Abstract
Increasingly oorganisations are focussing on the performance of teams to create competitive advantage. The success of projects and organizations is dependant upon the constructive and collaborative interactions of individuals within teams. Many approaches to improving team performance focus upon individuals within teams yet the most significant barriers to performance relate to structural issues of the team.
This paper will enable organisational leaders to understand how they can improve organisational, project and individual performance by acting upon the structures of teams. It will outline the true lifecycle of teams and the barriers to performance. It will provide a model and tools to allow leaders and teams to clearly and constructively address these barriers thereby accelerating the process of team development and the attainment of high levels of performance.
Introduction
It is past midnight. The crisis team has been working around the clock for the past 2 weeks. An artic chill sweeps through the room as another issue surfaces. More conflict erupts as the finger of blame is pointed yet again. As the issues increase and become more significant the relationships within the team disintegrate further and further.
Already the company has lost tens of millions of dollars and suffered significant reputational damage. Everyone knows that it will be many months before the project is stabilised.
More importantly the human costs will continue to mount. Several members of the team will suffer stress related illnesses. Many families will be impacted through the absence of a parent. A marriage will fail. Careers will end and some will never recover.
Relationships in the company will be so badly damaged that the impact to organisational performance through the erosion of trust, resentment and resulting politics will last for many years.
Yet none of this had to happen, most of the problems could have been avoided and most of them were predictable
The following describes project management methods and tools that can be used by the project manager to positively act upon on The Hunting Territory Structures (will include how these can be applied)
Conflict
Conflict is an ever present reality within the dynamic of any group. All of us are driven to secure and maintain, and often to improve and increase, our position. Inevitably this involves direct or indirect competition with others within the group. Resultantly those who are in privileged positions are inclined to resist change as it may negatively impact their position within the group. Conversely those who wish to improve their position in the group may welcome change. These fundamentally opposing views of change are deep sources of conflict.
We experience the conflict that change brings on very personal and emotional levels either as a clash of personality or political force further strengthening our perception that change and conflict are bad and must be resisted and avoided.
Our perception of this reality presents a real dilemma to Project Managers. By their very nature projects introduce change. Change in the form of a new way of doing things and change in the form of the assembly of a new team to perform a task in a limited time to a stretch standard of quality. Therefore the recipients of the projects deliverables and members of its team will experience conflict. In order to maximise the success of the project and the performance of his team the Project Manager needs to understand this reality. He must face and address conflict on the first and every day of the project. Denying and avoiding conflict will only serve to increase it and negatively impact on the performance of the team and project. He will never be able to remove the conflict but in understanding the true nature of the structural forces that drive conflict within the dynamic of the group he can manage it. Not only can he manage conflict he can use it to create high levels of performance, collaboration and innovation.
The Hunting Territory provides a model for understanding and managing the true nature of conflict to create high performance. The tools of Project Management can be directly applied to implementing the model of the Hunting Territory.
The System of Team Life
All teams exist within the system of Team Life. The system consists of three components:
- The natural and inevitable life cycle of the team
- The structures that impact upon the performance of the team and its members
- Communication within the team
Life Cycle
Just as a caterpillar goes through a lifecycle to become a butterfly all teams go through a natural and inexorable lifecycle to become high performing.
Structure
Structure is to the team as the anatomy is to a living body. Just as the body needs the skeletal, muscular and vascular systems to function a group also has a series of structures to enable it to function. Just as the structural systems of the body need to integrate and align for the body to perform optimally a group or team needs its' supporting structures to align and integrate to perform optimally.
Communication
Communication is to the team as the nuero-endocrine system is to the living body. Just as the brain uses the nervous system to transmit messages and actions through the body the Project Manager is able to drive actions within the project through communication.
Team Life Lifecycle
Formation
The formation phase involves the assignment of the Project Manager and team members to the project. During this phase individuals are focussed on understanding the projects objectives and their role, potential contribution and ability to deliver the required outcomes.
In order to increase the chances of individual success team members will present themselves in the most favourable light. In doing so they are seeking the favourable allocation of roles, responsibilities and resources. This involves showing how they can contribute to project success and suppressing weaknesses or underlying agendas not aligned to successful outcomes. This can often be presented as heightened willingness to cooperate with and understand the needs of others.
