PMI CAPM – Lead and Manage the Project Human Resources for the CAPM exam Part 2

5. Lead Project Team Development

Let’s talk about leading the project team’s development. But your team needs to work together and rely on one another in order for the project to be successful. And we want people to be independent but also interdependent. And we want people to feel motivated and engaged with one another and with you as the project manager. So in this lecture, we’re going to talk all about leading the development of project team development.

This is Section 9-3 of the Pinbach Guide, Fifth Edition. And our goal in this conversation is to talk about the processes that improve competencies. We want people to be smart and skilled in the activities they have to do on the project. We want to promote team interaction. That is, we want our project team members to work with each other, not in silos, but to be engaged with each other, to rely on each other, and to work together to have team member interaction. This helps us to enhance the overall project performance because when people work together and feel like they can call on one another, that just makes the project better and more enjoyable for everyone that’s involved. So our overall goals of this process are to improve teamwork, reduce our turnover rate, motivate employees, and just improve the overall project performance.

Let’s check out the ETOs for developing the project team. Your HR Management Plan We’ve already discussed how we need to develop and plan for how we will manage our project team members, project staff assignments, who does what, and what their responsibilities are. What are the individual tasks from our task list, and who are the individuals that will go out and get those tasks done? Resource calendars remind us that a resource calendar tells people when resources are available. Interpersonal skills are our tools and techniques here, which means you must have some soft skills, some emotional intelligence, be able to communicate, negotiate influence, and inspire and motivate your project team training. We’ll talk more about training in just a moment. and team-building activities.

Ground Rules: We need ground rules for the project, including you, the project manager. Some colocation. Colocation means that we’re all in one spot. If you remember when we talked about virtual teams and being non-collocated, this is the polar opposite: we’re all in the same place. Rewards and recognition are a really important thing to do as a project manager within the rules of your enterprise, environmental factors, and whatever policies and HR policies you have to follow when it comes to rewards and recognitions. But it’s really important to do that. People want to feel valued for how they contribute to the project and their personal assessment tools. Getting some idea of how project team members feel about the project, how they feel about management, and what their attitude is towards the project and its success Our outputs here will be team performance assessments and enterprise environmental factor updates. Let’s talk about leading the team. One of the core competencies for leading team development is having some interpersonal skills, some soft skills, and being able to communicate with people.

Not to mention that you must be able to communicate with your team and listen to what they are saying. That’s how we want to feel as a project team member—that I can go to you, the project manager, in a trusted environment, and that you’re going to really listen to me and understand what I’m trying to communicate. Emotional intelligence is important as well when it comes to leading team development. Emotional intelligence is the ability to control my emotions so they do not adversely affect those of others. It’s also the ability to understand the emotions that others are showing and to really comprehend what they’re trying to tell us. So we want to control our emotions as the project manager or just as an individual, but we also want to understand the emotions that we’re seeing in others.

So it’s not that we’re cold and calculated, but that we’re professional as project managers and don’t want our emotions to have an impact on project performance. So you think about getting really angry when someone’s late or there’s an argument. So we want to be able to control that in order to resolve the problem and not create new problems. Conflict Resolution Conflict is a natural thing that happens among people.

So there are some approaches we can take to resolve conflicts quickly and effectively in order to keep the project moving forward and then influence. As a project manager, you want to influence the project team to keep them engaged, excited, and motivated to get the work done. We also need to train the project team. If we’re in the middle of a construction project and we’re going to work with a new piece of equipment that we’ve never had before, it’s probably not a good idea to immediately take it to the job site and begin working with that new piece of equipment. More likely, we want to do a little bit of training, experiment, and learn how to use this new equipment.

So we need to train the team in those scenarios. A new piece of hardware or software; a new process or procedure; new forms All of that takes time. So we need to train the team so they don’t feel frustrated, rushed, and then aggravated by having to use something new that they don’t feel comfortable using because they haven’t been trained on whatever that project may be or whatever that activity may be that requires this new thing. Team-building activities Do you ever take your team out for some team-building activities? talking about more than going to lunch together, going whitewater rafting, going on a hike or a walk, or doing some activities, more likely where I’m involved, and learning from and trusting one another.

