Team Dynamics | Exploring Web Marketing and Project Management

Anyone who has ever been part of a poorly functioning company will attest to how unresolved conflicts affect productivity. Senior-level team members who are impatient with mentoring more inexperienced members can generate resentment, especially if they are responsible for challenging the junior-level members with new tasks.

As a junior-level team member, I was very lucky to work in both the best and the worst of these environments. My best experience was working in a large corporation at a time when a great deal of excitement was building around its products. There were two junior-level analysts, myself included, assigned to a senior-level analyst, who was a demanding but excellent teacher who truly cared. The relationship I had with the other junior-level analyst was based on mutual respect, and we were careful to keep things light. Mistakes could be made, because we were learning, but both of us were determined to help the other. I can't ever remember any undercurrent of hostility or flexing of egos.

Having just come from an environment in which I had difficulty gaining support from other junior-level members and finding a mentor among the senior staff, I breathed a sigh of relief in my new position. I also had a benchmark by which I could appreciate it, which probably improved my willingness to have things go well. Many years later, I still regard that working environment as being one of the most pleasant I have had. As a result, I have tried to promote a positive environment within my own firm, an environment in which each individual feels valued and his or her skills are fostered. In doing so, I have thought a great deal about communication and how easily it can break down. Often, I have found that if people only know each other on the level of their skill sets, as opposed to having a more three-dimensional relationship, it's easy to be uncharitable should a misunderstanding occur. Establishing a good rapport among team members is key to running a well-functioning project.

Santech Corporation, a manufacturing firm located in Fort Worth, Texas, reached a point where it had to take a hard look at how work was being performed and decided to adopt, in some areas, self-supervised teams, very similar to how most software development firms operate. Santech had found that when there were supervisors on the team, individual team members did not take the initiative to accept responsibility. Rather, the supervisor maintained vertical pressure downward and became the fall-guy when things went wrong, as opposed to the group sharing and being invested in the outcome. The supervisor took on the role of project manager and became the "go-to" person when problems arose. By implementing a self-supervised approach, all team members shared in the failure or success of a project. All team members were made accountable, instead of just the supervisor.

At Santech, the teams provided horizontal peer pressure to ensure completion of project tasks. If one member was not performing, another team member might speak to him or her and then speak to the project manager if there was no improvement. This shared leadership clearly identified bottom performers through peer review.

Once the implementation of this process was through, the executives at Santech said, "Moving equipment is easy. Moving the minds of people is difficult." This is just what the project manager is responsible for-moving the minds of the team and the client, communicating the common goals, so that team members can hold themselves accountable for meeting those goals.

As discussed in Chapter 8, major deadlines and tasks can be defined so that the project can move forward in a logical manner. Teams break down when individuals are unclear about expectations. By being task oriented during conflicts, instead of allowing disagreements to deteriorate to a personal level, each team member becomes aware of the big picture.

Exercises

Strategize for Conflict Resolution

Offer three techniques for helping two team members resolve a conflict over a project task, with the goal of an eventual good rapport among them.

__________________________________________________________

Facilitate Positive Communication within the Team

Describe three tools you would use to facilitate positive communication during the building of a project. Your goal is to promote clear, objective interaction among team members.

__________________________________________________________

Build Team Enthusiasm for a Project

Describe three techniques you would use to initiate team enthusiasm for a project and keep it flowing through until implementation.

__________________________________________________________

Exercise Answers

Answers

Offer three techniques for helping two team members resolve a conflict over a project task, with the goal of an eventual good rapport among them.

__________________________________________________________

Answer:

A running joke in my firm is that I think all problems can be solved by going out to one of our clients' restaurants for a glass of white zinfandel and a piece of Chaos pie. I am blessed to have an office manager who reads me well and knows when it's time to bail out of the office with me for an hour or two, so we can come back with a new perspective.

Keeping the atmosphere light, while making team members aware of the project demands, can be a delicate balance. Communication is key.

There are several types of project meetings that are helpful to keeping everyone informed and thus heading off conflicts before they arise. The first step toward conflict resolution between individuals is the effective use of meetings.

The Project Status Meeting:At this meeting, each team member is allowed ten minutes to report on his or her area of the project. There should be no brainstorming at this point. The focus of this meeting is to bring everyone up to speed on the project's progress and identify problem areas that need attention.

The project manager needs to be focused on schedule and budget and aware of how client approvals are progressing.

The project manager should develop a formal agenda, which is followed to the letter. No one is allowed to interrupt the flow of the speaker's conversation until that individual is finished. Each topic warrants a full ten minutes.

