Project Team Building, Conflict, and Negotiation

1. Project Team Building, Conflict, and Negotiation

2. Identify Necessary Skills Identify People With Skills Renegotiate with Top Management No Success? Yes Yes Success? No Build Fallback Positions Assemble the Team Building the Project Team Talk to Potential Team Members Negotiate with Their Supervisor

3. Build Fallback Positions • Try to negotiate for partial assistance • Adjust project schedules and priorities accordingly • Notify top management of the consequences

4. Effective Project Teams • Clear Sense of Mission • Productive Interdependency • Cohesiveness • Trust • Enthusiasm: • Challenging, supportive, personally rewarding • Results Orientation

5. Reasons Why Teams Fail • Poorly developed or unclear goals: Multiple interpretations, lack of willingness to work together, increased number of conflicts • Poorly defined project team roles& interdependencies • Lack of project team motivation: Unnecessary, low priority • Poor communication • Poor leadership • Turnover among project team members • Dysfunctional behavior

6. Stages in Group Development • Forming – members become acquainted • Storming – conflict begins • Norming – members reach agreement • Performing – members work together • Adjourning – group disbands Punctuated Equilibrium is a different model

7. Team Development Stages Adjourn Convene 4. Performing 1. Forming Trust Flexible Supportive Confident Efficient High Morale Quiet Polite Guarded Impersonal Business-like High Morale Inclusion Productivity Productive Testing Organized Infighting Conflict over control Confrontational Alienation Personal agendas Low morale Establish procedures Develop team skills Confront issues Rebuild morale Control Cooperation 2. Storming 3. Norming

8. Task Outcomes Superordinate Goals Rules & Procedures Cross-functional cooperation Physical Proximity Psycho-Social Outcomes Accessibility Achieving Cross-Functional Cooperation

9. Building High-Performing Teams Make the project team tangible • Publicity • Terminology & language Reward good behavior • Flexibility • Creativity • Pragmatism Develop a personal touch • Lead by example • Positive feedback for good performance • Accessibility & consistency

10. Virtual Project Teams use electronic media to link members of a geographically dispersed project team How Can Virtual Teams Be Improved? • Use face-to-face communication when possible • Don’t let team members disappear • Establish a code of conduct • Keep everyone in the communication loop • Create a process for addressing conflict

11. Conflict Management

12. Conflict Management Conflictis a process that begins when you perceive that someone has frustrated or is about to frustrate a major concern of yours. Conflicts evolve: One-time causes of a conflict can change over time (the original reason may not matter).

13. Categories • Goal-oriented conflict: • Results, project scope outcomes, criteria, priorities • Administrative conflict: • Reporting relationships, authority, control, decisions • Interpersonal conflict: • Personality, bahaviour, work ethics – GOOD or BAD conflicts –

14. Views • Traditional: bad: supression, elimination • Behavioral:acceptance: managing • Interactionist:encouraging conflict to develop

15. Sources of Conflict Organizational • Reward systems(function vs. project) • Competition for resources • Uncertainty (authority) • Differentiation (subcutrures) • Interpersonal • Faulty attributions (reasons behind behaviour) • Faulty communication • Personal grudges & prejudices (bringing attitudes to work)

16. Conflict Resolution II • Questions before intervening: • Project manager’s siding: threat of alienation • Professional or personal conflict • Can the members solve the conflict themselves? • Time and inclination of the project manager

17. Conflict Resolution II • Mediate – defusion/confrontation • Arbitrate – judgment • Control – cool down period • Accept – unmanageable • Eliminate – transfer Conflict is often evidence of progress!

18. Negotiation a(n)(interpersonal) process that is predicated on a manager’s ability to use influence productively Who to negotiate with? • Stakeholders • Clients • Functional managers • Administration • Team members

19. Questions to Ask Prior to Entering a Negotiation • How much power do I have? • What sort oftime pressures are there? • Do I trust my opponent?

20. Principled Negotiation • Separate the people from the problem • Put yourself in their shoes • Do not deduce their intentions from your fear • Do not blame the opponent for your problem • Recognize and understand emotions • Listen actively (motivation behind words) • Build a working relationship (building trust) • Focus on interests(fundamental motivations), not positions • Possibility to find other alternatives • Invent options for mutual gain • Win-win situation, multiple solutions, brainstorming, broadening options, identify shared interests • Insist on using objective criteria, understandable for both parties