to
perform a task, predictable patterns of
behavior are likely to occur.
• The forming phase, as the name
suggests, is when the team members
fi rst come together to form a team or
when a new member joins the team.
Forming Phase
• When a number of individuals who
have never met before or never
worked together before come together
to form a team, there will be a
cautious sense of anticipation,
eagerness, enthusiasm and
willingness to work together.
Individual Considerations
(Forming Phase)
• Purpose of the Individual
• Why have we been brought together?
What goals and objectives do we have
to achieve?
• Expectations
• Members’ concerns tend to be
focused on; ‘What is expected of me?
Individual Considerations
(Forming Phase)
• Personal Identity
• The individuals tend to want to
establish their personal identity within
the team and make an impression;
Team Considerations (Forming
Phase)
• Title of the Team
• The team members are unsure of their
identity and what they are going to call
the team.
• Composition of the Team
• The team members will want to
discuss who should be in the team
and what skills are required.
Team Considerations (Forming
Phase)
• Life Span of the Team
• The team members will discuss how
long the team will be together.
• In the context of a project the duration
of the project should be known, but
how long the individual members will
be needed might be unclear.
Team Considerations (Forming
Phase)
• Personal Feeling
• The feelings and concerns of the
individuals are not dealt with by the
other team members.
• There is little recognition of each
other’s abilities or achievements.
Everyone is more interested in
themselves.
Team Considerations (Forming
Phase)
• Poor Listeners
• Team members at this stage are poor
listeners, particularly to other people’s
problems; all they want to do is talk
about themselves.
Team Considerations (Forming
Phase)
• Friendship
• Members test each other for friendship and
common ground. They naturally want to
make friends with people with similar
thoughts and aspirations, and with people
they feel comfortable with and trust.
• Values
• When team members meet for the fi rst time
they generally all display values of
democracy, fair treatment and honesty.
Task Considerations (Forming
Phase)
• Purpose of the Task
• The team members are unclear about
the purpose of the task, the objectives
and how to achieve them.
• No Planning
• There is generally a low involvement
in planning, coordinating and forward
proactive thinking
Task Considerations (Forming
Phase)
• Behavior
• When people from different departments are
seconded to the Project Management Offi ce
(PMO) they form a temporary project team.
• Performance
• Although the team’s enthusiasm, expectations
and motivation might be high, their
performance is likely to be moderate because
they do not know each other’s worth, they do
not know how to work together and they do not
know the task.
Leadership Considerations
(Forming Phase)
• Select Team
• The project manager’s first job is to
select the project team.
• Leadership
• Role Uncertainty is high during this
stage and members usually accept
whatever power or authority is offered
by either formal or informal leaders
Leadership Considerations
(Forming Phase)
• Launch Meeting
• The project manager should make the
start of the team’s formation an important
event
• Get Acquainted
• The project manager should encourage
new team members to get acquainted with
one another
• Vision
• The project manager should outline the
vision for the project
Leadership Considerations
(Forming Phase)
• Strategy
• The project manager must give the team direction
and explain how it can achieve the project’s
objectives
• Problem Solving
• During the forming phase the team members are
likely to be focused on their interpersonal issues.
• Leadership
• At the outset the project manager should consider
making most of the decisions just to make things
happen; trying to please everyone is unlikely to be
successful
Leadership Considerations
(Forming Phase)
• Guidance
• As a team forms there is often a high sense of
confusion because the background to the
project might be unclear
• Team Building
• Team-building events can be very effective
during the forming stage.
• Project Culture
• If projects are rare in an organization, then
individuals might not be accustomed to working
in temporary teams with ‘strangers’
Leadership Considerations
(Forming Phase)
• Performance
• During the forming stage, the work output
is generally low as members are focused
on defi ning the goals and tasks, how to
approach the work and what skills are
needed.
• Orientation
• The project manager should develop an
orientation program to introduce new team
member(s) to the project team and project
management systems.
Democratic leadership
• initially a democratic approach does
not always work, as there is typically
much aimless time wasting and
irrelevant discussion.
• A weak democratic leadership (trying
to please everyone) might not get the
important jobs done to satisfy their
basic needs – this leads to conflict.
Forming stage
• The forming stage is important
because it serves to clarify the team’s
purpose and the project’s objectives.
• Teams that pay attention to building
team relationships as well as focusing
on the task tend to do better than
those that skip over team building.
Storming Phase
• As the team members begin to work
together, get to know each other, get
to know the job and understand their
working environment, they become
more confi dent about their role in the
team and about the objectives of the
project.
Storming Phase
• This gives the team members the
confi dence to start airing their views,
opinions and perceptions about the
project’s objectives, how to carry out
the task (build method) and how best
to work together.
Storming Phase
• Individual Considerations, Team
Considerations, Task Considerations,
and Leadership Considerations at the
Storming Phase should be studied
carefully.
Storming Phase
• If handled successfully, the storming
phase leads to a new and more
realistic setting of objectives,
procedures and norms.
• This stage is particularly important for
testing the norms of trust within the
group.
Norming Phase
• After the airing of views and opinions
during the storming phase, there is
now a willingness to work together as
a team, and a desire to sort out the
differences
Norming Phase
• Individual Considerations, Team
Considerations, Task Considerations,
and Leadership Considerations at the
Storming Phase should be studied
carefully.
Norming Phase
• The norming stage is symbolized by
the team establishing the need for
norms and practices in order for the
team to work eff ectively together.
• The real team building begins once
the team members look for areas of
agreement through
nego_x0002_tiation and compromise,
and fi nd area of commonality
Performing Phase
• As the working norms and ground
rules become established, so the team
members start to work together
effectively as a team and its
performance greatly increases.
Performing Phase
• Individual Considerations, Team
Considerations, Task Considerations,
and Leadership Considerations at the
Storming Phase should be studied
carefully.
Performing Phase
• The team members are now working
eff ectively together as a team.
• There is cooperation between the
team members, effective problem
solving and continuous team
improvement but, most importantly,
the team is producing a great project.
Maturing and Declining Phases
• As a team matures the members tend
to be more interested in maintaining
the status quo rather than expanding
and considering the latest technology,
market requirements and competition.’
• As the lack of investment in the team
leads to a slow decline in its
performance, this also has a similar
impact on the project’s performance.
Team-Building Techniques
Team-Building Techniques
• Team-building techniques offer the
project leader a dynamic process to
improve the project team’s
performance.
• Bringing a number of people together
to perform a task does not necessarily
mean they will work together
effectively as a team
What is Team Building?
• The PMBOK defines Team Building
as:
• Activities designed to improve
interpersonal relationships and
increase team cohesiveness
• Team building enables a group of
diverse people to work together eff
ectively as a unit to achieve the
project’s goals.
What is Team Building?
• Team building will occur naturally as
people work together towards a common
goal, but usually it is far too slow and too
ad hoc a process to be of value for
projects of short duration.
• The project manager needs to consider
using team-building techniques to
accelerate the team-building process as
soon as the team is formed.
Level One: Interpersonal Team
Building