The agenda is used as a working tool. Each issue should have a resolution recorded, an action item attached (with the person responsible for resolving it), or a note to continue the discussion in a brainstorming meeting or at the next status meeting, when more information has been gathered.

This type of meeting has the strictest format. However, it should happen at least weekly, so that all team members are aware of what's happening. While this kind of disciplined meeting may seem counter productive to a relaxed and productive office atmosphere, it actually informs all team members, without some of the stronger personalities on the team dominating the meeting.

Brainstorming Meetings:When someone goes over their allotted ten minutes in a status meeting, I often say, "Okay, this is now brainstorming, and it belongs outside this particular meeting." The reason is that while two or three team members are hashing out a particular issue, the rest of the team, who is not involved in the issue, is falling asleep. This is a waste of their time, and it is nonproductive.

A brainstorming meeting is where the involved constituencies can get together and discuss the issues at hand in a free-form structure. The difference is, if this is a creativeissue, only creative team members are at this meeting, without holding the technical team hostage.

As with the status meeting, each member should be able to speak without being interrupted. Still, no one member should be allowed to dominate the meeting. All members need to be heard from. How does one facilitate this kind of exchange? There are a few simple techniques:

Specifically ask for each person's opinion on the issue.
Conduct a vote, once everyone has been heard.

I find that most conflicts between individuals take place when one or the other feels that he or she hasn't been heard. One team member may be very vocal and dominant. The other team member may have valid ideas but is not being provided the format in which to voice them. The person is being steamrolled by a stronger personality and doesn't appreciate it. Peer meetings in which everyone is held accountable for fair team behavior can circumvent a lot of this. Action items are identified and assigned equally, and everyone is given a chance to speak. Most conflicts have to do with individuals feeling that their empowerment is being reduced because of another individual, which builds resentment. These kinds of meetings keep everyone in check.

Perhaps a way to improve the relationship between two team members is to send them off to lunch together with the distinct purpose of coming up with a fair set of ground rules for their working relationship. Ask them to identify to each other what is going wrong and to come up with solutions for how to circumvent the problems.

Make the individuals aware that it has come to your attention that things aren't going smoothly and that you would like them to settle their differences. There should be a sense of urgency about getting the air cleared. Part of their job responsibility is now to find a way to work effectively with this other person. By leaving it to the two people in question, neither one feels that he or she is being treated as anything less than a responsible adult. Let them come up with the ground rules for their relationship. However, make them aware that it is their responsibility to do so and that there will be consequences if this conflict is not resolved.

When teams are working closely together, backbiting can't be allowed. One of the worst things that a project manager can do is to get in the middle of a conflict. Inevitably, one side will feel that the project manager is playing favorites or taking up a personal cause, when neither case is true. A dear friend once advised me to "take the high road." By staying neutral and just offering tools to facilitate a meeting of the minds between the combatants, the project manager will hopefully engender the best results.

A third way to deal with conflict is to fire one or both of the team members. Obviously, this isn't the preferred way to deal with the problem. However, I was witness to a situation in which the divisiveness between two executives was so great that it filtered down to the most junior-level employees, and it effected productivity every day. This is unacceptable in any firm and can affect everyone. In a professional atmosphere, every team member should have the opportunity to become empowered and contribute.

However, if conflict has become too embedded in a firm, other people get pulled into it and categorized according to what side they are affiliated with, whether they know it or not. It's poison. If the conflict is that intense, it's best to start fresh with new people.

Answers

Describe three tools you would use to facilitate positive communication during the building of a project. Your goal is to promote clear, objective interaction among team members.

__________________________________________________________

Answer:

The best way to get all team members up to speed quickly is to establish rules. Protocols, such as deciding how decisions are going to be made and how everyone will communicate with each other, and establishing initial deadlines give team members the glue to keep moving in the same direction.

A second way to facilitate communication between team members is the creation of a project site. In Secrets of Successful Web Sites, David Siegal gives a great example of how a project site can allow both clients and team members working in remote locations to stay on top of the latest developments. Check outhttp://www.secretsites.comfor a fine example of a working project site.

The third method is to run meetings like those discussed inExercise 9.2.1. Regular and efficient communication keeps all team members informed.

Thomasina Borkman, an instructor at George Mason University, wrote a wonderful case study regarding two poorly functioning teams. This paper was based on her Small Groups Dynamics class. It is with her permission that excerpts are included here.

