9.5 Manage Team

Description: it is the process of tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing team changes to optimize project performance. It involves a combination of skills with special emphasis on communication, conflict management, negotiation, and leadership. Project managers should provide challenging assignments to team members and provide recognition for high performance. The project manager needs to be sensitive to both the willingness and the ability of team members to perform their work and adjust their management and leadership styles accordingly. Team members with low-skill abilities will require more intensive oversight than those who have demonstrated ability and experience.

Key benefit: it influences team behavior, manages conflict, and resolves issues.

Frequency: throughout the project.

Process / Asset Group	Input	The Process	Output	Process / Asset Group
Project Management Plan	Resource Management Plan	9.5 Manage Team	Change Requests	4.6 Perform Integrated Change Management
Project Documents	Issue log		Resource management plan	Project Management Plan
	Lesson learned register		Schedule baseline
	Project team assignments		Cost baseline
	Team charter		Issue log	Project Documents
4.5 Monitor and Control Project Work	Work performance reports		Lesson learned register
9.4 Develop Team	Team performance assessment		Project team assignments
Enterprise / Organization	Enterprise environmental factors
	Organizational process assets

9.5.1 Inputs

9.5.1.1 Project Management Plan

Resource management plan - guidance on how project team resources should be managed and eventually released.

9.5.1.2 Project Documents

• Issue log. To document and monitor who is responsible for resolving specific issues by a target date.
• Lessons learned register.
• Project team assignments. To identify the team member roles and responsibilities.
• Team charter. It provides guidance for how the team will make decisions, conduct meetings, and resolve conflict.

9.5.1.3 Work Performance Reports

The physical or electronic representation of work performance information intended to generate decisions, actions, or awareness. Results from:

• Schedule control,
• Cost control, Quality control, and
• Scope validation.

It used for:

• Future team resource requirements,
• Recognition and rewards, and
• Updates to the resource management plan.

9.5.1.4 Team Performance Assessments

Used to:

• Resolve issues,
• Modify communication,
• Address conflict, and Improve team interaction.

9.5.1.5 Enterprise Environmental Factors

Human resource management policies.

9.5.1.6 Organizational Process Assets

• Certificates of appreciation,
• Corporate apparel, and
• Other organizational perquisites.

9.5.2 Tools and Techniques

9.5.2.1 Interpersonal and Team Skills

Include:

Conflict management.

Team ground rules, group norms, and solid project management practices, like communication planning and role definition, reduce the amount of conflict. Differences in opinion are generally good -> source of ideas. But when the differences become too big they become a source of conflict and the project manager has to resolve it. For hard cases formal procedures may be used. Sources of conflict:

• Scarce resources,
• Scheduling priorities, and
• Personal work styles.

Factors that influence conflict resolution methods:

• Importance and intensity of the conflict,
• Time pressure for resolving the conflict,
• Relative power of the people involved in the conflict,
• Importance of maintaining a good relationship, and
• Motivation to resolve conflict on a long-term or short-term basis.

Five general techniques for resolving conflict:

1. Withdraw/avoid. Retreating from an actual or potential conflict situation; postponing the issue to be better prepared or to be resolved by others.
2. Smooth/accommodate. Emphasizing areas of agreement rather than areas of difference; conceding one's position to the needs of others to maintain harmony and relationships.
3. Compromise/reconcile. Searching for solutions that bring some degree of satisfaction to all parties in order to temporarily or partially resolve the conflict. This approach occasionally results in a lose-lose situation.
4. Force/direct. Pushing one's viewpoint at the expense of others; offering only win-lose solutions, usually enforced through a power position to resolve an emergency.
5. Collaborate/problem solve. Incorporating multiple viewpoints and insights from differing perspectives; requires a cooperative attitude and open dialogue that typically leads to consensus and commitment. This approach can result in a win-win situation.

Decision Making

It involves the ability to negotiate and influence the organization and the project management team, rather than the set of tools described in the decision making tool set.

• Focus on goals to be served,
• Follow a decision-making process,
• Study the environmental factors,
• Analyze available information,
• Stimulate team creativity, and
• Account for risk.

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to identify, assess, and manage the personal emotions of oneself and other people, as well as the collective emotions of groups of people.

To use emotional intelligence to reduce tension and increase cooperation by identifying, assessing, and controlling the sentiments of project team members, anticipating their actions, acknowledging their concerns, and following up on their issues.

Influencing

• Ability to be persuasive;
• Clearly articulating points and positions;
• High levels of active and effective listening skills;
• Awareness of, and consideration for, the various perspectives in any situation; and
• Gathering relevant information to address issues and reach agreements while maintaining mutual trust.

Leadership

The ability to lead a team and inspire them to do their jobs well.

9.5.2.2 Project Management Information System (PMIS)

9.5.3 Outputs

9.5.3.1 Change Requests

Change requests are processed for review and disposition through the Perform Integrated Change Control process.

9.5.3.2 Project Management Plan Updates

• Resource management plan.
• Schedule baseline.
• Cost baseline.

9.5.3.3 Project Documents Updates

• Issue log.
• Lessons learned register.
• Project team assignments.

9.5.3.4 Enterprise Environmental Factors Updates

• Input to organizational performance appraisals, and
• Personnel skill.