MANAGING A TEAM

Friday 26th February - Week 4

These notes are a combination of my own and quotes by James from the lecture.

What did I learn from this?

From this lecture I gained a better understanding into how to be a good team member. Taking into consideration the rest of the team and ensuring at all times everyone is happy and included.

"Making sure everybody is happy and satisfied"

Today's lecture was based on managing a team, things to consider and ways we can do this in an appropriate manner.

Project Manager - bring the best in your teammates, three critical factors: consistency, respect, inclusion and honesty.

Consistency – “People in a project team should all be treated in a comparable way. No one expects all rewards to be identical, but people should not feel that their contribution to the organisation is undervalued”

“Different people have different skills and managers should respect these differences. All members of a team should be given an opportunity to make a contribution. In some cases, of course, you will find that people simply don’t fit into a team and they cannot continue, but it is important not to jump to conclusions about this at an early stage in the project”.

- Encourage each member of the team to become involved

- Be open to new ideas

- Open to discussion

- Be open-minded

Inclusion – “People contribute effectively when they feel that others listen to them and take account of their proposals. It is important to develop a working environment where all views, even those of the most junior staff, are considered.”

- Encourage inclusion environment

- Show interest in suggestions, opinions and ideas

- Regular meetings, talks, discussions

- Communication is key

Honesty – “As a manager, you should always be honest about what is going well and what is going badly in the team. You should also be honest about your level of technical knowledge and willing to defer to staff with more knowledge when necessary. If you try to cover up ignorance or problems, you will eventually be found out and will lost the respect of the group.”

- Be honest about your individual skill set

- Honesty is the core – don’t comment if you’re not qualified to comment

- Be honest about needing help. No one can help if they do not know there Is something wrong.

Summary points for behaviour:

- “People should not feel that their contribution to the organisation is undervalued.”

- “All members of a team should be given an opportunity to make a contribution.”

- “It is important to develop a working environment where all views, even those of the most junior staff, are considered”

- “As a manager, you should always be honest about what is going well and what is going badly in the team.”

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

Self-realisation needs

Social needs – not located in the same place. Social networking systems and teleconferencing can be used to facilitate communications.

Things to do: Out of workplace activities, team building activities, bonding. For example, in our case online quizzes unrelated to work and taking a step back from the workplace to normalise communication and build a relationship outside of work culture. (Connectivity)

Esteem needs – show people that they are valued by the organisation.

- Speak highly about one another

- Show your interest

- Show your appreciation for team members individually and as a whole

- Make them feel needed and a worthy part of the team

- Validation/Approval

“Satisfy self-realisation needs, you need to give people responsibility for their work, assign them demanding tasks and provide training where people can develop their skills. Training is an important motivating influence as people like to gain new knowledge and learn new skills.”

Personality types – hierarchy of needs different depending on personality types.

Different between people.

Task-oriented – motivated by work they do and motivated by the challenge.

Self-oriented – motivated by personal success and recognition. Rather than selfish, have longer term goals such as career progression, wish to be successful in their work to help realise these goals.

Interaction-oriented – motivated by the presence and actions of co-workers.

Interaction-oriented people like group work.

Task-oriented and self-oriented people usually prefer individual work.

Group Cohesion

Cohesion -

A cohesive group works better together. When a group is cohesive:

- Manage its own quality by mutual consent

- Team members learn from each other and the whole group improves

- Knowledge is shared as a team member change

- Continual improvement is encouraged and realised

Embrace new members

Continual improvement is encouraged and realised

Encouragement and self-actualisation

Self-improvement

Community spirit

Sommerville recommendations: Promoting cohesion

- Be inclusive, treat members as responsible and trustworthy, make information freely available.

- Simple information exchange is an effective way of making people feel valued and as if they are part of a group.

- Communication is effective when its two-way, people involved can discuss issues and information and can establish a common understanding of proposals and problems.

TASK:

Our task is to create an infographic disseminating the various aspects of people management we discussed.

Consider the following:

- How might you improve communication?

- How should people be treated according to their needs?

- What might you do to resolve an issue?

- What are the ways you can foster a colla and effective working environment?

- What are the requirements of the management and the requirements of individual team members in ensuring success and happy working conditions?

Our team consists of 5 people so we will take a question each and answer them accordingly. From this I will create an infographic poster.

What are the requirements of the management and the requirements of individual team members in ensuring success and happy working conditions?

- Regular communication

- Stick to the schedule, regularly update each other and inform team members if an issue has risen.

- Be open minded to team member suggestions and ideas.

- Encourage each other’s ideas and show interest.

- Show your appreciation for each member of the team, show that they play their own unique part, and they are worthy of this.

- Be honest in terms of your skillset and if you have a problem be confident in asking for help in order to overcome this and progress.

INFOGRAPHIC:

HOW CAN WE USE THIS? WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?

This lecture has taught me the importance of People Management. It's important to encourage communication and collaborative work is vital. Also, if a team member has an issue or query, they must feel as though they can talk about it in order to resolve it! Communication is key!

I will make sure to encourage communication at all times during the course of the project, and to ensure everyone is kept happy and satisfied while doing so.