Case Study of Two Poorly Functioning Teams^[*]

Overall, both teams completed their assignments on time but at great personal cost to some members because other members could not be counted on to do their work in a timely manner, among other factors. I characterize both teams as poorly functioning. A number of factors are involved in the lack of effective functioning of the team.

Team A

A subgroup of four of the seven members of Team A consistently worked on the team project throughout the course of the semester. The other three members appeared briefly in the beginning and then dropped out for shorter/longer periods in the middle. One of these three members assumed an ambiguous leadership role at the beginning of the course, then dropped it, which was confusing to other members. His idea for the project was accepted reluctantly after several other project ideas had been debated. He then became unavailable to guide the development of his project idea. He will be named All Talk (little action) in this paper, which is how his teammates characterize him.

Leadership

Were there too few leaders, too many leaders, or a lack of legitimate leaders (whose authority as leaders was agreed upon by the members)? Interviews revealed that one had the opinion that there were too many leaders, others that leadership was problematic, or team members had different perceptions about who were legitimate leaders of the group. When members of a group have such different perceptions of what is going on, it indicates a problematic area and a lack of consensus. In well-functioning groups, members agree for the most part on what are the authority, role, and communication structures of the group and how they operate.

At a face-to-face (f2f) meeting early in the semester that was not attended by everyone, consensus was reached among attendees that two women, the Caretaker (who telephoned people about activities and urged them to keep participating), and the Organizer (who kept the group moving forward with its project), would be the leaders. Nonattendees did not necessarily know about this consensus of leadership and one isolate never did realize two women had been "elected" to be leaders.

All Talk's idea for the project was reluctantly accepted after several other ideas were discussed, and one idea at least discarded. The Functioning Subgroup (see sociogram discussion below) expected All Talk to take the initiative in guiding the development of the project since it was his idea and others had no clear idea of his vision and how to implement it. He then disappeared and did not perform a leadership role of guidance, which became very frustrating to the Subgroup.

Communication

The members had different perceptions about whether or not the instructor encouraged teams to interact only on line or whether or not he encouraged or sanctioned f2f meetings. The female nerd had a difficult schedule and had selected the course partly because she would not have to show up on campus; she did not regard f2f meetings important until late in the course, when so much nonaction, conflict, and problematic group functioning changed her mind. She did meet at least once f2f. However, she kept in touch with the group otherwise. She complained that people who did not attend f2f meetings were not notified on the Discussion Tool (the discussion tool was a Web based bulletin board provided by the Virtual School) as to decisions taken at meetings.

The idea of using the Discussion Tool as the primary means of communicating group decisions was discussed and agreed upon by some members. An assumption was made that the other members agreed to this decision and would abide by it. But they did not, and the Discussion Tool was only sporadically used as a major means of communicating group decisions. Decisions taken at f2f meetings with only a few members present were not reported on the Discussion Tool to update missing members.

All Talk appears to have almost unilaterally decided to have f2f meetings at his house near campus without consulting members about preferences for where to meet, how often to meet, etc. A number of times f2f meetings were scheduled at his house at the beginning of the semester, but people were not notified in time, or they could not come and no accommodations were made to their schedule, or they did not notify anyone they were not coming to the meeting. A lot of chaos! In one case Organizer female showed up at All Talk's house for a scheduled meeting and even he was not there! Part of the chaos stemmed from not following through on the agreement to use the Discussion Tool as the primary means of communication to the entire team.

The experience of this team with inadequate and missed communication illustrates that even if a team develops a norm to use the Discussion Tool as primary team communication, if they don't in fact use it for team communication, they might as well not have the norm. This appears to be the situation with this group.

The Sociogram

A sociogram was made of the team which reveals who liked to work with whom. Each person is asked "Who are the three team members you most liked to work with?" A diagram is made from the answers. Choices are indicated with an arrow. From the diagram you can identify if there are isolates (who are chosen by no one), stars (chosen by most members), and subgroups (with reciprocal choices).

The findings of the sociogram are an indication that the qualitative comments during the interviews are consistent. The sociogram repli-cates what people expressed about each other in the interviews. The sociogram appears below.

The team has three isolates and one subgroup of four. One isolate was not interviewed so his choices were not known. Pseudonyms were given team members based primarily on the role they played in the group. All Talk, Undergrad Nerd, and Smoothy were the three isolates, all male. The four in the subgroup were Caretaker, Organizer, Female Nerd, and Introverted Nerd.

