Project Team Performance - Term Paper Example

Introduction Jong & Hartog (2007) outlined that in business projects motivation can encourage, inspire, as well as stimulate people to attain common objectives via teamwork. Additionally, in a project it is the project manager's best attention to drive toward project accomplishment in the course of the formation and maintaining an inspiring environment for the entire members of the project team. In addition, enhancing the project team associates’ performance necessitates a project manager to tie together a lot of different interpersonal skills such as high-quality communication, capability to train others, guide by example, decision making, and producing an optimistic and motivational atmosphere. Furthermore, organizing the project team is one of the most important elements of project management. This engages not merely administering internal employees however as well managing some customer personnel and subcontractors allocated to the project team (Jong & Hartog, 2007). Crawford & Price (2000) state that flourishing business is based on the rapidly responding as well as adapting transformations in their business situation. In addition, the organizations are forced by the market to manage through projects. At the similar time, there is growing stress upon quality (Crawford & Price, 1996). In the continuously changing and transforming business setting, an organization should be able to get best performance from the project teams. The main reason to stress this area is the importance of the project teams in all areas of the business and corporate structures. Thorough the continuous project team enhancement corporations could be able to make the overall project and business successful. This paper presents the literature review of project team performance. This paper will explore different researches about the team performance. Team Performance Kim & Burton (2001) outlined that an organization is viewed as a an information processing system that is developed and structured to attain a definite set of business jobs as well as encompassing information processors like that sub-teams and individuals. However, the contingency theory states that the most excellent means to systematize a business or organization is dependent upon the diversity and uncertainty of the fundamental task being carried out through the organizational unit. Implementing the contingency theory to a corporate project team, one would suppose that, by means of low level of job uncertainty. A centralized project team would execute better for the reason that it is able to formulate fast or preplanned decisions, on the other hand, coordination and control is simple and less expensive. However, by means of high level of job uncertainty, one would anticipate that a decentralized team would carry out enhanced for the reason that it is able to formulate fast and flexible decisions at lower levels inside the project team consequently that it is able to adapt a change. By means of growing uncertainty, general performance of the team will be reduced; however the rate of reduction in performance can rely on the extent of centralization of the team (Kim & Burton, 2002). In same scenario Crawford & Price (1996) stated regarding performance of project teams a main theoretical model support the project team performance methodology is the concept of completeness of approach, like articulated in the McKinsey 7-S Framework. Additionally, the constant development of project team performance could be encouraged through the efficient and interactive utilization of a specialized quality management system. In addition, the McKinsey 7-S Framework regarding the project team performance offers seven dimensions of an organization that are operational through the project teams. In such working environment to determine overall performance of project teams we have all main aspects of organization as shown in the image below (Crawford & Price, 1996): Figure 1- McKinsey 7-S Framework Crawford & Price (1996) outlined that shared values offer the guiding ideas that are shared by the members of the organization. Additionally, this is a significant checklist intended for organizational change handling and performance. In case of project team performance enhancement and implementing the organizational change organizations can face some of critical problems those would be causes of project failure (Crawford & Price, 1996). Scott (2007) stated that organizations do extensive care for structuring the correct blend of people and project teams members to produce the most excellent teams without regard to how people in project team members move toward problems. (Scott, 2007), discusses the case of industrial organizations, there is billions of dollars invest in corporate training, expecting for a huge return on their investment. However, in all such environments the fundamental focus of the training is on increasing the corporate team member’s capability. Since, it is recognized that a project team member’s expertise and knowledge is not sufficient for a team to attain the desired outcomes; in this scenario project team member’s techniques should as well be considered (Scott, 2007). The following are the features, which are usually linked with high-performing teams that demonstrate encouraging results: (Gray & Larson, 2006, p.344) 1. The team has a common goal, and every team associate is prepared to effort to accomplish project goal(s). 2. The team recognizes team members’ knowledge and skills and makes use of them, according to the project’s requirements at any specified time. In addition, at these times, the team enthusiastically understands the control and direction of the members whose expertise are appropriate to the immediate job. 3. Responsibilities are unbiased and divided to help both the filling of team consistency and confidence as well as completion of tasks. 4. Team members support each other to recognize and understand the goals of the project, thus they establish high personal standards of performance. 5. The team struggles toward problem solving instead of permitting itself to be exhausted by competitive efforts or interpersonal matters. 6. To support creativity and risk management, mistakes are considered as options for learning instead of causes for punishment. 7. Dissimilarities of views are considered and openly discussed. 