So team building activities are something that’s important to do, especially on longer, larger projects where people have not worked together, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to do a team building activity. If you just google “team building activity ideas,” you’ll find all sorts of quick things you can do with your project team that facilitate this and are fairly inexpensive. I recall one project I was on. We did some team-building activities where we paired people up with people they’d never worked with before. And we were in an auditorium, and they had to figure out how to get some washers from the back of the room to the front of the room using only a piece of yarn.

And so quickly and effectively, and it was just kind of silly, but it made people work together to figure out a problem. And so we had all these different contraptions that people came up with to get these things from the back of the auditorium to the front. It was a lot of fun, and people became friendly with each other. They weren’t focused on the project; they ran this little friendly competition, and the goal was some team building. When we talk about team development, there are five stages of team development in this order that you need to know for your exam. Forming, storming, norming, performing, and a journey So this describes the natural process that happens when people come together to contribute to a project or to work on a project. Forming is when we first get together—the handshake. How are you, where are you from, and what do you do? Do you know so and so? It’s just some of those initial conversations that you have and get to know in the very early days of the project. Then we move into storming.

Storming happens when there’s a bit of a struggle over who’s going to be in charge, who’s going to lead, and who’s going to follow. As a result, there is some natural conflict as people stake out their priorities or important aspects of the project. Norming is when things settle down, thankfully, and people fall into their roles as leader or follower, or whatever the case may be, and people go about doing the project’s work. Later in the project, as the team begins to grow and rely on one another, we have performance, and that’s really the most enjoyable part of the project, where people are working together and are focused on getting the project done and on getting key results. So performing is where we’re just getting the work done and just cranking through it. It’s enjoyable, and we’re working with people toward the same goal. And then sometimes the sad part of the project is when the project is done and the team disbands. So you are adjourning, and that one’s really just been added in recent years.

So you want to know about this idea of forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. It’s more about team development if you understand the characteristics of each of those stages, and it happens in that order for your exam. Ground rules. Ground rules are when we set rules for the project that we all have to follow, including the project manager. Consider how everyone is required to complete an astatus report or enter their time on the project by Friday morning. They have to show up on time for our status meeting every Monday morning. Whatever rules you come up with, the whole team is responsible for enforcing those ground rules. Not just the project manager, but everyone on the project is responsible for that. So here are some ground rules. Colocation means that we’re all in one spot. We talked about noncolocated and virtual teams in the last lecture. Well, colocated is just the opposite—sometimes called a “tight matrix,” we’re all physically located together. You might also see this described as a project headquarters or a war room, where this is where we all come together to work on the project.

Recognitions and rewards are really important, so find some way to recognise and reward the individuals on the team who have contributed to the project. Obviously, money or some other type of financial reward is always appreciated. If your organisation doesn’t allow you to do that, then you need to find some other way. Whether it’s a certificate, a little token, or even a status meeting, calling out people who contributed and got work done is important. People want to feel respected. Remember in our work that people want to feel esteem and pride for what they’ve done, and we should recognise people who do a good job on the project. So figure out a way to reward or recognise project participants. It’s really important. We also do this throughout the project, like at status meetings, in memos, or whatever avenue you choose. Where we recognise people, we don’t just wait until the very end because people can do this work and feel unappreciated. And then, at the very end, you say “good job.” People want to be recognised for their work as they do the work. I mean, I know that I do.

I know that you do. I love to see the reviews for this course. It lets me know that I’m doing a good job and that people are liking what I’m doing. Just as you do as a project manager, you probably want some rewards and feedback from your stakeholders on your project. One thing that we want to shy away from, though, is a zero-sum reward. A zero-sum reward means that only one person can win. Poker is a good example of a zero-sum game. Only one person wins. So there’s employee of the month and employee of the week. Those are not good rewards to have in a project because only one guy wins. This makes everyone else feel, if they don’t win, like they didn’t contribute, or they might feel some contempt, and the person who wins the award might feel a little awkward knowing that there are plenty of other people on this project who did a good job as well. Finally, don’t forget about the people who may have a minor role or make minor contributions to your project. If you’re constantly highlighting the people who make the most significant contributions, those people may feel cheated or unappreciated.

