The paper analyses some project related case to discuss some project behaviour and categorize them in terms of good, poor and ugly or bad behaviour. This categorization has been done with reference to standard project management principles. Three case have been selected here which is based on a project of organizing a sport event in college. This project has been selected as this will help to analyse the cases better because of personal experience and interaction with the project. The analysis of the cases has been done in a systematic manner. Fist the context of the case has been analysed, then the justification has been provided behind selecting the behaviour as good, poor or ugly in that particular case followed by lesson learned for the project management behaviour. The same style has been followed for all the three cases analysed here in the report.
Description of the context and the case
The context of the case is related to the organization of a sport event in college and I was a part of the project as well.
As the event was decided to be an extravagant one, there was required to form a team to manage several aspect of the project. The head of the college sport department was selected as leader to manage the project. He formed three different team to serve different requirements such as finance, student coordination, logistics management, food management as well as waste management.
Although team members were assigned role, the leader interacted with each and every one to identify if everyone has understood the role and responsibility properly or not. He also investigate about if everyone is satisfied with the role or not. After the interaction it was revealed that 2 members in the student coordination team is was not satisfied with the team design as they though that the distribution has not been done properly and the leader was particularly biased in assigning the role of finance management to 3 of the team member even though they were having the relatively less experience than 2 of them. Hence this position would have been assigned to them if there was no biasness.
The leader then explained in details to them that the position of student coordination is as important as the position of finance management. Hence he wanted someone in the student coordination team who have experience in this context and they were the most experienced in this aspect as they already have done this before. The other three persons who were assigned to the finance team does not have experience in this aspect. Otherwise there was no reason behind the team distribution rather than designing a balanced team based on experience and efficiency for effective project execution and project success.
The leader here has set an exemplary good behaviour as it will ensure effective team design and team collaboration (Todorovi? et al. 2015). If the issue was not identified by the leader, there was possibility of conflict within the team which means teams would find it difficult to work effectively and increase productivity (Aga, Noorderhaven and Vallejo 2016). However as the leader was quick to interact with team members it was easier for him to identify the issue and solve it properly with providing justification for the choice. As the reason for roles and responsibility distribution became clear to the team members who thought of bias, they agreed to set aside the differences and work effectively to ensure tem goal as well as project goal (Pat Holahan and Ann Mooney 2018).
The role of leader should not only be limited to the team formation and team supervising, he or should be able to identify issue within the team and make sure that each and every team members are satisfied with roles and responsibilities and this should be done with effective interaction and communication with the team members (Humphrey et al. 2017). Apart from finding issue, leader should also resolve those issues effectively to ensure proper environment for team work and team collaboration for the project.
Description of the context and the case
The context of this case is also related to the same project identified in the previous section.
The progress of the project was running smoothly. The estimated budget was also secured from funding and sponsorship. However two team members informed few days before that they would not be able to appear for 2 days. As there was not any prior information and backup was not available to substitute their work. Now it was poor behaviour form the team member but the project manager should be accounted for this as well. Because it is always important to have proper backup plan as project based work should always have plan b if plan have some issues and need to be modified for project progress.
The context of this case is also related to same project referred in the first case. Here the context of the case is related to the resource scarcity.
As the preparation for the event was in full swing, there was no way to allow delay in the project. However one member from the filed preparation team was absent and there was no one available to replace that role as every team was busy in their own work. Even there was no alternate plan for that as the project manager did not take that into account while developing the schedule for the project.
Here the manager lacks transactional leadership skills. Hence he was not efficient in preparing the schedule for the project and also lacked proper panning (Lee et al. 2015). If the manager had proper skill, he would have definitely took resource scarcity in the project schedule planning (Pat Holahan and Ann Mooney 2018).
If there was an alternative plan then he could have find substitution for that effectively to make sure that the project is completed within time. Hence this behaviour of the manager is poor in the context of project management and project leadership (Dominick, Lechler and Aronson 2004).
Resource scarcity is an important issue to be recognized in any project based work. Hence planning for the project should take this into consideration, especially when designing project schedule. There should always be an alternative plan along with the primary plan so that it is possible to deal with issues like resource scarcity, especially human resource without compromising with project progress and quality and finish the project within time.
Hence project manager should apply his or her transactional leadership qualities while designing project schedule to ensure effective project planning in terms of resource estimation, resource substitution and resource arrangement for achieving success in the project as a project manager as well as a project leader.
The context of this case is also related to the project that has been discussed in the earlier section of the report. The behaviour related to this case is identified as ugly or bad as the behaviour is not justified at all, especially in the context of professional project management behaviour.
In the finance team of the project, out of eight team member two member were friends of each other and there were one member who had personal issue with one of the two friends. So they were not satisfied to work with him. Hence when he went to them for some project related help as they were experienced, he was manipulated by them by wrong information. If they had issue with him they could have just denied to help him. But they provided him wrong information deliberately so that they could prove that he is not fit for the work and he should not be included in the team.