During this phase individuals assigned to the team are generally most interested in their own needs rather than the overall needs of the team and its success. Paradoxically performance of the team can exceed expectations as teams are co-operating in order to gain favour with the Project Manager.
Inside Fights
The Inside Fights stage commences when conflict for Hunting Territories occurs. This is manifested by:
- Disputes between team members for ownership of specific roles and resources. This is an overlap and becomes a disputed territory.
- Reluctance to own specific roles and resources. This is a gap and becomes an uncovered territory.
During this phase individuals continue to focus on their own needs. As conflicts surface they move into survival mode. The initial willingness to co-operate and understand the needs of others disappears and communication breaks down. Communication within the team changes as individuals seek to secure their Hunting Territory by:
- Forming sub groups and cliques with those individuals who they believe will support their claim for the desired Hunting Territory
- Ignoring or refusing to interact with those who compete for a disputed territory
- Avoiding discussions over problematic uncovered territories hoping that someone else will be blamed when problems eventuate
- Creating political pressure with friendly sub groups to get others to be assigned unattractive Uncovered Territories
During this phase individuals continue to be most interested in their own needs rather than the overall needs of the team and its success. The expected levels of performance are not achieved and the Project Manager is under scrutiny by the sponsor and team members. Pressure to perform increases and informal leaders emerge.
Settled Team
The team enters the Settled phase when each sub structure is stabilised enabling the establishment of consensus regarding Hunting Territories. The team focuses the creation of products and deliverables. Communications channels are clearer and more consistent.
Competition for territories continues but is maintained within limits. The team generally performs to expected standards. Most individuals continue to focus on their performance and do not have ownership of team performance. Resultantly co-operation is established on the overlaps to create products and deliverables. However generally, when there are critical problems on the overlap individuals only perform as expected rather than assisting their team mate in resolving problems. Blame may be assigned for mistakes.
Project Governance is strong and focussing on management and control to provide a stable system.
Under pressure, or in unexpected circumstances, performance may drop.
The informal leaders will be recognised by the Project Manager and team members.
Dynamic Balance
The team can enter Dynamic Balance when there is a high correlation between rank in the Hierarchy and performance. Autonomy is appropriately distributed amongst the sub groups. There are high levels of cooperation on the overlaps with agreed and effective processes for resolving conflicts between the Hunting Territories. All members are committed to the objectives of the project and work in a disciplined way to achieve these. Resultantly a trusting environment is established where all team members recognise the contribution and commitment of each member. Mistakes are not punished. Rather the team collaborates to resolve them.
High levels of performance are established and maintained even in times of intense and prolong pressure.
Project Governance is strong and flexible ensuring appropriate controls and enabling creativity and innovation. As a result the team uses innovative and creative approaches for delivery of the project.
Disintegration
When the structure of a team becomes rigid and resists adaptation to changing circumstances the team enters the disintegration phase. Performance drops rapidly and does not recover.
The performance of key team members drops without an appropriate adjustment to their rank in the Hierarchy. These members may intimidate or impede the progress of others to maintain their position. No one accepts responsibility for poor performance. A culture of blame begins to resurface. Decision making processes deteriorate resulting in long delays and then rushed decisions. High levels of apathy and absenteeism occur.
Structure
Every team has a structure. The structure is the network over which information flows and products and deliverables are created. There are six elements within the structure of the team. Each element interacts with the other five. Good structure enables good communication. Good communication enables good performance. Understanding and acting upon the structure of the team is the keystone of performance.
Organisation Structure
The organisation structure comprises 3 elements:
- The roles of teams or individuals within a project
- The work that teams or individuals need to perform
- The actual performance of the team or individual
In projects these elements are respectively represented by the Project Organisational Breakdown Structure, Work Breakdown Structure and Project Performance.
Hunting Territory
The Hunting Territory is the “space” (environment) in which teams or individuals perform their assigned roles. In the most basic form this is the tasks and responsibilities required to produce the products and / or deliverables. For an individual to perform properly it is critical that this space is recognised and respected by all team members.
Recognition and respect of this space reduces conflict and causes team members to co-operate and assist each other.
Autonomy
The decision making authority of teams and individuals.