• The first level of team building focuses

on the team members simply getting
to know each other.
• This might sound like something
people do naturally but, in practice
under the pressure of work, team
members might not have time to talk
to each other and get to know each
other.
Level One: Interpersonal Team
Building
• It is the project manager’s responsibility to
encourage the team members to talk to
each other, help them get to know each
other’s back grounds
• It is recognized that if team members have
a better understanding of each other’s
personalities and behavior, they will be
better able to communicate with each
other
Level One: Interpersonal Team
Building
• The first level of team building is,
therefore, to set up a number of team-
building situations where the team
members can interact and get to know
each other as people and not as a
position in a project team.
Level Two: Team Roles
• The second level of team building
focuses on the team roles each of the
team members play within the team.
• A team role may be defi ned as the
type of work a person is expected to
perform on the project.
Level Two: Team Roles
• The first step is to use psychometric
tests and interviews to determine each
team member’s personal team role
profile.
• The Belbin model outlines nine team
roles, which are expressed as
preferred team roles and non-
preferred team roles.
Level Two: Team Roles
• Team building based on team role defi
nitions puts a strong emphasis on
clarifying the team roles and the team
role expectations of each team
member.
Level Two: Team Roles
• This can be subdivided into three
categories:
• • Things a team member should do
more of or better.
• • Things a team member should do
less of or stop doing.
• • Things a team member should carry
on doing.
Level Two: Team Roles
• Belbin developed his task-orientated
team roles aft er analyzing successful
and unsuccessful teams, and
concluded that there were fi ve
principles for building an effective
team
Belbin’s Five Principles for
Building an Effective Team
• Roles
• Each member contributes both a
functional and a team role.
• Balance
• A team needs an optimal balance
between functional and team roles
depending on its task.
Belbin’s Five Principles for
Building an Effective Team
• Strengths
• Team effectiveness depends on how
far team members identify and adjust
to relative strengths within the team.
• Personality
• Some team members fit some roles
better than others, depending on their
personalities and mental abilities.
Belbin’s Five Principles for
Building an Effective Team
• Technical Resources
• A team can only deploy its technical
resources to the best advantage when
it has a suitable range and balance of
team roles.
Level Three: Shared Vision
• The third level of team building is to
establish a shared and common
vision.
• This is important because, although
the team members might now know
each other and know their individual
team roles, they might have a diff
erent interpretation of the purpose of
the project
Level Three: Shared Vision
• It is important the team has a shared
and common goal, otherwise they are
simply a group of unfocused
individuals if the team is to perform eff
ectively, there can only be one
direction, one project plan, one build
method and one execution strategy.
Level Four: Task Focused
• The fourth level of team building
focuses on how the team members
will carry out the project and explore
ways to improve team performance
• At this level the project manager
assumes all the team members are
totally focused on the project,
Level Four: Task Focused
• The team-building activities are,
therefore, focused on enhancing
technical skills and competencies that
will help the team members
individually
Level Four: Task Focused
• Some critics of team-building
exercises consider team-building
activities (levels one, two and three) to
be a complete waste of time
• But these critics do see value in level
four activities as these help their
development individually
Outdoor Action Learning
• During the team-building exercises the
team members must accept
responsibility and accountability for
the instructions delegated to their
fellow team members.
• This formative outdoor environment
allows the team members to
experiment with diff erent approaches
and assess the impact of these
actions.
Outdoor Action Learning
• The most effective learning process is the
carrying out of a task, followed by reflection,
discussion, analysis and evaluation of how the
team members carried out the task.
• People seldom learn from experiences unless
they assess them and assign their own
meaning in terms of personal goals, aims,
ambitions and expectations, and people oft en
learn more from their mistakes rather than their
successes
Have a great week
• Next week Final Session (8)
• Conflict Resolution and Problem
Solving
• Chapters 22 & 23

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