When the interviews are examined, the perceptions and information from the four members of the subgroup are more likely to be similar to each other than are the perceptions and information from the isolates. Most probably, the subgroup members discussed various issues among themselves, coming to some informal consensus on the way they perceived the situation. One or more isolates were likely to have quite different interpretations of events or their meaning (such as who were the leaders).

Conflict and the Too Nice Syndrome

According to Tuckman's five stages of group development, conflict occurs as the second stage, after the orientation phase, in ordinary groups. In my experience with undergraduate groups in Sociology 305, Sociology of Small Groups, they are very likely to skip the conflict stage as a second stage. If they go through that stage in any noticeable way or admit to going through it, it is usually right at the end, when they are performing with looming deadlines to complete their projects. Often then the conflict is ugly and contentious, with name calling and hurt feelings.

Team A appeared to experience some conflict almost from the beginning, but it was not dealt with up front and honestly or strongly confronted until the last week or two of class. Part of this seems to be due to what I will call the Too Nice Syndrome.

Too Nice Syndrome

The Too Nice Syndrome (hereafter TooNice) I have observed in my small groups classes year after year. People are so concerned about "not hurting someone's feelings." They are "so nice" and only indirect in negatively sanctioning people who do not do their part. In the process of being TooNice, they endure extensive anxiety, anguish, and overwork all in the name of not hurting someone's feelings. Instead of being firm while respectful by holding people to the agreed norms and performance/attendance standards as they go along, they avoid any direct discussion or confrontation of conflict. Sometimes it explodes at the end erupts into ugly and angry verbal conflict, which results in hurt feelings and negative consequences for the group as a whole.

In Team A the three isolates had not been doing their part when the situation became critical more than a week before the deadline. Part of the group grade depended on everyone completing their individual computer tasks assigned during the first five weeks. The leaders phoned Brad, the instructor, about what were their rights . . . could they kick people out of the group. Brad apparently suggested they e-mail the offending parties, warning them that if they failed to complete their tasks and failed to show up for the mandatory Friday meeting, they would be kicked out. The Organizer also posted this message on the Discussion Tool, Monday Oct. 25.

On Friday and again on Saturday the three isolates showed up at one time or another. The Undergrad Nerd appeared for an hour or less on Friday, making an appearance so that the TooNice subgroup thought that they could not terminate him even though they thought he was obeying "the letter but not the spirit of the law."

An apparently nasty and very upsetting verbal conflict occurred Friday and Saturday between most of the subgroup and All Talk during the f2f meetings and over the phone. The versions of what happened differ considerably from the subgroup and from All Talk. All Talk thought that the quality of the digital product was poor and could quite easily be remedied; he thought the group had plenty of time to fix the product and post it to Brad. Undergrad Nerd agreed with this assessment and was willing to help do the programming job to remedy the product, which would take only an hour, according to him. The subgroup who had worked so hard to finish the product and with so much frustration because the three isolates had dropped out at the crucial time were determined to hold firm to the deadline of Friday. Some interpreted All Talk's conversation to be discrediting the work of the subgroup members, which made them very angry. They did not want to change the group's deadline and held firm. The Organizer and other subgroup members were supportive of each other in being tough against All Talk, repeatedly saying no, they were not changing the product or slipping the deadline.

The subgroup members appeared to be left from these encounters with actual fear of All Talk because of his seeming irrationality and perse-verance of trying to change the product at the last minute. All Talk had the job of making the Team Home Page, but the subgroup no longer trusted him to do his work by the last week and they made a dummy copy of the team home page. Female Nerd stayed up all night Monday night before the Tuesday deadline to complete and post it, missing work the next day due to exhaustion. The distrust of All Talk was massive after the ugly conflict. Some of the subgroup actually regard him as violent and threatening to their personal safety. All Talk did make a Team Home Page, but it was ignored by the subgroup.

Lack of Commitment

In the interviews the subgroup and All Talk alike attributed much of the team's poor functioning to a lack of commitment among the members. Each had different people in mind. The three isolates did not complete their commitments in a timely fashion, although all three did by the last week, after strong negative sanctioning. The team had not communicated adequately in the beginning or throughout with everyone to know what was each individual's situation. Caretaker apparently telephoned and e-mailed Smoothy and Undergraduate Nerd regularly to keep them informed of the team's progress but she seemed unaware that Undergraduate Nerd had been sick with Hepatitis A, which was described in his biography.

Would the situation have been less stressful for the subgroup if they had not expected consistent attendance (showing up) and effort from everyone? If disappearing members had communicated up-front that "I will be unavailable to do my share the next two weeks," or the equivalent, would that have eased the situation? Was it lack of commitment or inability to function consistently throughout combined with poor communication skills and not notifying the team that produced the accusation of "lack of commitment"?

