Abstract
There is much talk about developing hard skills as well as soft skills. But do we also need to consider our preferred styles of working, which are consistent regardless of context? This presentation looks at two measures of style, problem solving and team roles. We have a preferred style of problem solving that ranges from an adaptive to an innovative approach and is measured using Kirton Adaptor Innovator (KAI). This is relevant to project managers as a lot of our effort is in solving problems! The instrument also helps with team building – the team understand how they solve problems individually and then can combine to solve the more complex problems. Adaptors like to be efficient whilst solving problems, stay within the rules and need few ideas before proceeding. Innovators are at the opposite end of the problem solving spectrum. They are not concerned with efficiency, they will need to generate many new ideas before they are comfortable that they can proceed to solve the problem and they will break the rules in doing so. These are the extremes of the range and we all sit somewhere in between. The second instrument looks at our preferred roles working in teams. This theory says that we have a preferred role that we like to adopt in a team and two secondary roles. The instrument is known as Margerisson McCann's Team Management Index (TMI). There are eight roles; explorer-promoter, creator-innovator, assessor-developer, thruster-organiser, concluder-producer, controller-inspector, reporter-advisor, monitor-evaluator. This is more complex than KAI but helps the team understand the roles people perform in a team, what roles are needed to complete the task and how to bridge the gaps. I have used both instruments in three areas; a systems migration project, an office relocation project and the development of a project management delivery organisation.
Introduction
Project Management can be a very structured discipline. There are many courses, text books and project management guru's which will teach you the mechanics of project management. This is all very valid and worthwhile material which is a valuable resource for project managers to learn and apply appropriately in the context of their project environment.
To support this body of knowledge there is a need to learn what could be termed as ‘hard skills’. Many of us are familiar with the skills that are taught to support A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). These are the hard skills of fishbone diagrams, statistics, stakeholder maps, critical path method and earned values analysis. They are well understood and taught by the many training providers across the globe some of whom exhibit here at the Project Management Institute (PMI®) congresses.
Then there is a whole set of material to teach the project manager a set of skills that could be described as ‘soft skills’ Again you cannot apply the knowledge areas without good soft skills; team building, influencing, communications, man management and many others. Again there are rafts of providers and you can find people who can coach you in these and you can become expert.
But is this sufficient? With all of this training do project teams still stumble, falter or even fail? Or do we, as project managers need to consider our personal bias as to how we like to work and those of our teams and our key stakeholders in terms of style, which is their preferred style of working?
Intrigued? The hypothesis posed in this paper is that we, as individuals, have preferred styles of working which are consistent regardless of the circumstance in which we find ourselves. To best illustrate what I mean by style I will describe two instruments that I have used with teams to help them understand their preferred style of working and thus work together more effectively.
Two ways of looking at style
Problem Solving
The first instrument looks at how we prefer to solve problems. The theory quite simply states that we have a preferred style of problem solving that ranges from an adaptive to an innovative approach. The theory was developed by Professor Michael Kirton (1980) and is known as the Kirton Adaptor Innovator© (KAI). Why is this important to us as project managers? Because we and our teams spend a lot of our effort in solving problems! We have been successful in our careers using this style and we are comfortable with it, even unaware that we have a consistent style of solving problems! However, if we do have a preferred style and the problem we are trying to solve requires us to adopt a different style then we may struggle to resolve the problems that we or our team are facing. If we understand the problem solving style of others in our team then there is an opportunity for us to leverage the difference in style that may exist and use them to help address this particular problem
Using this instrument with a team also helps with team building – the team understand why they sometime work together well and have some clues as to why conflict can arise. They also have a language to describe the issue and so diffuse it.
An adaptive style
Having introduced the concept of a problem solving style there is now a need to describe it more fully. To start with we will address what is meant by an adaptive style. When describing the problem solving style we would look at three different parameters; efficiency, conformity, and sufficiency of originality. This has probably confused the reader but these terms are explained in detail later.
Efficiency considers how efficient people like to be when they are solving problems. People with an adaptive style like to be efficient – they like to get on and solve the problem and move onto the next one!