So we need to find a way to acknowledge everyone when they deserve it. Don’t make it just that you’re throwing out certificates to everyone; make it a way to acknowledge people on a regular basis when they deserve it and a way to include everyone that’s contributing. An example of a personal assessment tool is an attitude survey. What’s your attitude towards the project? Or towards the project manager, or even to the customer? So what’s happening with the project? just a way of understanding how people feel about the project. You can also do a structured interview where it’s more of a set of questions, but you’re going to have these conversations one-on-one with your project team members, so it’s more likely on larger projects that you’ll do those types of things.

Team performance assessments You want to see how your project team is performing collectively. So the goal here is to improve not only project work skills, but also communication and interdependence team competencies. As I just mentioned, we want to see how the team is performing as a whole, including their competency for getting the work done on time, accurately, and with good quality. This all contributes to a reduced staff turnover rate. It’s very expensive when someone leaves a project and you have to bring a new individual in because it takes time for that person to ramp up and catch up with the rest of the project team. It can also introduce some risk, and it can also cause the team to go back through the formation, norming, and performance that they may have already gone through. We want some team cohesiveness. We want people to feel like they can count on each other and that they’re cohesive and can work with one another. So team cohesiveness is really important for team success. Okay, good job. brings us to the end of this conversation about leading team development. In the next lecture, we’re going to talk about managing the project team, the other side of the coin when it comes to getting things done. I’ll see you in just a moment. Bye.

6. Manage the Project Team

All right, welcome back to our conversation here about managing project human resources. We’re now ready to talk about managing the project team, where management is all about getting things done and getting key results. As a result, we are managing the project team in order to achieve project results. This is from the Pinbuck guideline for managing the project team. We’re tracking team members’ performance. We’re offering feedback to team members and managing any team changes that people make on the project. So we have to accommodate those changes. We want to influence team behavior. Our goal as a manager is to get the project done. So we influence team behavior to make sure that their actions support that goal. We also work to resolve conflict. So this is something that we have to do because conflict is natural. We’ll go over some conflict resolution steps or different types of resolution here. There is a lot going on in our office for managing the project team.

Our inputs include our HR management plan, project staff assignments, team performance assessments, issuelog work performance reports, OPA tools and techniques, observation, and conversation. I’ve got to get out and see what people are doing. You’ve got to talk to people. The idea of management by walking around, being visible, seeing what people are doing, and being available is very important for project performance appraisals. So how are people doing with their work? Conflict management and, again, interpersonal skills Our outputs here may have change requests. We want to change the project team, or our project team members have a good idea. We’re listening to them; they have a good idea. So we’re going to propose a change for something to be added to or removed from scope. We might have some PM plan updates and project document updates.

Then you may also have updates for EES and OPA. Let’s come back and talk about utilising our OPA. Keep in mind that OPA are things that have been prepared for you, such as from a PMO or previous projects. What we’re talking about here are things that we can do to facilitate conversations and communication, rewards, and recognition. As a result, you may have some process assets, such as certificates of appreciation. I have a newsletter where you can mention people and mention how your project is moving forward. It’s become really popular. We can create a project website, especially with tools like SharePoint, where we can share information about our team, how progress is being made, a burndown or burnup of the number of activities remaining, but just a way to communicate what’s going on in the project.

So, how are we progressing? Bonus structures are based on the idea that, if people allow it or if your organisation allows it, you can reward someone financially. And then there’s corporate apparel. I’ve worked for some companies where they give you a cool t-shirt or a golf shirt as a reward. It’s a nice bonus where you can get it. I always like to get a coffee mug. I have a lot of coffee mugs from different companies. I always like that. So some type of corporate apparel or a little chotchky a way of saying thank you to the project team members. Conflict is an important topic in this context, and it is natural. Conflict just happens sometimes when people get together. So we need to be aware that it’s natural. Conflict can be a team issue, though it can really disrupt the team, make people feel awkward, and prevent communication. Obviously, it just slowed down our overall project performance and progress.

