Let’s learn about project team management and leadership skills.
Project Team Management and Leadership
In a project, management and leadership are very important to achieve the desired results. Leadership influences individuals and groups to induce voluntary motivation to achieve goals, while management emphasizes planning, direction, and control. Both of these are important to manage a project. Management focuses on the perspective of achieving the project’s goals, such as process, planning, coordination, performance measurement, and monitoring. Leadership focuses on people and includes activities that support team members’ motivation, listening, and growth. Project management activities are important to achieve smooth results by performing a project, and leadership is just as important as management activities. The types of project management and leadership can be classified into two types: centralized and distributed. Project management methods can be divided into centralized and distributed.[프로젝트의 관리와 리더십 유형]
Centralized management activities are typically Project ManagerAssign to. Authorization documents such as project charters give the project manager the authority to organize and manage the project team within the organization. Centralized project management centers on the project manager for planning and control. The project charter is created during the initiation phase of the project. The project charter is reviewed and approved by executive-level stakeholders or sponsors during the review process. The project charter becomes effective and the project manager officially gains power through executive approval. The project charter is the document that officially appoints and authorizes the project manager within the organization. The project charter has two purposes. The first is to be a document that formalizes the initiation of the project by being approved by executive-level stakeholders or sponsors, and the second is to be a document that appoints and authorizes the project manager. Once the project manager is authorized, he or she can use the budget and use and organize the company’s resources. Decentralized management activities delegate the planning and control part of project management to team members. This is called Self-Organizing Teams. Distributed management activities refer to the way in which management tasks are shared within the project management team rather than among individuals, or the way in which someone within the project team acts as a facilitator to communicate, collaborate, and support participation. Distributed management activities do not only involve the project manager performing management activities, but also involve members of the project team acting as facilitators to support communication, collaboration, and participation. In the case of distributed management activities, the role of facilitator can also be performed at the project team member level. For distributed management activities, the project manager is suitable for servant leadership. Servant leadership refers to a leadership style that focuses on understanding and addressing the needs and development of team members in order to achieve project performance. It is a way to provide appropriate decision-making opportunities to team members by focusing on the growth, development, and autonomy of team members. Servant leadership is Agile projectIt is a suitable way. It requires a new type of leadership because it focuses on the growth and development of team members, autonomy, and providing appropriate decision-making opportunities. Servant leadership focuses on respecting and serving the organization members to bring out the potential of team members. Servant leadership removes obstacles, protects the project team from external work, and encourages and motivates team members.[섬김형 리더십의 주요 활동]
In servant leadership, the project manager’s role is to remove bottlenecks and support problem solving during the project process. It protects the project team from internal and external changes in direction so that they do not deviate from the goal. In the case of an agile project, there are many cases where each department head assigns team members to the project and then makes them multitask by doing their own departmental work. The project manager must demonstrate servant leadership, visit the department head who is the functional manager, and explain that this is not possible in an agile project, and create a working environment where the team members can focus on the agile project. Team members are motivated and given opportunities to develop their capabilities for growth and development. If a team member has excellent work performance and completion, they need to be appropriately compensated for this. Team development is absolutely necessary regardless of the management style. Team development is not just about team building. Team development has various aspects. Team development is to recognize the vision and goals of the project within the team and communicate and share them throughout the project. In team development, you need to establish a mindset called “One Team.” The One Team mindset is usually called team building. When developing a team, it is important to clearly understand your roles and responsibilities. In addition, when there is a gap in knowledge and skills, you need to provide support such as education, mentoring, and coaching. In order for team development to proceed smoothly, it is also a good idea to develop project team operating guidelines and team norms such as the Team Charter. It provides guidelines that team members must follow when performing project work or developing project deliverables. When developing a team, the project manager should support the growth of the team and individuals by identifying what was good and bad and improving it through collaboration. When a project team is formed, team members come from different organizations, so various workshops are held and dinners are held to collaborate as a team. These activities are called team building activities. Team building is an activity to bring about a One Team mindset in a project.
