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Chapter 11: Working with Project People 237 As a general rule, we like to take a democratic approach to project management: The team members are the experts, with the SPM approving their decisions and providing direction when necessary. Sometimes, however, you have to yield to the circumstances of your project, and you may have no other choice but to become more autocratic. And in rare situations, your pleasant democracy could become a dictatorship. You obviously want this to be the exception, not the rule. Teams that lead themselves with some oversight are happier; and happier times get more work done. When a conflict arises that demands your involvement, you should listen to each party individually and weigh what they are saying paying particular attention to why each person is passionate about the issue. You need to know whether the conflict and solution are in the best interest of the customer, a stakeholder, or the party voicing the issue. After you have weighed the matter, gather the parties in a meeting and explain the decision that you have come to. Here are some conflict resolution do s and don ts to consider when you have this meeting: Do make sure to address each and every concern that was expressed to you. Don t let things get emotional. Let the parties cool down, and don t let them rehash the issue in this meeting. Do clearly state the reason why you elected to go with the solution that you did. Don t let the parties walk out of your office before you tell them that you understand that they may not be pleased with the decision. Reiterate that it s the best decision and that they need to accept it for now. Do make sure that the parties understand that they need to let things go and get back to work. Do make certain that the team members leave knowing that when another conflict comes up, you will listen to it openly and objectively and make the right decision again. Documenting project conflicts and resolutions Conflicts should be looked upon with the same weight and value of every other part of a project. You should document specific conflicts, the parties involved, and the resolutions. This info can be helpful on future projects, as well as when you need to make changes to this project at a later time.
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236 Part III: Executing Your Software Project Plan the project nears completion. Project Timeline RequirementsgatheringScope statementMilestone reviewsScope verification Stakeholder Ifl Completion Few issues are truly black and white, which means that using phrases like you re wrong or I m right just serve to create unnecessary contention. You can express your reasonable conclusion based on your intimate experience with the project, but if a stakeholder still disagrees, you may have to implement plans that you don t like. You expect your team members to follow your instructions even if they disagree. As part of a larger team, that s also your job. In all cases, whether right or wrong, the stakeholder wants assurance assurance that the project will be successful and that they made a good choice by choosing to be involved in it. Dealing with project team members Fire them all. (Kidding.) Although firing difficult members of your team is an approach that has been employed by many a manager, it is the wrong tactic to take. Conflict can be a sure sign that members within the team are comfortable enough to express themselves and that s something that you can exploit for greater success. Isn t greater success what every project manager hopes for? Some experts in project management advocate moving team members to various teams over time. As the members become more comfortable with each other, they tend to disagree less often, so mixing up the dynamics by adding new members can be beneficial. The members of the team should know that it is okay to disagree with each other, and they should be comfortable doing so. However, they should also know that you will often make final decisions. Figure 11-2: Stakeholder influence wanes as
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Chapter 11: Working with Project People 235 Dealing with stakeholders You are the iconic representation of the project. When there is a disagreement, you are the one that others turn to for solutions. Stakeholders have an important interest riding on the success of the project, and they are looking to you to make their vision a successful reality. When stakeholders feel that a project is in jeopardy, or that it runs the risk of not being as successful as it could be, they are going to come running to you like a crime victim runs to a police officer. They want you to solve any conflicts and make it all okay. Your first job is to listen, and your second job is to act. In that order. Don t try and immediately jump to any conclusions on how they feel or how highly they value what they are concerned about. Repeat back what they ve said so that they feel assured that you get what they re saying. After you have assured them that you do understand their issues, begin to address them. Every situation is different. Sometimes the stakeholder is correct the project must proceed this way because that is the mandate. Other times, the stakeholder simply does not have all the information; that s when you need to introduce the relevant information and persuade the stakeholder about why your position is the best one. Of course, the best thing to do is to be proactive so that you can prevent being in this unenviable position in the first place. Stakeholders may be upset because they don t have all the pertinent information or they are seeing a situation through their eyes only. Documenting, implementing, and following a thorough communication plan to ensure appropriate stakeholders receive the appropriate information at you guessed it the appropriate times can help you prevent some of these conflicts. If the stakeholder is correct, don t be afraid to say so. Few things go so far today as admitting that you might be wrong and that someone else might be right. The progress of the project also has some bearing on the outcome of the disagreement, as Figure 11-2 demonstrates. Early on in the project, the stakeholders influence on changes and scope verification should be high, but as the project nears completion, their influence should wane. During the early phases of the project, when the stakeholder influence is high, the stakeholder conflicts or issues may be more prominent than at times when the stakeholder influence is not as high. If the stakeholder is wrong, say so. Delicacy is paramount there are many ways of letting people know that they are wrong, but few are as successful as education (and avoiding use of the phrase you re wrong ). Explain why your thoughts differ and focus on the end result.