Openness resolves conflict. The old “elephant in the room” line says that sometimes you just need to open it up and talk about it, and that will help us work through the issue. And that’s important too—that we’re focusing on the issue and not the personalities. We’re looking at the issue that’s preventing us from moving forward, and how can we deal with that? We want to make certain that we, the project manager, or the people involved in the conflict, We’re focusing on the present problem, not things that have happened in the past but what’s happening right now. We want to consider just how important the conflict is. I mean, sometimes people are just jerks and they don’t get along and they want to bicker. Is that a really big problem? It could be. Or is this a small, minor issue, and thus a minor issue? We shouldn’t halt the entire project because of a minor issue, such as a disagreement between two people, unless it is disrupting the project as a whole. We need to find the relative importance of the conflict. How important is it really to find a solution? We want to have some time to consider the time pressure for conflict resolution. Do we have time to mediate, to talk, to communicate, and to work through the problem? Sometimes you don’t. So it might be very close to the end of the project.

And so we just have to take the role of the authoritarian and just say, “Look, we have like three days to finish this project.” You guys need to stop the conflict. Just put it aside. Let’s focus on getting the work done, and then we’ll deal with this later. Let’s be professionals and get it done now. That’s not always a realistic thing to do, but when we’re in a time crunch, sometimes we have to table the conflict and come back and address it later. We also want to consider the positions of each person involved. We have a senior manager and a junior engineer, and there is a conflict.

I guarantee you I’m going to go with a senior manager. So, with the understanding that the conflict is appropriate, we take that stance. I may still listen to what the junior engineer says, but if it’s something like that person isn’t doing their job properly, isn’t showing up for meetings, or isn’t communicating, it’s a very easy decision to squash that conflict and simply state the facts. We also want to find out the nature of the conflict. Do we want a short-term or a long-term solution? gets back to our time pressure. If this is a long, important project, and this conflict pops up early and gets ugly, then we need to find a way to resolve it as quickly as possible so it doesn’t continue to linger through the whole project.

Nobody wants that. For your exam, you really need to know these different methods for solving problems and different ways of contributing to conflict resolution. The first one is withdrawal. Withdrawal means that one person just says, “You know what? Everyone just do what I say. I’m tired of arguing about it. Have it your way.” And they just throw their hands up and leave, and so they withdraw from the conflict. It’s also known as “avoidance.” Just avoid the problem; fine, I don’t care; I’m out. So withdrawal is sometimes called a “yield loss” because one person yields to the other person. It may not necessarily really solve the problem, but it ends the conflict. Smoothing is when someone enters a conflict and minimises the problems while emphasising the similarities. So imagine we have two database guys in a big argument over Oracle versus Microsoft SQL. So I step between them and say, Look, guys, they’re both databases; they’re both fantastic, obviously good products. But for our project, we need to just choose one. Let’s move on and put this conflict aside.

So that’s smoothing; I’m not really solving the problem; I’m accommodating the opinions of both. This is where you might be patronising someone. So the smoothing is really a downplay, and really, it’s a lose-lose because neither party is really winning. You’re simply smoothing out the problem to resolve it, which is sometimes useful for minor issues. Compromising always sounds good, but compromising is really a lose-lose. Compromising is when both parties have to give up something in order for the conflict to be resolved. So, as lawyers say, it’s never good unless both parties have to give something up, unless both parties lose. So a good example of compromising is when a stakeholder comes to you and says, “Hey, I want to add XYZ to your project,” and you say, “I don’t want to do it, but in order to do it, you’re going to have to pay me more and you’re going to have to give us more time.” Well, the stakeholder doesn’t want to do that either. So compromising is that you have to take on the changes, and the stakeholder has to pay for them. So both parties lose. Both parties don’t really get what they want. Forcing means the person with authority forces the decision. So Bob says, “Hey, I’m a senior engineer, and I’ve been here for 25 years, and this is just the way we’re going to do it.”

Forcing is a lose-lose situation. So it’s just the person with authority who forces the decision. Now, collaborating and problem solving are really pretty good. These are the ones that we want. These terms indicate that we have an issue or a problem and will work together in a cooperative spirit to solve it. So if we work together to resolve the problem, problem solving is the same idea. We work together; we’re not really in a fight; we just want the best decision for the project. Problem solving may also be known as “confronting” because we confront the problem, not one another. Understand the characteristics of those who will appear on your exam. They’re probably going to have a few questions where they’re going to show a scenario, a conflict, and how the conflict is managed. And then you’ll have to identify how it is being solved. So know that for your exam. relying on interpersonal skills. So leadership, as I mentioned, is all about aligning, motivating, and inspiring people. You want people to feel excited and engaged and to have some buy-in to your project. So you inspire people to get the work done.