Project Team Culture and High-Performing Project Teams
1. Project Team Culture
The project team develops its own team culture. The project team culture is intentionally built through norms such as a team charter or adjusted through individual interactions between team members. Since the project team belongs to the company and organization, it is greatly influenced by the company and organization’s culture. If the company and organization culture emphasize planning and control, it will be difficult to create a project team that emphasizes autonomous decision-making. On the other hand, if the company has a flexible organizational culture, the project team can be formed to make autonomous decisions in an agile manner and proceed with the project. Every company and organization has its own unique organizational culture. The same goes for projects. Every project is unique and the project team culture is also unique. It is important for the project manager to create a project team culture that can proceed in a positive direction to create project performance and value. If an organizational culture is suitable for an adaptive project such as Agile, it can create an organizational culture that values horizontal decision-making and autonomy, allowing individuals to freely express their opinions even in meetings. Project managers can consider transparency, honesty and ethics, respect for team members, healthy discussion, support, encouragement, and celebration of success to build a desirable project team culture.[바람직한 팀 문화를 위한 고려 요소들]
Transparency is transparency in the criteria for evaluating results, performance, and communication of issues. The decision-making criteria and process are transparently shared. Securing transparency is very important not only within the project but also to stakeholders. Honesty and sense of ethics are also related to transparency. Respect for team members is related to mutual respect. It is important for project team members to feel that their individual thoughts, expertise, and skills are respected. Problems can arise in project teams where team members do not feel respected. Healthy discussion is to derive solutions so that project team members can accept different opinions through healthy discussion. In this case, unhealthy discussion is a state where there is no interest in the other party’s opinion and only the desire to win the discussion. You should focus on discussion, not argument, based on mutual respect. Healthy discussion is also a very important element in forming an open organizational culture. Support means that project managers and stakeholders support the resolution of issues. As projects progress, changes occur, and when changes occur, emotional issues often arise along with technical issues. When such issues arise, it is important for project managers and stakeholders to support so that the issues can be resolved well, and when there is a lot of such support, a team that can cooperate based on trust can be created. Support methods can include problem solving, obstacle removal, encouragement, active listening, and trying new approaches. Courage is an element that is needed when facing responsibility issues due to the possibility of failure when trying something new to solve a problem. In any problem, there is always the possibility of success as well as failure. And if there is failure, there can be responsibility issues that follow. Therefore, in a team culture that is afraid of and fearful of failure, no one will try hard and do well with courage because of the possibility of failure, and only those who try not to make mistakes can be there. There may even be people who do not want to do the work at all. In such a team culture, it becomes very difficult to improve and develop existing processes. It is important to have a culture that encourages new approaches and new attempts and allows the team to take responsibility for the results together. Celebration of Success It is important to encourage and reward team members even during the project when the project team successfully achieves the goals and milestones defined by the project team. Rewards do not always have to be big rewards. Small gifts are fine, so if you always encourage, praise, and immediately provide rewards for small successes that team members create, you can create a good project team culture.
2. High-Performance Project Team
Team development is very important to create high performance. In order to form a project team that can create high performance, it is important to form a capable team, but it is also important to create a capable team. Team development is an activity that not only improves individual capabilities but also creates teamwork. Team development to create a project team that creates high performance is important to share the vision and goals of the project, clarify responsibilities and roles, define project team rules, and create a guide for how to perform work. And it is important to provide support for the growth of the team and individuals. There are characteristics of a high performance team. There are elements that create high performance. There are seven elements related to a high performance project team. The elements related to a high performance project team are a consensus on goals and benefits, open communication, shared ownership, mutual trust, delegation of authority, adaptability and resilience, and recognition and appreciation for performance.[고성과 프로젝트팀과 관련된 요소들]
In order to create a high-performance project team, there must first be a consensus on the project goals and benefits. Open communication is also necessary. Open communication is important, and open communication means that individuals can express and improve their opinions without any discomfort. Necessary information must be transparently shared within the project and the psychological burden of communication among team members must be eliminated so that creative problem-solving methods can be derived and resolved within the project team. Open communication is important for creating a team that can trust and collaborate. It is known that the more ownership team members have of the results, the better the results they can produce. The more team members feel a sense of shared responsibility for the project results, the more they can focus on their work and produce better results. Mutual trust within a project can be created when each role collaborates based on trust. A project can produce good results only when multiple roles collaborate. If team members can collaborate based on trust between themselves, the project manager, and the organization, they will become a high-performance team. It is important to delegate decision-making authority on how to carry out work. Team members who feel they have decision-making authority are generally known to be the most motivated. They need to adapt the way they work on a project to the environment and circumstances, and recover quickly when problems and conflicts arise. Teams that can adapt to changes in the project environment and circumstances are more effective. And high-performing project teams are able to recover quickly when problems or failures occur. It is important to reward and recognize project team members for their achievements. Rewards can be in the form of monetary compensation, as well as intrinsic rewards that encourage, praise, and appreciate project team members for their achievements. In order to create a high-performing project team, it must be a team that recognizes and appreciates their achievements.