This behaviour is not acceptable at all as it is not professionally justified. First of all, in professional aspect team members should not prioritize personal issues as long as it is not affecting team work and team goal (Yeung, Fung and Chan 2015). However, even If they had issue with the team member they should have discussed it with the team leader rather than misguiding him to prove that he is not worth of the position that he has been assigned with. This kind of activities not only affect the team work but also destroy environment to allow constructive conflict enrich team knowledge and team collaboration (Pinha and Ahluwalia 2018). As a result team diversity, instead of enhancing team work, creates issues for the project itself which leads to destructive conflict within the team. Hence this behaviour has been termed as ugly or bad for the project (Holahan and Mooney 2018).
Diversity in the team is important for improving team knowledge and experience to increase team productivity. However with added benefits, diversity also has issues as identified in this case. When adding diversity it should be made sure that the team is accounted with the diversity and its need for the team (Kerzner and Kerzner 2017). Hence in this context team members needs to be motivated to work effectively in team and set aside all the personal conflict if any as the focus should be on the team work and team goal.
Team members have to be motivated as well to discuss issues within the team and with the team leader as well. They should allow each other to share knowledge within team and increase their knowledge through communication and interactions. Leader has to take the responsibility to effectively manage conflicts within team so that it does not encourage destructive conflict where there is less chance of accomplishing team based goal through effective team work and knowledge sharing (Kerzner and Kerzner 2017). Hence this need to be properly reviewed and if there is any issues identified, no matter how less significant it seems, this should be resolved properly so that it is easier to achieve success in the project.
Conclusion:
The analysis of three cases have brought several important and key points about successful project executions, team behaviours, leadership qualities and team work.
According to the analysis of the first case it is concluded that leadership plays an important role in the execution of any project. A leader should have the ability to always lead from the front and take responsibilities for identifying issues within team and resolving them efficiently with expertise. One of the major issues in any team building and team leading is the identification of cause behind team conflict and resolve them properly before it could affect the project progress and project success. One of the most important and effective strategy for resolving team conflict is to identify if the distribution of roles and responsibility is proper within the team and each and every member is satisfied with that. This has to be make sure by the leader himself or herself and for this a leader should always have an exceptional transformation leadership skill.
Another important point according to this assessment is that, in project based work resource scarcity, especially human resource is a major problem if not identified or planed properly with effective resource allocation. Hence it is concluded that resource planning have to be proper and there should be scope for proper resource substitution in the actual project planning. Hence it is important to have an alternate plan that specifies what exactly need to be done in case original plan has issue. Transactional leadership skill helps a leader to plan properly which ensures success in the project. Hence it is concluded that apart from transformational skill a leader should also have transactional skill as well to become successful leader and resolve issues effectively and efficiently within a project.
When working in a team it is necessary to set aside personal issues and focus on collaborative team work. If a team does not ensures collaborative work, team work will not be effective. Team work plays an essential role in team based project to decide whether the project will be successful or not. While adding diversity in a team it is duty of the leader to identify if team members are willing to work in such a diversity and ensure successful team work. If this is not ensured it will create differences within team and there will be conflict within the team. Hence this issue have be properly assessed to ensure effective team work and project success.
References:
Aga, D.A., Noorderhaven, N. and Vallejo, B., 2016. Transformational leadership and project success: The mediating role of team-building. International Journal of Project Management, 34(5), pp.806-818.
Dominick, Peter., Lechler, Thomas. and Aronson, Zvi., 2004. PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS AND PROJECT LEADERSHIP: Understanding Sources of Uncertainty in Project-Based work. [ONLINE] Available at: https://web.stevens.edu/ses/documents/fileadmin/documents/pdf/Project%20characteristics%20and%20project%20leadership.pdf. [Accessed 5 December 2018].
Holahan, Pat. and Mooney, Ann., 2004. Conflict In Project Teams: Gaining The Benefits, Avoiding The Costs. [ONLINE] Available at: https://web.stevens.edu/ses/documents/fileadmin/documents/pdf/Project%20characteristics%20and%20project%20leadership.pdf. [Accessed 5 December 2018].
Humphrey, S.E., Aime, F., Cushenbery, L., Hill, A.D. and Fairchild, J., 2017. Team conflict dynamics: Implications of a dyadic view of conflict for team performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 142, pp.58-70.
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Lee, C.C., Lin, Y.H., Huang, H.C., Huang, W.W. and Teng, H.H., 2015. The effects of task interdependence, team cooperation, and team conflict on job performance. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 43(4), pp.529-536.
Pinha, D.C. and Ahluwalia, R.S., 2018. Flexible resource management and its effect on project cost and duration. Journal of Industrial Engineering International, pp.1-15.
Todorovi?, M.L., Petrovi?, D.?., Mihi?, M.M., Obradovi?, V.L. and Bushuyev, S.D., 2015. Project success analysis framework: A knowledge-based approach in project management. International Journal of Project Management, 33(4), pp.772-783.
Yeung, D.Y., Fung, H.H. and Chan, D., 2015. Managing conflict at work: comparison between younger and older managerial employees. International Journal of Conflict Management, 26(3), pp.342-364.
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