Hierarchy
The hierarchy is the system of the team and individuals in rank order. A member's rank is affected by many factors other than actual performance. These may include
- Previous performance over a period of time
- Relationships with powerful stakeholders
- Perceived skills, knowledge and experience
- Actual performance
- Social and communication skills – the ability to present oneself in the most favourable light
- Position or role in previous projects
- Job level or grade and assigned role
- Compensation or charge out rate (individual and subcontractor)
- Adaptability to changing circumstances
Informal Structure
Whereas as the organisational structure informs us who has to do what the informal structure provides insight to how it is done. Within any given project there are numerous relationships, represented by sub groups, between individual players. Some sub groups will have a number of strong relationships with others and some may have few if any.
The system of the sub groups and their inter relationships comprises the informal structure. It tells us how communication occurs and how work is actually done within the project.
Playing Time
Playing time is the allocation of roles, task, responsibilities and resources to a team or individual. It is heavily influenced by the Project Managers perceptions of the ability of the individual or team to perform needed roles to deliver required outcomes
Communication
Communication is the third component of the System of Team Life. Attention to structures of the System of Team Life will enable strong communication. In conjunction with an understanding of the Lifecycle of the System of Team Life the Project Manager is able to effectively use a range of communication tools. This paper assumes that the Project Manager has strong skills in the area of communications
Project Manager Leadership through the Team Lifecycle
The Project Manager is able to control and accelerate the team lifecycle by exercising appropriate leadership during each phase. Following are recommended actions and project management tools that can be applied.
Formation Phase
During Formation phase it is essential that the Project Manager provide a clear and consistent picture of:
- The objective and scope of the project.
- Organisational structure
- Roles and responsibilities
- Project approach and expected contributions
- Performance criteria
- Team rules
- Incentives
At the early stage of a project some or all of the above may be unclear to the Sponsor and Project Manager yet alone team members. Recognising this reality it is important to take strong action to clarify the situation. The Project Manager can use tools such as the Project Charter, Project Organisational Breakdown Structure and initial Project Management Plan to provide clarity. Producing drafts of these or similar documents and engaging team members in the process of baselining them focuses the team on the objectives of the project and their role and expected contribution.
Whilst conflicts will not be removed a framework will be built for managing them when they occur during the Inside Fights phase. Providing tight version control for these documents and making them readily available to all team members is a foundation to effective communication within the team.
This phase is the opportunity for the Project Manager to gain a clear understanding of the skills, competencies, personalities, experience and interests of team members. Recognising that team members will attempt to present themselves in the most favourable it is essential to focus on what each team member has done rather what they claim they have done or could do. Seeking recent evidence through observable data and input from objective customers, suppliers and colleagues is essential. This allows the Project Manager to appropriately place team members in the Hierarchy and allocate Autonomy and Playing Time. Additionally the Project Manager is able to establish an initial picture of the sub groups and their relationships.
These actions set the tone for the team processes. Whilst some team members may not like the outcomes of the process most team members will see that effective decision making processes will be used through the project. They see that they are being treated reasonably and fairly. The team values will begin to settle around performance. Recognising that performance is highly valued most potentially negative team members will adjust their behaviour and positively contribute to the team processes and performance.
Inside Fights Phase
During Inside Fights team members are competing for Hunting Territories, Autonomy and Playing Time. This situation requires the Project Manager to adopt a directive leadership style. To do otherwise will increase the scope and length of this phase negatively impacting on project performance. In addition to establishing baselines on the Project Management documents mentioned in the Formation phase the followings can be taken:
- Establish Issues and Risk Registers and insist that team members use them to document their issues and concerns.
- Insist that each risk and issue be fully completed so that the impact to the project can be understood. This will act to focus team members on the project and its objectives rather than their fight for Hunting Territory
- This approach will constructively surface in a relatively non confrontational way the gaps and overlaps that exist within the project
Baselining the Project Management Plan and focussing on the products and deliverable to be created along with the Work Breakdown Structure are essential to moving from this phase. Whilst it is inevitable that there will be areas open to clarification and dispute making clear decisions and enforcing strong project management discipline will accelerate their resolution.
The Project Manager will need to make independent decisions using the best available data. Focussing the team on relatively simple and achievable tasks can have the affect of creating a sense of ownership and identity with the project.
Informal leaders will emerge during this phase. It is important to recognise that they will challenge the Project Manager until good levels of performance are established. Rather than resist the challenges from the informal leader the Project Manager can listen carefully without being defensive and show appropriate empathy. If the informal leader is competent and it is appropriate they can be provided with additional autonomy on the overlaps provided that they deliver as promised.