Understanding Leadership Skills
Leadership requires a variety of skills. Leadership skills include vision creation and maintenance, critical thinking, motivation, and interpersonal skills.[리더십의 기술들]
Vision is defined at the organizational level. Vision describes the desired future state. And vision is a very powerful motivational tool in projects. When the project team clearly understands the final goal of the project, it helps them make detailed decisions. It is necessary to communicate and share the project vision and benefits being planned with stakeholders throughout the life cycle. The vision of an organization is close to the reason for the existence of the organization, so it rarely changes. In order to achieve the vision of the organization, the project is carried out with a structure that establishes a strategy and understands the strategy. The project vision is the value that the project pursues and the reason for carrying out the project. The project team members must clearly understand and empathize with the purpose of carrying out the project and the value that can be provided as a result of the project. Only then will the efforts of the project team members be directed in one direction. Critical thinking is recognizing bias across various project performance areas. It is identifying the root cause of the problem and resolving issues such as ambiguity and complexity. Critical thinking requires rational, logical, evidence-based thinking and objective analysis skills. The project manager must analyze the project situation and make large and small decisions related to the project. Project managers need and are important to have a decision-making framework that analyzes situations and makes decisions. Project managers must comprehensively analyze situations from a system perspective and make rational and logical judgments and decisions. Motivation is the intrinsic power that causes team members to take certain actions and induces the direction of such actions to maintain them. In a project, motivation can create the power for team members to voluntarily help other team members for the success of the project along with their own efforts and dedication. In order to motivate team members, project managers must understand what motivates team members and promote collaboration so that team members can devote themselves to the project through such motivation. Motivation is also related to company policies, individual company salaries, company facilities, and work environments. If the company’s welfare factors are insufficient, it can cause dissatisfaction among team members in the project team. This is dissatisfaction with the company rather than dissatisfaction within the project. In fact, there are cases where team members are not satisfied even if the company’s welfare factors are sufficient. This dissatisfaction occurs especially when there is no consideration for employees at the company level. Personal accomplishment, personal growth, development, and recognition can also be factors. If these factors are insufficient, it causes dissatisfaction. On the other hand, if these motivational factors are sufficient, it leads to satisfaction. Extrinsic rewards such as salaries paid by the company to employees can act as temporary motivational factors within a certain range. However, it is known that they no longer act as motivational factors when they are receiving appropriate salaries. In addition, project work often involves complex and difficult tasks. In order to effectively and long-termly carry out project work, more intrinsic motivational factors such as autonomy, proficiency, and purpose are needed. Here, autonomy is the decision-making ability required to complete difficult and complex tasks of a project, and proficiency is the ability to perform tasks with excellence and achieve goals. The purpose is to make employees recognize how the work being done can contribute to achieving the company’s vision. In fact, these motivational factors may vary from person to person. Some are motivated by achievement, some by power, and some by affiliation. Interpersonal skills include emotional intelligence (EQ), decision-making, and conflict management skills. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to recognize and control one’s own emotions and those of others. It is very important for understanding oneself and maintaining effective working relationships with others in a project environment. Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to motivate oneself through recognition and control of others’ emotional states and to build and manage relationships with others based on empathy for others’ emotions. The ability to empathize with the emotions of stakeholders and control one’s own emotions can be said to be the basis of communication and leadership. In fact, EQ is known to be more important than IQ for leadership. There are four important areas related to emotional intelligence. The four areas related to emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills.[감성 지능의 4가지 영역]
Self-Awareness is the ability to make a realistic assessment of yourself. It is knowing how you affect your team and how your team affects you. It also includes understanding your emotions, goals, motivations, strengths and weaknesses. Self-Management is also related to early self-regulation. Self-Management is the ability to control destructive emotions and impulses. It is the ability to postpone hasty judgments or impulsive decisions and think before acting. This builds trust with your team members. Social Awareness is the ability to empathize and understand the feelings of others. Social Awareness is the ability to use empathy and active listening. Social Skills are the ability to manage project teams, build social networks, find common ground and build relationships with various stakeholders. Social skills can help you form close relationships, build effective teams, and manage attitudes. Among interpersonal skills, Decision Making is the activity of choosing one of several alternatives to solve a problem or seize an opportunity. Among interpersonal skills, decision-making is generally preferable to group-based decision-making rather than unilateral decision-making. Group-based decision-making