Manage Project Team

00:01 Hi and welcome.

00:03 This module will look at the manage project team process from the PMBOK guide.

00:09 The difficulty is rated as low, and the memorization and exam importance are both rated as medium.

00:19 The particular domain task that it helps us understand better is the executing task to.

00:28 Which is manage task execution based on the project management plan by leading and developing the project team in order to achieve project deliverables. The key themes of this process are, as I've already said, it's an executing process, but looks like a monitoring and controlling process.

00:49 It uses the Human Resource Management Plan, specifically the staffing management plan that is part of the Human Resource Management Plan.

00:57 And as such, it compares what we plan to do.

01:02 With team development against what we're actually doing with team development at camp, here's what we plan to do with roles and responsibility identification against what's actually happening.

01:14 It compares what we plan to do in terms of human resource management over the entire project and what we're actually doing.

01:22 And if change is needed, it proactively controls change to make sure that our people, our most valuable asset, are always being managed appropriately, either as individuals or as a team.

01:35 So let's take a look at the inputs into this process that may be useful to us.

01:40 The first being the Human Resource Management Plan.

01:43 And if we've got one, a staffing management plan, which is a subset of the Human Resource Management Plan, we'll also have some individual project staff assignments.

01:54 These are the individual jobs that the people are filling.

01:58 We'll have some team performance assessments, which are an output from developed project team telling us how well the team is doing.

02:08 Our issues log, our issues, log is a great place to record any issues we have about the project and we can attempt to resolve them off the issues log.

02:20 Some of our issues may be about team performance or individual performance, and therefore having our issues log available to us is a useful way to look at both of them.

02:32 We'll also want some work performance reports.

02:35 This is because the role of people on our project is to do the project work and the work performance reports tell us how well the project is performing.

02:48 If the product is underperforming, we may be able to draw a link between underperformance and team performance, and if the project is overperforming, we can do the same.

02:59 We can probably infer that there's great team performance as well, so we need those work performance reports to properly assess our human resource management performance on the project.

03:11 We may have some relevant organizational processes as part of our project management methodology as well.

03:20 So with these inputs, we can apply, if appropriate, the following tools and techniques in order to generate the outputs from this process.

03:30 The first one observation and conversation.

03:35 In fact, the easiest way to figure out how well individuals or the team is going is to simply observe them.

03:44 Are they working well together? Is there a great sense of team morale? Is there camaraderie? Or is there conflict? Is there a lack of morale? Are people always leaving and conversation sitting down and talking with the people themselves, the people they work with and their managers as well? Observation and conversation another great tool or technique.

04:10 Project performance appraisals.

04:13 Actually taking a look at the team's performance and appraising them formally. Not on an ad hoc basis, because that can sometimes backfire if this is done badly.

04:24 So always do your project performance appraisals, formerly with known methods such as the 360 degree review process.

04:34 Conflict management, invariably with a team of people, you'll come across times of conflict and you will need to resolve that conflict fully. And finally, we'll look at some techniques for conflict management in a moment. Your interpersonal skills will be very useful to you here. Because these are the skills that you need to interact successfully with people.

05:00 And they include such things as leadership management, conflict resolution, decision making, political and cultural awareness and several others. We covered those in depth in the manage project team process. So observation and conversation is one of the leading tools and techniques.

05:21 And really, what better way to manage the project team than by observing them individually and as a team and talking with them about how it's going? Project performance appraisals, as I've already said, is about giving team members regular feedback about individual team and project performance and getting feedback from them about how they feel they are performing. The team is performing and the project is performing.

05:52 Conflict management, there's usually at least one question in the exam about the best type of conflict management to utilize and you as the project manager in charge of the project.

06:04 The buck stops with you.

06:07 You need to take responsibility for resolving conflict fully.

06:11 And finally, let's take a look at some of the techniques that we've got, from problem solving to compromise or reconciliation, collaboration forcing and direct smoothing or accommodating and withdrawing or avoiding.

06:27 The first one problem solving is actually seen as the best method, it solves the actual problem and confronts the problem, not the person.

06:39 If you make it personal, the chances are you'll increase the conflict. So problem solving is getting to the root cause of the problem.

06:49 Focusing on the problem and solving it fully.

