This assignment will, firstly, summarise the learning covered in two topics from the lectures for this module, ENT1000PP, and, secondly, describe how this learning was applied when working on the Inspiring Futures Project. The topics to be summarised are: project, stakeholder and risk management and teamwork and managing people. During the Inspiring Futures Project, the client, Plymouth University Faculty of Business, changed the scope of the project detailing that they only required a survey to be conducted to find out students feelings around communication from the university, later into the essay it will be discussed how strong team working skills and project management allowed the team to overcome complications that arose.
Project management is ‘‘a unique process, consisting of a set of coordinated and controlled activities with start and finish dates, undertaken to achieve objectives that conform to specific requirements, including constraints of time, cost and resources’ (Lester, 2013). There are many different types of management: operations management, human resource management, financial management to name a few. An example of project management would be during acquisition: they are unique, one-off projects that are led by a team of people with many members fulfilling different roles that all contribute to the end point such as a finance manager, logistics manager and an operations manager. Numerous fundamentals make up project management (Heaney, 2012). The main fundamental is leadership. ‘Leadership is the ability to inspire, persuade, or influence others to follow a course of action towards a defined goal’ (Lester, 2013). There are numerous differences between leaders and managers, however there are some aspects of both roles that do overlap. Leaders set the aims, vision and direction, create value, raise expectations, lead people and are proactive (Kozak, 1998). Managers follow policies and procedure, give direction, have subordinates, are risk-averse and reactive. Similarly, both managers and leaders motivate others, explain a vision, mobilise resources and aim to accomplish a goal (Kozak, 1998). In his 2009 book, David Bertocci stated that ‘it is the creation of a compelling vision that distinguishes leaders from managers’. From the above is could be concluded that ultimately in a project, the role of a leader is to be assertive, delegate tasks and decide how best to deliver the project, in order to lead successfully it is deemed necessary to communicate with the team to decide how best to lead them.
Stakeholders are a vital consideration in any project, they are described as ’people or small groups with the power to respond to, negotiate with, and change the strategic future of the organisation’ (Eden and Ackermann, 1998). They are someone who has a specific interest in the business this could be neighbours of project, end users, people working in the team to provide it the outcome. There must be a representative for everyone affected by the end product to ensure that all voices are heard and everyone involved has had the chance to voice any concerns. Stakeholders must be consulted before and during new projects they have the power to affect change to the business. To ensure stakeholders are properly managed, there are multiple steps to take. Firstly, the stakeholders must be identified; this is a brainstorming process to recognise people with power over our project, and an interest in its success or failure. Secondly, stakeholder analysis could be used to see interest and impact of the stakeholders and following this stakeholder planning should be implemented to manage communication between stakeholders according to how much interest and influence they have in the project (Freeman, 1984). Exercising strong stakeholder management can ensure a project runs smoothly as all relevant parties are kept happy and support the project towards meeting its expected outcomes.
Risks are present in everyday life but in business can carry higher consequences than standard everyday risk: they can, ultimately, threaten the success of a project. Risk could be considered a subjective term although ‘managers generally associate risk with negative outcomes’ (March and Shapira, 1987). Risks need to be managed. According to the Institute of Risk Management, ‘risk management involves understanding, analysing and addressing risk to make sure organisations achieve their objectives’. Identifying the varying levels of risk and then implementing protective and contingency measures would, in my opinion, constitute as successful risk management.
Teamwork is a concept that should be understood to ensure effective efforts when working in a team as understanding dynamics, roles and motivation factors will potentially enhance the success of the group. People are unique: they respond better to different types of leadership and encouragement. Some managers get the best out of their staff by encouraging: creativity, innovation, calculated risk taking and independent thinking whereas others offer incentives and create a competitive atmosphere between staff and teams, most managers understand that criticisms and punishments do not increase productivity, however it does depends what motivates people as to how they respond. Good teamwork is about working together collaboratively: team work is like a synergy. A synergy is where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Put simply, when efforts are combined, more can be accomplished than if each part was working alone. A team will succeed when everyones strengths and weaknesses are taken into account. If you assign people the tasks where their skills are strongest then they will perform to the best of their ability. However there are many reasons why teams might fail; these are divided into five categories: environmental influences, goals (or lack of), roles, processes and relationships. Belbin (1981) stated that people assume their preferred roles when working in a team, they know which roles they could assume if needed and which roles to avoid. ‘The Belbin (1981) self-perception inventory depicted 9 roles: implementer, shaper, plant, co-ordinator, resource investigator, monitor evaluator, team-worker, complete finisher and specialist, and allows individuals to see the contribution they give to a team’, it also allows team leaders to assess their subordinates and assign roles relating to their strengths. Another interesting piece of research relating to team work is the ‘Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing’ model produced by Tuchman (1965). It describes the stages a team goes through on the road to becoming high-performing which is the ideal position to be in and as soon as possible. Team leaders can use the tool to identify which stage their team is at and then tailor their strategies to ensure the team move to the next stage as soon as possible in order to reach the end point. It is evident that there are many tools available to leaders to enhance their success when working in teams.
During the Inspiring Futures Project, the scope was changed by the client, something which caused a great deal of confusion within the team however due to knowledge of the Belbin (1981) tool the matter was soon overcome allowing the team to swiftly progress to the ‘Performing’ stage of Tuchman’s (1965) model. Belbin (1981) allowed the group to understand that Thomas was naturally a coordinator so he became the leader and listened then delegated tasks to the people they were most suited. Alex on this task was a specialist due to the fact his internship was similar to the project assigned. Alice, Imogen and Jasmin were an implementer, shaper and plant respectively. As we all assumed different roles naturally working together as a team was not difficult. In accordance with Tuchman (1965), the ‘forming, storming and norming’ phases all occurred within the initial two weeks of the project allowing us to quickly process to the pe
rforming stage where we continued to work well together. Like all successful project managers, Thomas set the ultimate aim and direction of the project, following a discussion with the team, he then kept this as the focus of all of our bi-weekly meetings. Throughout the Project, the team experienced many obstacles that threatened our ability to complete and submit the project however the risks were identified and reduced and contingency plans were put in place. For example, a risk was that following the deletion of existing data gathered a week before the deadline, there would not be enough time to collect enough new data to analyse so to reduce this risk, a plan of action was created so it was known who the new survey would be sent out to, by who and on what day, therefore limiting the risk to the overall project.
Following the summaries of the topics covered in the lectures, and then applying it to a real-life situation it is clear that the research taught is of significant benefit to the corporate world. Team working, once the initial ‘forming and storming’ phases (Tuchman, 1965) are overcome, can offer huge benefits to projects, synergy is a perfect explanation of this. Whilst there were difficulties in completing the Inspiring Futures Project, it was clear from the start that research by Belbin (1981) and Tuchman (1965) assisted the team in better understanding each other and ultimately aided our successfully completion of the project suggesting that in practice the theory does stand true.