Influencing is all about being persuasive. So you consider the organisational structure of your project team, as well as the authority in your organisation that you are attempting to influence. Being able to listen actively and effectively is part of having influence. So active listening means that I am involved in the conversation and that I understand what you’re saying. Effective listening requires that you understand the underlying message and the meaning of the conversation, that you are engaged, that you can offer feedback and clarity, and that you ask questions. that I’m aware of project team interactions and issues. that I’m not just so removed from the project that I’m not paying attention to what’s going on with my project team members. I’m engaged in what they’re doing without really getting in the way of progress.

We want to maintain trust while managing the project team. So it’s a delicate balance between being seen as an authoritative figure while also being seen as a leader. So we want to maintain trust, and some of that just comes with experience and some of the nuances of management making effective decisions. When it comes to making decisions in a project, we should also be focusing on the project goals: why are we doing the project, and does this decision affect those goals for the better? In project management, you should always follow a decision-making process. That I don’t want to have a knee-jerk reaction, that I want to understand the problem, analyse it, maybe do some research, talk to other people, and then make a decision, whatever your process is, but find and create a way to make the best decision. Understand the environmental factors, the political factors, and what’s happening behind the scenes. Some of that undercurrent affects your decision. So understand the environmental factors of what your decision may do to you, your team, and the project. Analyze information.

So I don’t make a quick reaction, I don’t make quick decisions necessarily, and sometimes you have to pause and really understand that they analyse all the information. This helps to develop the personal qualities of the project team members. I’ve seen so many projects where I’ve gone into consultation where the project team is just in a frenzy all the time, they’re panicked, and they aren’t getting along with one another. Then I meet the project team member, and they are exactly like that. I meet the project manager, and they are exactly as they are. But a lot of times, your project team and how they act on the project will just emulate how the project manager acts. So if you’re cool, calm, and collective and have your stuff together, your project team members usually will too. They’ll follow your example. Find ways to stimulate team creativity. Encourage people to experiment; encourage people to find better ways to do their work. It doesn’t have to be boring, and it doesn’t have to be inconvenient that you want team creativity to find better solutions to be more effective in the work that they do. Manage risk. So there are risks with the decisions that you make, with your project team, and with how you manage your team. We’ll talk more about risk in Chapter 11 of the PINbox on Project Risk Management. And then, I think the most important thing here with making effective decisions is to be approachable, where people aren’t afraid of the project manager and feel like the project manager is on the team.

And I like to adopt a servant leadership mentality, where my role as a PM is to help people get the project done. I may be in charge of the project; I may be responsible for the project, but I want to be approachable. I want to help the project team members do what they need to do and stay out of their way. but to be approachable when there is an issue or a problem. Let’s talk about some management styles. And I’ve mentioned some of these already. The first one is autocratic. The project manager makes all of the decisions. So that’s not a good approach. Autocratic is not a good approach. The project team members need to be involved to some extent. Democratic means the project team is involved in the decisions. But be aware of the democratic fact that the PM can still override any decisions they may come up with. But generally, I stay out of the way, let the team decide, and then I approve that decision. Lazare is just awful. That’s why the project manager allows the team to lead and to make all decisions. Sounds nice, but Maze Fair means the Prime Minister does nothing and makes no decisions. And sometimes we need the PM, and a lot of the time we need the PM involved with the decision-making process. Have you ever had one of those managers that just never makes a decision? They just hide that.

Lazaire’s exceptionality sounds great. You’re an exceptional project manager. But an exceptional management style means that the PM manages by exception and is very reactive. So, for example, I’m going to talk to the top 10% of the performers and the bottom 10% of the performers, and everybody else is just in the slush in the middle. So it’s very reactive, where it always seems like it’s somebody’s turn to be in trouble or somebody’s turn to get the certificate of the week. It’s exceptional. It’s not a good approach. So know the characteristics of these management styles. Along with this, we want to know the five project management powers. So this is how people see you as a project manager. You’re an expert. You’re an expert project manager because you’ve been doing it for so long. Or you’re an expert in your discipline, and you’ve come up through the ranks to the role of the PM, and people recognise that you have reward power, where people see you as someone who can give a reward for the work that they do. Formal power is positional power. Because I’m a new PM in this company, I have no relationship with my project team. So I am just kind of a figurehead. I don’t really have any true power over the team.