The second parameter is conformity. This describes how an individual stays within the ‘rules’ while they are solving a problem. They will stay within the rules established in the area in which they work. In this context rules are the boundaries established in the organisational construct that the individual works. These may be formal procedures but are as likely to be unofficial norms set by the group. An adaptive problem solver prefers to stay within the rules.
The third parameter looks at sufficiency of originality. This measures how many ideas a person needs to develop before they are comfortable that they can solve the particular problem. People with an adaptive style will generate a few ideas before they are comfortable that they can solve the problem. These ideas are likely to be ideas that they have used before.
An innovative style
Innovators are at the opposite end of the problem solving spectrum. They are not overly concerned with efficiency, they will need to generate many new ideas before they are comfortable to move on and these ideas will often be radical and they will break the rules in doing so.
Problem solving style summarised.
The descriptions of problem solving style are the extremes of the range. The score is relative and people will perceive their fellow team members as more or less adaptive or more or less innovative. However, if they are a half a standard deviation away from their colleague in their KAI score they will notice that their approach to problems is different. No particular style is right or wrong but a particular style may be more appropriate in some circumstances that others. If plotted the results for the general population form a normal distribution with the mean being 96. People who score around 96 are known as bridgers. This is because they can create a bridge between people who are more adaptive or more innovative. They are very useful people to have on project teams as they can facilitate conversation that bring together different styles and create far better solutions to problems. For more details The Power of Difference by Jackson and Taylor is recommended reading.
Team roles
The second instrument looks at our preferred way of working in teams. This theory says that we have a preferred role that we like to adopt in a team and two secondary roles. We can adopt different roles but this may be difficult. The instrument is known as Margerisson McCann's Team Management Index (TMI)© and is based on Jungian psychology. This is the same basis as Myers Briggs but is set in a team or work context rather than a social context. There are eight roles; explorer-promoter, creatorinnovator, assessor-developer, thruster-organiser, concluder-producer, controller-inspector, reporter-advisor and moderator-evaluator. These descriptions are reasonably self-explanatory but need a far more detailed explanation that a short paper can contain. This is a more complex instrument to understand and apply than KAI but it helps the team understand the roles people like to perform in the team, what roles they need to complete the task and how they can bridge the gaps. This description has been kept brief as the detailed explanation is best done based on a group having been assessed and the details of what the roles mean explained as part of the feedback. The roles are derived from four ranges which are similar to Myers-Briggs; Extrovert – Introvert, Practical - Creative, Analytical -Beliefs, Structured – Flexible. Where people score on these ranges really determines how flexible they can be in their particular preferred team roles. If they have two or more of these ranges where they are near the centre of the range then they can adopt a number of roles. For more details The Power of Difference by Jackson and Taylor is recommended reading.
How is this relevant to the project context?
You will now have digested a lot of theory. The question is how to apply this theory in the context of a project team. I have seen the two instruments used to benefit teams in a number of settings but three are particularly relevant to world of projects.
Application of problem solving style
KAI has been used in three particular projects; a systems migration project, an office relocation project and the development of a project management delivery organisation. In the first two KAI was used to help the team understand how they related to one another and how they could collaborate in solving the complex problems that projects of this nature face. In the final example KAI was used to build a better team dynamic but also to help the individual project managers to understand their own style and recognise that their stakeholders and team members are different and that conflict may arise not just from differences of opinion or fact but also from differences of style.
Applications of team roles
TMI was used in the development of the systems migration project to understand how the team could compensate for the roles that did not exist in the team. This was done by assessing the individual's preferred team roles and then matching these to the roles that the team had assessed were necessary to carry out the project. In the example of the project management organisation TMI was used to build a better team dynamic but also give the individual project managers an insight into their own preferred team role and recognise that their stakeholders and team members are different and that conflict may arise not just from differences of opinion or fact but also from differences of style.
Preference vs. circumstance
It needs to be stated that all of the above describes a preference that people have in the particular context of problem solving and team roles. However individuals can and do perform in different styles and roles based on circumstance. People do what they have to do to deliver!
What does this mean for the project manager?
In conclusion it is vital that the project manager understands how to manage projects, that the project office understands how to support the project, that they can all deploy the appropriate knowledge and have the skills to do so. But is there also a consideration for the project manager that their team have the right style to address the issues that they face? Is there some work that can be done here to turn the good project team into a high performing team?