Project management
Working in teams
Organizational Behaviour
Staff Selection
Staff Development
Staff Motivation
Problems:
A single-minded approach to getting the job done
Three men: a project manager, a software engineer, and a hardware engineer are in Ft.
Lauderdale for a two-week period helping out on a project.
About midweek they decide to walk up and down the beach during their lunch hour.
Halfway up the beach, they stumbled upon a lamp. As they rub the lamp a genie
appears and says "Normally I would grant you 3 wishes, but since there are 3 of you,
I will grant you each one wish."
The hardware engineer went first. "I would like to spend the rest of my life living in a huge
house in St. Thomas, with no money worries and surrounded by beautiful women
who worship me." The genie granted him his wish and sent him on off to St. Thomas.
The software engineer went next. "I would like to spend the rest of my life living on a
huge yacht cruising the Mediterranean, with no money worries and surrounded by
beautiful women who worship me." The genie granted him his wish and sent him off
to the Mediterranean.
Last, but not least, it was the project manager's turn. "And what would your wish be?"
asked the genie.
"I want them both back after lunch" replied the project manager.
(Bruce Guthrie)
Theory X and Theory Y
Theory X:
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Average person has an inherent dislike of work
People must be coerced, controlled, directed,
threatened with punishment
Average person prefers to be directed, and wishes to
avoid responsibility
By Donald McGregor
Theory X and Theory Y (2)
Theory Y
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Physical and mental effort is as natural as play or rest
Man will exercise self-direction for objectives to which
he is committed
Commitment to objectives is a function of reward
Average person learns to accept and seek
responsibility
Imagination and creativity is widely distributed
People's potentials are only partially utilised
Selecting the right person
Recruitment process:
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Create a job specification
Create a job holder profile
Obtain applicants
Examine CVs
Interviews, aptitude tests, personality tests, etc.
Other procedure – eg. References, medical
examination
Eligible vs suitable candidates
Developing staffs
Induction for the new recruited member
Assessment of the training needs
Motivation
Taylorist Model
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The use of piece-rates
Workers are paid a fixed sum of each item they
produce
Often cause difficulties if there is change of work
practices
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Excessive distinction between co-workers
may damage morale of the team
Motivation (2)
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
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Basic need: food, shelter
Highest level: self-actualization
The feeling that you are completely fulfilling your
potential
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People are likely to be motivated by different
things at different stages of their life
Motivation (3)
Herzberg’s two factor theory:
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Hygiene or maintenance factor:
Which make you dissatisfied if they are not right
Eg, the level of pay or the working conditions
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Motivators
Which make you feel that the job is worthwhile
Motivation (4)
The expectancy theory of motivation – by
Vroom and colleagues
Three influences of motivation:
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Expectancy
Working harder will lead to a better performance
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Instrumentality
Better performance will be rewarded
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Perceived value
The resulting reward
Motivation (5)
Oldham-Hackman job characteristics
model
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Skill variety
The number of skill that can be exercised
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Task identity
The degree at which the work is identifiable as
belonging to the staff
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Task significance
Autonomy
Feedback
Motivation (6)
Methods of improving motivations
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Setting specific goals
Providing feedback
Job design
To enhance job design:
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Job enlargement
Job enrichment
teams and IT development
staff in an organization will often belong to
a department depending on their technical
expertise
staff from different technical areas could
then be brought together to work on a
project
once project is completed, team may be
disbanded
stages in becoming a team
forming
storming
norming
team-building exercises
can help the process of
becoming a team
performing
adjourning
getting the right mix
Meredith Belbin studied teams working
together on management games
found that the academically brightest
teams often did badly e.g.
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arguments
implementation of plans neglected etc.
gave psychometric tests to participants to
identify best mix of team members
Belbin’s management team
types
The chair/co-ordinator
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not necessarily a strong leader but must be good
at controlling meetings: calm, strong, but tolerant
The plant
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good at generating ideas
The monitor-evaluator
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good at evaluating ideas and helping to select the
best one
Belbin’s management team
types - continued
The shaper
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rather a worrier, helps direct the team’s
attention to important issues; a driver
The team worker/implementer
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good at creating a good team environment
and getting people to do things
The resource investigator
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good at finding resources and information
Belbin’s management team
types - continued
The completer-finisher
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focussed in getting task completed
The company worker
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a good team player who is willing to
undertake less attractive tasks if they are
needed for team success
The specialist
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the ‘techie’ interested in knowledge for its own
sake
typical problems
more than one shaper and no strong chair
- arguments over direction
several plants and specialists, but no
shapers or completer-finishers - interesting
discussions but nothing gets implemented
general advice
Time your interventions, don’t overwhelm
the others in the team
Be flexible
Be restrained
Keep the common goals of the team in
mind all the time
types of group work
Should you divide work up between you
or should you do it as a group?
It depends partly on the type of work
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additive tasks
compensatory tasks
disjunctive tasks
conjunctive tasks
types of task
Additive
effort of individuals added together to get end result
people are interchangeable
e.g. shovelling snow, interviewing people in the
street
Compensatory
judgements of individuals are pooled
errors by some can be corrected by others
e.g. estimating costs, effort
types of activity
disjunctive
only one correct answer
getting answer depends on:
someone getting the right answer
others recognizing it as being correct!
conjunctive
progress depends on the progress of the
slowest performer
software projects often like this
‘social loafing’
team members who are parasites
particular problem with student groups,
but also in work environments
can be alleviated by:
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making work of individuals identifiable
consciously involving group member in the
project outcomes
rewarding individuals for team contribution
cf. ‘club player of the year’ in sports teams
Decision Making
Structured
Unstructured
Leadership: types of power
position power
coercive power - threatening
punishment
connection power
legitimate power
reward power
Types of power: personal power
expert power
information power
referent power (based on personal
attractiveness/ charisma)
Leadership styles
implementation
decision-making
autocrat
Making decision
alone
democrat
Making decision
participatively
directive
permissive
Close supervision
Gives autonomy in implementation