Case Study: Team

Because of the history of autonomous behavior by the business units in the corporation and the challenge of everyone to work together on company-wide projects, the project manager paid particular attention towards building a team. He knew that each business unit had its own way of doing business, its unique history, and preferences about what was and was not important.

During the vision workshop, the groundwork was laid to overcome the complexities and travails associated with the first two phases of a team under the Tuchman Model, forming and storming . The project manager also stressed the importance of sharing best practices, insights, and comments as well as formulating a common vision. He also used the workshop as a means to showcase situations where cooperation occurred between two or more business units.

Throughout the project, the project manager emphasized and practiced a focus on the overall picture, which was the vision described in the project charter and other documentation. This emphasis on interpreting and responding based on the perspective of the overall vision helped the project manager and others to avoid "turf battles " and disagreements over petty issues. It also provided an effective means for managing conflict positively by justifying decisions and actions based on achieving the common vision.

The project manager looked at opportunities for team members from different business units to work together to overcome potential division that could threaten team unity. People were assigned to tasks that created deliverables that all business units could share, e.g., criteria to identify policies and procedures no longer accurate and to select a common tool to author and display policies and procedures. This approach created a sense of interdependence among team members as well as encouraged information sharing.