8. Team members empathize with the team and believe it as a vital foundation of both personal and professional development. The high-performing teams become winners, produce advance products, go beyond customer needs, and complete project previous to timetable and within resources. Since, they are linked together by common interdependency and a common objective or idea. Thus, they depend on each other and demonstrate an elevated teamwork (Gray & Larson, 2006, p.344; Peterson, 2007). In this scenario, (Grant et al., 2001) describe that, team leadership is very important to the winning performance of a project team. Additionally, the one significant aspect that affects the achievement and performance of team struggles is the arrangement or management of the project team (Grant et al., 2001). However, numerous researchers have carried out research on team building, few of them are (Cleland, 1996), (Dyer, 1996) and (Ford & McLaughlin, 1992). They discussed lots of factors that influence the process of project team building and team performance. Such ideas, on the other hand not often talk about a condition that really makes easy the course of team building, shared reliance needed and acknowledged, despite the fact that this idea is, possibly, disguised by (Katzenbach & Smith, 2001) focus on the reality that teams (instead of “working groups”) “seize themselves commonly responsible” for achieving the objectives of team’s performance (Porter & Lilly, 1996) and (Meredith & Mantel, 2006, pp.214-15). Combining the people into a group, yet when they work for the same firm and offer their skills for achieving same goals, does not indicate that they will be considered as a team. On the other hand, managing the team’s tasks in such a manner that team members are equally reliant and understand it, will create a strong momentum for the group to build a team. In addition, the successful completion of the project will be dependent on teamwork, and a project will be failed if the team’s members do not carry out their tasks as a team. Additionally, if a team includes problem-oriented team members, the performance of a team is further improved. In this scenario, Tippet and Peters discuss that the general reason of performance decline is that organizations are not paying attention toward the team building, insufficient and unskilled individual, insufficient effective rewards, and team performance feedback techniques, and team goal-setting, they all influence team performance (Higgs et al., 2005), (Pina et al., 2008) and (Tippett & Peters, 1995; Meredith & Mantel, 2006, pp.214-15). Enhancing Project Team Performance To enhance the project team performance organizations need to take some of the vital steps: (Borysowich, 2009), (Pina et al., 2008) and (Peterson, 2007): The initial step for project team performance enhancement is assigning the roles to meet up the individuals’ responsibilities intended for every work package to evaluate objectives. However, in this scenario organizations need to make sure there is a common understanding as well as commitment to the end-products that every person is to make, the quality requirement intended for each end-product, the procedures and standards to be followed, and the cost approximations and schedule that every person is being asked to place to (Borysowich, 2009), (Pina et al., 2008) and (Peterson, 2007). Another main aspect is about establishing standards and measures intended for team performance. As a main component in making sure a quality project is about to make sure that project team members have been concerned in the improvement of widespread standards as well as events for anything that influence the common objective of the team (Borysowich, 2009), (Pina et al., 2008) and (Peterson, 2007). To enhance project team performance organizations should meet up and manage the project team’s tasks bi-weekly or weekly meetings. However, at these times, organizations need to assess and apprise the team leaders to evaluate issues, resolve problems or concerns and share experiences. In addition, a project team leader should also arrange meetings with their team associates. Since, the aim of these meetings is to recognize issues (Borysowich, 2009), (Pina et al., 2008) and (Peterson, 2007). Positive growth is a main element of efficient team building and performance enhancement. The project team performance can also be enhanced through communicating project information (Borysowich, 2009), (Pina et al., 2008) and (Peterson, 2007). Monitoring team morale is also a main step that can enhance the project team performance. Additionally, on a small business project, "administrating through walking around" will be enough to appraise team morale. However, on a project having distributed teams and numerous subprojects a more formal methods like that team surveys can be utilized to recognize problem areas that necessitate corrective action (Borysowich, 2009), (Pina et al., 2008) and (Peterson, 2007). The process of carrying out team performance evaluations can also enhance the project team performance. However, the evaluation should take place at the end of every main stage, whenever the team associates or his/her team manager is about to leave the project or project completion (Borysowich, 2009), (Pina et al., 2008) and (Peterson, 2007).  Practical implications Koc-Menard (2009) stated that implication of all main aspects of improving team structure and negotiation through opening up a novel method. However, the principal challenge intended for a manager in assigning people to a team comprises the evaluation of their capability to help out the team in attaining high performance. In this scenario negotiation is the key tool that is usually recommended in assessing team associate’s qualities. For instance, corporate managers need to recruit experts and individuals by using sophisticated interpersonal abilities. The managers must as well assess potential team members foundational upon the breath and diversity of their social networks. Furthermore, the social associations matter for the reason that they offer access to task-related assets that could improve team working and performance at the table (Koc-Menard, 2009). Peterson (2007) outlined that analysis opens up a novel method to move toward negotiation teams. Since, an executive has to map and coordinate team actions to attain the team's objectives. For instance, it is recommended that project team leader needs to present the negotiations among the teams to promote intra-group communication as well as put in order a division of labor (Peterson, 2007). Conclusion In spite of the popularity of the term “change” and performance enhancement measures today, it is amazing how small people actually know concerning the principles and activities necessary for successful completion and organization of the project. Even extremely knowledgeable leaders and directors frequently do not understand what brought concerning successful project handling and management in their organizations. However, the development of effective project team ensures that project is going in right direction and offering desired results. There are different theories about how project team’s performance can be improved, but there is not any exact measures, which can define the level of project team’s performance. This paper has presented a detailed literature review about the project team performance. This research has highlighted some of main aspects that can be implemented to enhance the business project team perforce. Bibliography Borysowich, C., 2009. Project Control: Manage Team Performance. [Online] Available at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/enterprise-solutions/project-control-manage-team-performance-5478 [Accessed 19 March 2010]. Cleland, D.I., 1996. Strategic Management of Teams. New York: Wiley. 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