Its positional coercion is the opposite of reward. Coercive is where the project team feels threatened by the project manager. They think the PM is someone who can write them up, give them a bad review, or affect their pay structure, so they feel threatened. Then there are two meetings through interpretations. One is that I’ve worked with Jane, that project manager, before, and I know she’s really good, and I really like working with her. So we already have a working relationship. So it’s referring The other approach is that the team is questioning how I want to manage the project or a decision I’ve made. And I say, “You know what, Bob? The CEO put me in charge of this project, and this is how Bob wants it done.” So that’s how we’re doing it, where I refer to someone else’s power. Great. This brings us to the end of our discussion here about managing the project team. We talked about a lot of things in this section, some important things in this lecture. So pay attention to that in our next lecture. I know you’re happy to hear this. We’re going to have a learning game. So here’s another chance to go out and play a game and put some of what you’ve learned here to the test. So go enjoy that at the next lecture, and I’ll see you in just a few minutes.

7. Section Wrap

Great job finishing this section! Project Human Resources Management One of the toughest sections, I think, for many project managers is this one on planning and managing people. We talked about creating a staff management plan and how we acquire and release staff from our project. Then we looked at some HR theories, like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You’ll need to know that for your exam, and what are those five levels?

So we had physiological safety, social esteem,  and, where you are, self-actualization. So in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I can’t satisfy the need above until the need below has been satisfied. Then we looked at Hertzberg’s theory of motivation, where we had motivating agents and hygiene agents. If I don’t have my hygiene agent, I’m probably not really motivated. McGregor’s theory of x and y Remember, x is bad and y is good. You want to be over here on the Y side. Correct. All right. McLellan’s theory of needs I told you I was going to ask you a question about McLellan’s theory of needs. It’s also known as the acquired needs theory or the three needs theory. So what are those three needs that we all have that McClellan talks about? I know some of you are out there answering out loud. Others are just sitting quietly. But I’m sure you had the three requirements in mind. You have achievement, affiliation, and power.

Over time, our life experiences create these needs. And one of these needs drives our motivation. And then we talked about Wiji’s theory. Z is the Japanese management style. The expectation theory People behave around you based on what they believe their behaviour will bring them. The halo effect, where you rise to your own level of incompetence, is how some people may describe that. However, for the halo effect, we must reconsider organisational planning, project team acquisition, getting the right people on our team, cost competency, and any legal or regulatory requirements. Working with virtual teams or noncolocated teams is really important and valuable to do. It saves time and money, and it accommodates people with limited mobility and disabilities. It lets people with varying schedules participate in the project. So virtual teams are a really important concept and pretty common in today’s world, right? When you are developing the project team that you want to improve competencies with, you want people to interact. And then we got into team development. We had those interpersonal skills. talked about training the team and doing some team building.

Then there were the five levels of team development, which I’m sure you’re familiar with: forming, storming, norming, performing, and a sad one: a journey in which members of your team disbanded. Then we talked about managing the project team. And this is all about tracking performance, giving feedback, and resolving conflict because we know that conflict is natural. We don’t want conflict to become a team issue and disrupt the project. So we have some different ways of solving some problems. Remember withdrawal, smoothing, compromising, forcing,  collaborating, and problem solving. We also looked at some project management powers, like expert, reward, formal, coercive, and refer. There are lots of terms in this section, so this is probably a good section to make sure your flashcards are up to date with all of these different terms. So you recognise the terms, you recognise the theories, and you understand them. That’s just more points in your favour on the exam. All right, good job. You really are making great progress. We’re getting closer and closer to the end of the course. I’m excited. I hope that you are. I hope that you’re learning a lot. So keep involved. Keep doing the activities, the games, and the quizzes. You’ve got to keep involved and stay on top of this to work towards your goal. You can do this.