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234 Part III: Executing Your Software Project Plan Be careful when choosing team-building exercises. Some activities require participants to compete with one another while others require members to work together to accomplish a common goal. If you have more questions about team building, check out Team Building for the Future: Beyond the Basics by Steve L. Phillips and Robin L. Elledge for more information on team building. You should also check in with your organization s HR or Organizational Development department. The smart people in this part of your company may have more information about team development than you realize. Managing Project Conflicts Will you complete your project without a single problem or hitch? Absolutely and then you ll wake up. If projects were easy enough to be completed without any problems, there wouldn t be a need for project managers. Your primary job would become updating your resume. Too often, we tend to think of conflict as a bad thing. Life would be better if everyone would just think like you do and agree with you. So much more would be possible. In reality, conflict enables greatness. If there wasn t any conflict, would anything ever get better? What a bland, boring project it d be without any challenges or disagreements. It is all right if team members sometimes disagree, feel passionate about the project, and take a stance on an issue. You want them to express those opinions, share them, and explain why they are important. When team members use their skills of arguing logically and thinking critically to examine issues, they contribute to the project s success by coming up with original ideas to solve problems. When dynamic people express their ideas and opinions, especially in complicated projects, creative solutions arise. Of course, you also want them to disagree in a civilized manner, to follow directions when asked, to be willing to compromise, to see the point of view of others, and to accept that their opinion may be just that. When this happens, the team wins, the project improves, and everyone benefits from it. Still, sometimes conflicts need your attention. In the following sections, we address the methods you can use to address conflicts with various stakeholders involved in the project. Here s a teaser: The first rule is to listen before you respond.
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Chapter 11: Working with Project People 233 Doing Some Fun Team-Building Exercises Don t roll your eyes. When many think of team building, they think of making a fool of themselves in some torturous exercise that doesn t seem to really have anything to do with the task at hand. You may hear apocryphal stories of teams that go hiking through the mountains so that they can bond. I m still waiting for stories of project team members that were chased by bears and snakes, and wandered lost in the woods for hours. You don t need the Smoky Mountains, however, to do some team building. At any library (read Team Building for Diverse Work Groups by Selma G. Myers, and published by Wiley), and at a plethora of Web sites, you can find information on simple exercises that can be used to build effective teams. These include everything from the aforementioned survival mission to being able to suspend countless tennis balls for a short period of time. When you look at these, you should ask but one question: Why are we doing this? Here s a list of just a few popular team-building exercises: Golfing or putt-putt Bowling Geocaching (going on a geographically oriented treasure hunt) Outdoor rope courses (Check out The Power of Team Building: Using Rope Techniques by Harrison Snow, published by Wiley) Paintball Hide-and-go-seek The reason for any team building is to help the members establish trust in one another and come out of their shells; you want to expedite the natural team- building process in order to make the team more cohesive and get results faster. The goal of team-building exercises is really simple: Build a cohesive team. When choosing what type of exercise to employ, you should know something about the members of your team. If you take the wrong approach, you can end up with the wrong results. For example, taking a group of insecure programmers and making them play baseball against a college team probably isn t going to make them respect you much and feel as if they gained anything from the experience. Take that same group of programmers, give them a box of Lego blocks and a remote control car, tell them to create a city that the car can maneuver through, and they ll be off and running. This simple exercise demands the whole team be involved and work together towards a common cause. Its simplicity doesn t overpower the purpose of the exercise.
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232 Part III: Executing Your Software Project Plan 4. Performing. Forget the power struggles and politics we ve got to get this project done! In this stage, performing is the primary goal. The project team members have accepted their roles and are working hard to meet goals and deadlines. Making a team out of a group of people The transition from individual to team member rarely occurs at the same time for any two people. It is, however, often accompanied by a number of things: A belief that everyone is working toward a common goal. A feeling that the goal everyone is working toward is worthwhile. The creation of trust among members of the team. The members feel as if it is okay to speak out and be noticed. An acceptance of responsibility. Members realize that if the goal (to complete the project) is to be accomplished, everyone must contribute. Moving from individual to team member is something that some do quite easily they are always looking for something to be a part of and something that others do quite hesitantly. It is your job your responsibility to help this process along and lead them in the right direction. Training the project team Earlier in this chapter, we use the analogy of a college class to describe a team. Everyone starts out as strangers and then becomes a part of the group. The ideal is that when the group comes together, it does so in a way that enables each person to contribute positively. On occasion, however, the opposite happens. Students sometimes form subgroups that impede the educational process. Whether this happens because the professor is incompetent, the students just happen to be overly rebellious, or for some other reason, the result is the same: The hour in the classroom is not conducive to learning and it ends up being a waste of time for the semester. Even though the professor may not be the reason that the negative subgroup formed, he or she is still the one who must deal with the situation. You cannot afford to be the professor in this situation. You cannot afford to lose control of the situation, or become the butt of the joke or the person who represents a drain of time and energy. Professors have the enviable position of having a fresh start two to three times every year, and you do not.