Awareness of Group Dynamics

At least one member of Team A was very aware of communication problems, leadership problems, and the problem personality All Talk by halfway or so through the semester. She spoke privately to me in class and over e-mail, concerned about her group. In the interviews, other team members did not reveal any explicit awareness of problems in group dynamics on their team.

Team B

Team B was slow to get started, with several key members describing the team as "laid back." After three weeks few messages had been posted on the Discussion Tool, and these messages consisted of people reporting that they just got their computer set up or a seventh person in the team dropped the course. Apparently after a month or so of "laid back" inaction, one member proposed a f2f meeting at the university at which a handful showed up. The organizer had recent surgery and was not too mobile; he suggested meeting at his house which was near the university and convenient to everyone. At the second meeting, all six showed up for the first and last time. The team met probably 8-10 times f2f and used the Discussion Tool very little. All members appeared willing to contribute their share in the beginning. The Technical Leader was slow in the beginning to contribute and had to be firmly told that his contribution was necessary. The two that became the dropouts appeared to be willing to participate, but in the performing stage toward the end of the class neither contributed. On the last available evening before the deadline, with their group grade threat-ened due to the lack of contribution of two people, a mandatory meeting was called and the decision was made to drop both members from the group. One, referred to as Overwhelmed, agreed to voluntarily withdraw. The second one, Unavailable, no one knows her reaction to this. She claims that she was barely informed of the existence of the mandatory meeting and thinks she should have been involved in deciding whether or not and when and where to hold such a meeting.

Leadership

The organizer assumed the leadership position without much discussion or consensus building, but most team members were appreciative that he assumed this role. The person labeled Unavailable was not too happy that the leadership was assumed rather than discussed and mutually agreed upon, but she never said anything to anyone. Toward the end, when the intensive work on the project had to be done, the most technically proficient, who had been a slow starter, took charge technically and provided leadership in the technical aspects of the project and building the Team Home Page. Two leaders thus emerged during the course of the semester . . . the Organizer and the Technical Leader.

Norms and Communication

Were norms established of what communication tools to use to transmit group decisions, of the division of labor of tasks, of expectations about attending meetings and contributing, and so forth? Team members disagreed about whether or not norms had been agreed upon. Some said yes, we agreed upon what we were going to do, but few followed the norms. Others thought no clear expectations for communicating, division of labor, or participating had been established by the team. One leader sarcastically said, yes, we agreed on norms such as: It is okay to miss meetings? It is okay not to communicate with anyone in the group for weeks?

The Sociogram

A sociogram was made of the team that reveals who liked to work with whom using the same procedure described in the section on Team A. Team A also had a subgroup of four people, the two leaders and the Procrastinator (who eventually did his work), and Did What Told, who faithfully did what he was told but not any more than that. The two members who were dropped from the team are isolates who were not chosen by anyone (a couple of people said they really did not know Unavailable as she had been around so little). However, a couple of people in the subgroup indicated that they personally like Overwhelmed and found him agreeable at meetings but he just did not deliver at the end.

As with Team A, when the interviews were examined, the perceptions and information from the four subgroup members were more similar and consistent with each other than with the two isolates, which is an indirect way of indicating consensus.

Awareness of Group Dynamics

Two members of the group explicitly discussed what they thought were problematic with their group dynamics. Procrastinator attributed the group's problems to the equivalent of what I call the TooNice Syndrome. He was very aware of the social context of the course and how students do not easily assume an authority role over their fellow students in a class context. He thought that the consequences of poor performance are not that serious in a class group in comparison with groups on the job where your paycheck and liveli-hood may be dependent on achieving group goals.

Unavailable thought that the group would have functioned more effectively if team building and consensus had been tried instead of Organizer rather arbitrarily assuming the leadership position the part of Organizer or arbitrarily setting the date and time of the mandatory meeting without consulting anyone. She thought that it was a failure on her part to keep quiet about these group dynamic issues and not to bring them up to the team as a whole.

Conflict and the Too Nice Syndrome

Conflict appears to be defined by Team B members as expressed hostility, anger, or fighting. When asked about conflict in the group, several subgroup members claimed there was none. In the face of nonperforming members, they jumped in and did what was neces-sary to get the job done without resentment or anger. Other subgroup members would describe these same people as angry and frustrated. Procrastinator talked at length about the subgroup members being too comfortable and polite and the difficulty in getting tough with nonperforming members.