The Project Manager needs to remain available and open to the thoughts and concerns of other team members as they relate to the projects objectives. He needs to hold himself and the team accountable to the team rules established during Formation.
It is critical that Project Performance be closely monitored and managed rewarding good performance and acting decisively to resolve bad performance. This will further reinforce the performance culture established during Formation.
Settled Team Phase
As the team focuses and delivers upon their assigned work the team will begin to settle and performance will reach acceptable standards. To further improve performance it is necessary to shift leadership style to a more consultative mode. The Project Manager can open up discussions in well clarified topics where they genuinely want or need the input of the team.
Where issues surface within or between sub groups they can be engaged in the constructive resolution of the overlaps and gaps. It is important that only the affected subgroups are involved. This has the affect of further reinforcing the performance culture. Those who experience problems see that they are appropriately dealt with. Those who are not directly impacted also see that the problems are resolved before their individual performance is affected.
At this time having experienced some success more complex work can be introduced. It is imperative that the strong project control processes and team rules established in the earlier phases are reinforced.
Dynamic Balance
As performance continues to improve and the sub groups are empowered the team can enter Dynamic Balance. This requires a further shift by the Project Manager to a delegative style allowing the team to take full ownership of performance and become more creative and innovative. The Project Manager needs to maintain strong project control processes whilst pushing greater accountability and autonomy to team members thereby allowing greater creativity and innovation.
To maintain this phase the Project Manager has to carefully monitor key contributors and leaders to ensure that they do not burn out. This can be supported be ensuring that there are periods of stabilisation with the project allowing the team time to recover. If this not possible it is necessary to implement resourcing plans that provide key contributor with down time be replacing them with skilled people for set periods of time.
Where key members are not able to adapt to changing requirements they should be replaced as soon as possible.
Acting upon the Structures of the System of Team Life
The following describes project management methods and tools that can be used by the project manager to positively act upon on the Structures within the system of Team Life.
Organisation Structure
The organisation structure can be clarified understood and managed using the following tools:
- Project Organisational Breakdown Structure
- Work Breakdown Structure
- Performance of individual and sub contractors
The Informal Structure
The informal structure and key sub groups can be understood and managed using the following tools:
- Stakeholder maps
- Functional relationship maps
- Sociograms
The Hierarchy
The Hierarchy can be effectively managed by the continuos evaluation of the performance of team members during the project. Accurate assessment will allow the appropriate adjustment of Autonomy, Hunting Territory and Playing Time:
- Project Control and Performance Management processes
- Individual Performance Management processes
The Hunting Territory
Individual Hunting Territories and co-operation between team members can be managed using:
- Product breakdown structure
- Work breakdown structure
- Interdependencies
The Autonomy
The authority to act and make decisions can be managed using
- Project Charter
- Project Management Plan
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Delegations and authorities
- Governance structure
Playing Time
The playing time of sub groups and individuals can be managed by:
- Budget
- Schedule
- Work Breakdown Structure
Enabling the Project Based Organisation
In the never ending search for competitive advantage organisations are increasingly implementing their change actions through projects and becoming more project based. The rate of change and the number of projects are increasing. Value chains and models are emerging as key components of the Project Based Organisation (PBO).
To be effective the PBO must have overlaps between departments through the tight integration of Strategy, Portfolio Management, Program Management, Project Management, Process Management and ongoing operations. Each of these disciplines is specialised and designed to deliver specific benefits. In several cases there are clear tensions and conflicts. For example programs embrace ambiguity and emergent change whilst projects seek to remove ambiguity and resist change. Therefore the PBO introduces conflict through the high number of change actions (programs and projects) and then compounds this conflict by requiring teams with traditionally differing cultures and in some cases opposing objectives to co-operate and collaborate first and foremost for the benefit of the organisation.
Conclusions
By recognising and understanding the reality of the System of Team Life Project Managers are able to:
- Understand that conflict within any team and project is inevitable
- Constructively manage their team so that development through the lifecycle is accelerated
- Run more effective, efficient and harmonious projects increasing project success and deliver better outcomes for team members and stakeholders
- Leverage the creative and innovative capabilities of their team
The System of Team Life provides a model to understand and manage the complex organisational dynamics that result in implementing and managing a PBO.