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Chapter 11: Working with Project People 231 When they function at their best, teams are cohesive units of resources working together for a common cause. Get that? Working together. Not working against one another, for another, or on their own accord. Teams are fascinating entities when they re working properly. rfo mi For some project managers, a good team is any team that can get the work done. These project managers don t care if the team members like one another, the project manager, or even the project work. Sounds like a great time: a disinterested project manager lording over individuals cranking out code independently of one another. Project teams have a natural process they go through to become cohesive. The process consists of four distinct phases, which, if you watch closely, you can see (or just check out Figure 11-1): Sto mi Figure 11-1: Project teams move through four phases. rForming rNorming 1. Forming. At the beginning, team members gather together and introduce themselves. It s the Hi, how are you? phase of project team development. Everyone is polite, cordial. 2. Storming. Heated discussions, disagreements, and struggle for team leadership occur in this phase. Storming is the phase of the project when someone on the project team is going to take charge. You may see power struggles between team members. Someone with more seniority may feel superior to a junior team member, or someone with a specialized skill may feel that he or she has more to offer. A team member with advanced education may feel that his or her opinion is more valuable than others . Conflicts and disagreements about the direction of the project are likely as team members struggle to work cohesively together. 3. Norming. In this stage, things settle down. Team members have gotten to know each other and start to deal more with issues on the project than with issues with other team members. You may still notice tension in the air, but for the most part, folks have accepted their roles on the project team.
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230 Part III: Executing Your Software Project Plan Only one or two people knew each other from high school. They sat together and nervously discussed Frisbee golf, the weather, or the prospects of the local football squad while you all waited for class to start. No one was comfortable. The professor insisted upon reading every single word of the verbose syllabus as if none of you could read it on your own. When the hour was over, you shuffled out and may have mumbled a few words to the person beside you before seamlessly disappearing into the crowd on the sidewalk again. At some point in the semester, all of that changed. People in the room started talking to each other before the class began. They started talking to each other after the class was over. Occasionally, they even talked to each other during class not just contributing to the class discussion, but making snide comments and jokes. The strangers in the room became a team a temporary group brought together for a short time (a semester) for the purpose of passing the class. Some members of the team valued being in that class more than others and some still wished they were anywhere else but there. Some contributed more possibly because they grasped the content or were fascinated or stimulated by it, or simply because their personalities made them more gregarious than those around them. Some were not right for the class and left, while others transferred in a little late. The professor was delighted to have some of those students. Others were more of a challenge, and the professor wondered why they were there. Some pesky folks may have needed more individual attention or additional resources to supplement what they already had, and one or two could not grasp the material at all. This pattern of team building continually repeats itself. It plays out in every project team assembled in school, in business, and in life. Members start out being quiet and uncomfortable eventually we all move away from that. Understanding this pattern and ways to speed up the process can make you a more effective software project manager. A team is a group of people brought together temporarily for a determined length of time for the purpose of achieving a specific goal. Understanding the life cycle of a typical project team Being a team leader is a major part of your job as the software project manager. But just throwing a bunch of people into a conference room, pushing a project manager in front of them, and assigning them activities doesn t make them a team.
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Chapter 11 Working with Project People In This Chapter Forming a project team Managing project conflicts Dealing with project stakeholders Using project management powers Projects are not solo endeavors. You have to let go, delegate responsibilities, and lead your project team to complete the job. People the people you hire and the people you work for are involved in each step of the project. You depend on those people to perform their tasks, and they depend on your help to lead them to project completion. Everyone involved has some stake in the success of the project, and cooperation is imperative to accomplish what must be done. Chapter 7 introduces you to many of your responsibilities and duties as a software project manager. Taking these roles seriously will help you to find the optimal mix of human resources, so that you can then motivate, align, and direct the team. Chapter 7 also discusses how to build the project team and walk the fine line between leadership and management. This chapter continues that discussion, with the focus now on the concept of leading your project team. Without further ado, here s all the information you need on facilitating your team s success. Examining the Phases of Team Development Remember your first college class? You sat in a room with a bunch of strangers and wondered what you were doing there. The temperature of the room was unbearable and no one spoke more than a muffled, hi, to those who accidentally made eye contact with them for a split second.
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228 Part III: Executing Your Software Project Plan
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