can utilize a wide range of knowledge and increase acceptance and commitment to the results. For decision-making, careful selection through group discussion and voting can also be made. If the project team needs to make a decision outside of its authority, it can consider influence, identify alternatives, and escalate to the authority with decision-making authority according to the job title and decision-making regulations to receive a decision. However, in order to escalate, it is important to prepare a solution as well as the problem. Among interpersonal skills, conflict management is important. Projects are generally operated in a dynamic environment and have many constraints such as budget, scope, schedule, and quality, so conflicts in projects are bound to occur. In fact, most conflicts are negative situations that everyone wants to avoid. However, not all conflicts are negative for the project. If conflicts are handled well, they can have a positive effect of increasing trust and commitment to performance among team members. So it is important to handle conflicts that arise within a project well. It is necessary to know the approach to conflict resolution. It requires open and respectful communication to explore the cause of the conflict, and it is necessary to focus on resolving the situation rather than blaming by focusing on the issue rather than the person. It is necessary to have an approach that is focused on the present and the future rather than being caught up in the past. And it is necessary to have an attitude to examine alternative solutions together in order to build constructive relationships. Among interpersonal skills, conflict management can be classified into six conflict resolution methods. The six conflict resolution methods are Collaborating, Confronting and Problem Solving, Compromising, Smoothing and Accommodating, Forcing, and Withdrawal and Avoiding.[갈등 해결 방법]
Collaborating is about integrating different perspectives and insights to create consensus and commitment. A cooperative attitude and open dialogue are used to select the best solution. Confronting and Problem Solving treats conflict as a problem to be solved. It can be used when the relationship is important or when you are confident in the other party’s ability to solve the problem. Compromising and Compromising are used to temporarily or partially resolve conflict. When conflict occurs, it is also necessary to find a solution that satisfies both parties to some extent. Smoothing and Accommodating are techniques for maintaining relationships. It is necessary to emphasize agreement rather than differences. It is also necessary to make concessions to meet the needs of others, and concessions can also ease conflict situations. Forcing and Directing are techniques that can be used when urgent decisions are needed or when an agenda that is believed to be absolutely right is being executed. It is also a way to force sacrifices from the other party, and it is also a way for a superior to suppress a subordinate. In some ways, it can be the most negative method and technique. Withdrawal and Avoiding is the technique of retreating from a conflict situation and preparing thoroughly or letting others resolve it. It is the technique of postponing the resolution of the issue and avoiding contact. This method is actually a bad and incompetent technique. The project manager needs to adjust his leadership style according to the project environment, situation, and the needs of the stakeholders. In other words, the project manager does not need to stick to one leadership style. The project manager needs to have the ability and ability to exercise leadership in various leadership styles. The project manager can adjust his leadership style according to his experience with the project type, the skill and maturity of the project team members, the organizational governance structure, and whether the project team is distributed. This is called situational leadership. Situational leadership is the way the project manager adjusts his leadership style according to the needs of the individual and the project team. The project creates and manages the outputs related to the management of the project team. The outputs related to the management of the team include the responsibility assignment matrix (RAM), the resource management plan, the organizational breakdown structure (OBS), the resource breakdown structure (RBS), and the team charter.[팀 관리와 관련된 산출물]
The Responsibility Assignment Matrix is a matrix-based diagram that shows the project resources assigned to each work package. It is a document that specifies the roles and responsibilities of each individual in the project, and the level of authority for specific activities. The Resource Management Plan is a document for managing the personnel assigned to the project. The Resource Management Plan is a document that describes how project resources will be acquired, allocated, monitored, and controlled. It describes the organization chart, roles and responsibilities, resource management and control guidelines, and even establishes team development and training, recognition, and compensation plans. The project manager must review the Resource Management Plan when there are personnel changes. The Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) is a document related to the organizational hierarchy that shows the relationships between the project teams performing project activities and the project activities. The Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS) is an organizational chart that has a hierarchical format. The Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) is a document that hierarchizes the resources assigned to the project by category and type. The Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) can also be subdivided to include skill level and grade level information for the project team members. The Team Charter is a document that states the project team’s values, agreements, and operating guidelines. It is a document that clearly states the expectations regarding acceptable behaviors for the project team members. The Team Charter is especially important for Agile teams, although it is also an important document for Waterfall projects.