06:52 And finally, and that is the best method we have for solving conflict. Compromise or reconciliation is bringing the parties to the conflict together and asking them to search for a solution that enables them to work together if it's successful, it can be a win win if done badly. Unfortunately, it can be a lose lose as well.

07:21 Forcing or directing people to resolve their conflict means pushing your viewpoint on somebody else and saying you will work on this project without conflict, because I said so it is in fact the worst method, according to the PMBOK guide. So don't be tempted to use it because it doesn't actually address or help underlying problems and can reduce team morale.

07:45 So remember, our default position is to problem, solve fully and finally and resolve the conflict.

07:52 Totally. Smoothing or accommodating this minimizes the problems to ease tension, reduce conflict, but doesn't really solve the problem.

08:04 It's sort of about pushing things under the carpet and ignoring them and hoping they go away. Withdrawal or avoiding the conflict? Well, obviously, it avoids the problem altogether, and it's completely ineffective and conflict, we're not managed appropriately, can destroy a project team and ultimately the project. So remember, always try to deal with conflict in a proactive and problem solving a way that deals with it formally and finally, don't avoid it.

08:39 Don't pass it on to somebody else.

08:41 Don't force people to work together with conflict still present, you want lasting resolution to the conflict.

08:50 When building your team role and managing them and assessing them.

08:54 You need to look out for constructive team roles and destructive team roles.

08:59 Obviously, we give a preference to constructive team roles.

09:03 These are the types of people we want on our project.

09:07 We want the initiators, the people who are self-starters and self managers.

09:11 We want the information seekers, the information givers, the people who encourage others to be part of the team and to do their best.

09:19 The people who can give information succinctly with clarity.

09:24 The people who can naturally work with others and harmonize with them.

09:28 People who are good at summarizing issues and also gatekeepers.

09:33 You probably want people on your project team who have access to political connections that you may need to keep the project moving along.

09:42 The people that you don't want on your team are the destructive team roles.

09:47 You don't want aggressive people.

09:48 The bullies.

09:50 You don't want the blockers who just get in the way of everything and everything is a problem. You don't want those people who don't want to be part of a team.

09:59 These are the people who withdraw from the team.

10:02 You also don't want those people who are recognition seekers who above all else want individual recognition above team recognition.

10:10 Topic jumpers, people who are in a meeting or a conversation and jumping from one topic to the other without resolving one dominators.

10:19 People who will dominate a conversation without letting others speak or valuing the opinions of others.

10:25 And the devil's advocates, these are people who think that whatever can go wrong will go wrong now as a word, though of advice.

10:35 The roles of the devil's advocate can actually be useful in a brainstorming session, asking somebody to play the role of devil's advocate to challenge potential groupthink and that situation, it can be a positive thing. But if you have somebody who consistently sees the worst and the worst happening. They're fulfilling a destructive team role.

11:00 The outputs from the manage project team process will include change requests. There, as I said at the beginning, this process has a lot of hallmarks of a monitoring and control process, including change requests as an output.

11:17 Now these change requests will go on to the Perform integrated change control process as inputs and be assessed and decisions made about them.

11:27 The specific change requests will relate to our whole approach to human resource management on the project.

11:35 Did we get the right role descriptions? Did we recruit the right people, the right number of people at the right time? Did we provide them with the right working conditions? Did we do the right team building activities? Have we rewarded and remunerated them in the right way? Are there any other changes we need to make to our human resource management plan? Our organizational process assets or, as we'll see shortly, even our enterprise environmental factors.

12:03 So some of the other outputs that we will want to do update elements of our project management plan that affect our human resource management.

12:12 Other project documents, like our lessons learned and historical information.

12:17 As I've already mentioned, we may want to update specific enterprise environmental factors relating to employment conditions.

12:25 Now, we can't update government legislation, but we may be able to update our organization rules and regulations about employment conditions.

12:35 We may also want to update those aspects of our particular project management methodology relating to team development and individual recruitment. So in summary, the manage project team process has been about assessing our actual human resource management needs against our forecast human resource management or personnel needs.

13:01 And looking for variance between the actual and the forecast, and if we detect a variance between them, we make changes to the teams, we make changes to individual training needs and we even make changes to our organizational policies and procedures around recruitment and employment.

13:22 Thank you very much.

13:23 This has been an introduction and overview to the manage project team process and the PMBOK guide.