Unlike Team A, which had several angry, contentious, and very upsetting verbal bouts with one member in front of the team during the last days of the project, Team B avoided active expressed conflict.

During the last class, each team made a presentation to the whole class and to the instructor. The Organizer gave the presentation for Team B. When asked if they agreed with the way he described their team, several subgroup members and one isolate thought that he had been too negative about the team, that in fact the subgroup and Overwhelmed had worked well together for most of the semester and were very compatible. Most team members have had quite a bit of experience working in groups both in school and at work.

Payoffs to Individuals

Although two of six members were dropped from the team at the last possible minute, the subgroup members seemed to have been a little frustrated but not very upset with the turn of events. The Technical Leader thinks that the product was not as high quality as it could have been if the noncontributors were known about earlier and the others had more time to perfect the product. The Procrastinator thought the product's quality suffered at the end. Unlike Team A, members were not left with some very negative feelings as a result of the conflict at the end of the course. Several Team B members did more than their share of work but regarded that as okay and similar to what they have to do in work groups.

The subgroup members and even Overwhelmed expressed receiving a lot and learning a lot from the course. When asked how they would rank themselves now in terms of computer experience, several explicitly talked about increased Internet literacy, but not more knowledge of programming. They ranked themselves higher than at the beginning of the course by 1.5 to 3 rankings (that is, from 3 to 4.5 or from 3 to 6 on a 0-9 scale).

Conclusion

Several items I want to highlight:

The course requirements are perceived to be extremely demanding in terms of time and difficulty by a number of team members. At least one or more members dropped out because the time and difficulty of weekly tasks, project tasks, and their individual tasks were overwhelming to them.
Multiple factors "caused" the poor functioning of these groups in my opinion. In Team A, the dysfunctions were not solely the result of one problem person, All Talk, although he was a challenge to anyone/everyone.
People made assumptions that I think were unwarranted: If something is posted on the Discussion Tool that it was (a) read by everyone, and (b) accepted by them unless they specifically protested. If a general warning about failure to attend/perform your work is posted on the Discussion Tool, then the people for whom it is intended will (a) read it and (b) take it seriously as applying to them.
The teams probably need more structure in the beginning in order to help them identify people who are not carrying their weight so that they can sanction them. A deadline, perhaps 2/3 of the way through the course, for when the 5 individual tasks have to be completed could be useful so that the team would know who was and who was not participating.
Teams should be required to do a "contract" that is developed, agreed upon, and signed by all persons as binding about one third of the way through the course. A deadline should accompany the contract: perhaps give them about 2 weeks to negotiate it and achieve consensus. The "contract" should specify their norms and organizational plan, and division of labor expectations about attendance and participation, expectations for people who travel a lot or have periods of intensive work/family obligations, and negative sanctions for nonperformance, including conditions under which members are terminated.
Conflict can be a serious problem in these groups; perhaps some specialized help in conflict recognition and resolution might be sought and taught to all the groups.
A consultant who is not an authority could be made available to the group for help with problems of group dysfunction in order to catch some problems earlier. Team members hesitated to discuss their problems with the instructor Brad Cox in order not to "look bad" to the person evaluating them. I, as informal co-teacher with no legitimate authority, was a more neutral person with whom they could discuss their problematic group dynamics.

^[*]Thomasina Borkman, virtualschool.edu/98c/soci305/soci305Thomasina.html. December 17,1996, Taming the Electronic Frontier, George Mason University Distributed Learning Community and Virtual School.

Answers

Describe three techniques you would use to initiate team enthusiasm for a project and keep it flowing through until implementation.

__________________________________________________________

Answer:

There are several ways to keep enthusiasm flowing throughout a project. It's realistic that every project is going to have its highs and lows. Subcontractors can disappear, clients can become uncooperative, and the demands of the project can make it feel like it never will end.

However, by promoting team morale and encouraging the team members to be supportive of each other, these are storms that can be weathered. Everyone has heard about team building. Corporations send employees off to play laser tag, or go whitewater rafting. Believe it or not, they even take the direct approach and send employees to team-building seminars.

Project kick-off parties, celebrations when certain benchmarks are reached, building in bonuses for team members if the project comes in on budget and on schedule, and an atmosphere that daily empowers team members builds team enthusiasm. The daily atmosphere has always made the biggest difference to me, both as a team member and a team leader.

Self-Review Questions

A project manager should be aware of any and all conflicts within the team

_____ True
_____ False

Conflicts within the team always slow down the process of building a Web site.

_____ True
_____ False