Question

1. What are some of the ways to bring out the best in your team?

2. What are five phases of the team development cycle and what's their significance?

3. What are the steps of the Risk Management Planning and what are the characteristics of each step?

4. Reflection questions: What is the one most important thing that you took away from project managment ? How will that help you achieve your goals you set.

Answer 1

ANS. (1.)

1. Establish clear goals, but let your employees find their way to reach them.

The people working for you have to be intrigued by and interested in what they are doing in order to be motivated and have an open mind towards improving the projects they are working on.
This can’t be achieved if you are always looking over their shoulder and trying to micro-manage every small detail, not allowing any freedom in decision-making. People tend to become hesitant, uncomfortable and even unconfident about their work in these kind of environments, which leads to little creativity and a lost opportunity to find new innovations as a project progresses.

2. Monitor their work, but remain at a distance.

When your team is working to achieve the goals set out for them, you should keep tabs on how they are progressing, but never go overboard.

There’s a thin line between being interested in their progress and intruding on their personal working approaches or trying to do their job for them. Allow them the freedom to work at their own pace, and try not to force any methods. Listen to what they need and help them overcome any hurdles they might face while progressing.

3. Make your team’s job easier, not harder.

If you want to maintain good morale and a positive outlook among your staff, be wary of criticising and controlling their efforts too much. It’s better to support their creative processes—provide them with the tools necessary and help “sell” their work to other departments, if that is needed.

This all serves to remove as many hurdles from their progress as possible, helping them to achieve their goals as fast as possible. It also enhances their confidence, knowing that their manager or superior is behind them and their ideas.

4. Create and separate idea-generation and idea-evaluation processes.

Both creating and evaluating ideas are paramount to the innovation process, so there are key steps that need to be taken in order to achieve success. Don’t make the common mistake of mixing idea generation and idea evaluation. This can have a detrimental effect on the innovation process.These two must be separated because they are completely different processes.

5. Praise effort and reward your team.

Showing appreciation for the work ethic and professional integrity of your team will make them feel empowered. They will continue to produce high quality work and will pursue rewarded efforts. Encouraging them to progress and providing incentives along the way will demonstrate your leadership skills, while also helping them become a solid team and produce the best work possible.

ANS.(2)

#1 Forming Stage

The first stage of team development is forming, which is a lot like orientation day at college or a new job. You could even compare it to going out on a first date.

The team has just been introduced and everyone is overly polite and pleasant. At the start, most are excited to start something new and to get to know the other team members.

During this stage, you may discuss:

• Member’s skills, background and interests
• Project goals
• Timeline
• Ground rules
• Individual roles

#2. Storming stage

The storming stage is the most difficult and critical stage to pass through. It is a period marked by conflict and competition as individual personalities emerge. Team performance may actually decrease in this stage because energy is put into unproductive activities. Members may disagree on team goals, and subgroups and cliques may form around strong personalities or areas of agreement. To get through this stage, members must work to overcome obstacles, to accept individual differences, and to work through conflicting ideas on team tasks and goals. Teams can get bogged down in this stage. Failure to address conflicts may result in long-term problems.

#3. Norming stage

If teams get through the storming stage, conflict is resolved and some degree of unity emerges. In the norming stage, consensus develops around who the leader or leaders are, and individual member’s roles. Interpersonal differences begin to be resolved, and a sense of cohesion and unity emerges. Team performance increases during this stage as members learn to cooperate and begin to focus on team goals. However, the harmony is precarious, and if disagreements re-emerge the team can slide back into storming.

#4. Performing stage

In the performing stage, consensus and cooperation have been well-established and the team is mature, organized, and well-functioning. There is a clear and stable structure, and members are committed to the team’s mission. Problems and conflicts still emerge, but they are dealt with constructively. (We will discuss the role of conflict and conflict resolution in the next section). The team is focused on problem solving and meeting team goals.

#5. Adjourning stage

In the adjourning stage, most of the team’s goals have been accomplished. The emphasis is on wrapping up final tasks and documenting the effort and results. As the work load is diminished, individual members may be reassigned to other teams, and the team disbands. There may be regret as the team ends, so a ceremonial acknowledgement of the work and success of the team can be helpful. If the team is a standing committee with ongoing responsibility, members may be replaced by new people and the team can go back to a forming or storming stage and repeat the development process.

ANS.(3.)

Steps of the Risk Management Process

1. Identify the risk
2. Analyze the risk
3. Prioritize the risk
4. Treat the risk
5. Monitor the risk

   1. Identify the risk

   Anticipating possible pitfalls of a project doesn't have to feel like gloom and doom for your organization. Quite the opposite. Identifying risks is a positive experience that your whole team can take part in and learn from.

   Leverage the collective knowledge and experience of your entire team. Ask everyone to identify risks they've either experienced before or may have additional insight about. This process fosters communication and encourages cross-functional learning.

   2. Analyze the risk

   Once your team identifies possible problems, it's time to dig a little deeper. How likely are these risks to occur? And if they do occur, what will the ramifications be?

   During this step, your team will estimate the probability and fallout of each risk to decide where to focus first. Factors such as potential financial loss to the organization, time lost, and severity of impact all play a part in accurately analyzing each risk. By putting each risk under the microscope, you’ll also uncover any common issues across a project and further refine the risk management process for future projects.

   3. Prioritize the risk

   Now prioritization begins. Rank each risk by factoring in both its likelihood of happening and its potential effect on the project.

   This step gives you a holistic view of the project at hand and pinpoints where the team's focus should lie. Most importantly, it’ll help you identify workable solutions for each risk. This way, the project itself is not interrupted or delayed in significant ways during the treatment stage.

   4. Treat the risk

   Once the worst risks come to light, dispatch your treatment plan. While you can’t anticipate every risk, the previous steps of your risk management process should have you set up for success. Starting with the highest priority risk first, task your team with either solving or at least mitigating the risk so that it’s no longer a threat to the project.

   Effectively treating and mitigating the risk also means using your team's resources efficiently without derailing the project in the meantime. As time goes on and you build a larger database of past projects and their risk logs, you can anticipate possible risks for a more proactive rather than reactive approach for more effective treatment.

   5. Monitor the risk

   Clear communication among your team and stakeholders is essential when it comes to ongoing monitoring of potential threats. And while it may feel like you're herding cats sometimes, with your risk management process and its corresponding project risk register in place, keeping tabs on those moving targets becomes anything but risky business.

ANS.(4.)

You set your goals on a number of levels:

• First you create your "big picture" of what you want to do with your life (or over, say, the next 10 years), and identify the large-scale goals that you want to achieve.
• Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your lifetime goals.
• Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.

This is why we start the process of setting goals by looking at your lifetime goals. Then, we work down to the things that you can do in, say, the next five years, then next year, next month, next week, and today, to start moving towards them.

Step 1: Setting Lifetime Goals

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future). Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.

Step 2: Setting Smaller Goals

Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan.

Then create a one-year plan, six-month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan.

Then create a daily To-Do List  of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.

STEP 3: Staying on Course

Once you've decided on your first set of goals, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your To-Do List on a daily basis.

Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience. (A good way of doing this is to schedule regular, repeating reviews using a computer-based diary.)

STEP 4: SMART Goals

A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART  mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants (some of which we've included in parenthesis), SMART usually stands for:

• S – Specific (or Significant).
• M – Measurable (or Meaningful).
• A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).
• R – Relevant (or Rewarding).
• T – Time-bound (or Trackable).