What's over there?

We have IQ, there’s Emotional Intelligence (EI) – I say we add  EQ – environmental intelligence based on applying that Emotional Intelligence to what’s going on with stakeholders.

A quick recap, a stakeholder is someone who has a professional interest in the outcome of a project.  That interest may be acknowledged and formalized – corporate board, supervisor, project team and internal or external customer.  It also may be unacknowledged and informal — parallel project teams; teams up or down stream of the project’s production flow (e.g., Shipping), or through a functional group associated but not directly affected (e.g. accounting or marketing).

A stakeholder’s analysis is typically an informal data gathering process.  Perform it during a project team meeting.  The following three steps are recommended:

Identify who will be impacted by the project inside and outside the organization.  It is helpful to draw it on dry erase board or flip chart in a counter clock-wise fashion with the candidate project at 3 o’clock.

Identify outcomes, desirable (+) and undesirable (-).

Identify how often a group should receive information.  Information gleamed here feeds into the project’s responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) or RACI.

Why is this helpful for managing conflict in virtual teams?  Understanding the information and communication needs of stakeholders is critical in all teams, in virtual teams the opportunity to pick up informal, non-verbal ques is far less.  So a project manager needs to be much more deliberate to unearth potential problems

Related Articles

• Virtual Teams – Conflict Resolution – Prepare (tapuniversity.com)
• Virtual Teams – Conflict Resolution, Risk Assessment (tapuniversity.com)
• 5 Common Types of Conflict Found in Project Teams (brighthub.com)
• IQ or Wits Check; Fallacies and Cognitive Biases from Game in the Brain (gameinthebrain.blogspot.com)
• 10 Typical Activities of a Project Development Team (brighthub.com)
• 10 Ways to Resolve Conflict Between Project Team Members (brighthub.com)

Preparing the baking pan for project success!

Conflict. The mere term evokes a strong response. In today’s environment, examples of conflict are replete: Middle East, War on Terrorism, Political Divides. Intra personal conflict also appears to be increasing. Project managers also encounter a variety of conflicts: inadequate resources, changing organizational direction, project direction, disagreement among stakeholder groups, clash with functional teams, role conflict, team unity, and missed communication.

The answer to the first question is yes – conflict will occur.

That is not necessarily bad. Consider this. The Latin root of conflict (conflictus) means to “strike together”. Popular connotations are conflict pulls “apart”. Unresolved conflict pulls apart. Properly resolved conflict brings vibrancy to a project.

In 2002 I wrote a series of articles addressing conflict in virtual teams and shared some steps to actively manage conflict using a the acronym PRE-EMPT. 

The first step is to Prepare. Learn from past projects. Historical information is vital (it’s also a part of Organizational Process Assets now, a rather universal Input). Use it. Understanding and learning about past project flows in general and conflicts in particular provide a powerful insight to a current project.

Know your own standing as a project manager. Are you new to project management, new to the organization, or a veteran of several successful campaigns? Regardless of the entry point, it is vital to understand your strengths and weaknesses as well as how you are perceived by the team, stakeholders and organization. What are the team’s strengths and weaknesses? If the team is newly assembled, then time spent seeking this at the beginning pays dividends.

Teams typically begin at the first stage and then progress to later stages. However, teams can stop progressing at a certain stage and never reach the higher stages. Also, an event such as the addition of a team member can cause the team to regress to an earlier stage. In the Forming stage, the team members meet each other and learn about the team’s purpose and goals.

In the Storming stage, team members may struggle for certain roles and responsibilities as well as try to convince others of their perspective on how the work should be performed.

When the Norming stage is reached, team members are working together and an element of trust has been established.

The Performing stage demonstrates a highly effective team whose members are working together smoothly as a unit.

When the work is done and the team is disassembled, it is called Adjourning. Project Managers have an advantage if they are able to quickly move their team into the Performing stage. Also see the earlier posting of Develop Project Team Process (posted May 4, 2009).

The purpose of this process is to improve the team’s competencies and their interactions among each other. The list of who is on the team can be found in the Project Staff Assignments, and the times when each person is available can be found in the Resource Calendars. If the team members are at the same location, it’s called Co-location. The Project Management Plan may contain information on planned team development activities and training. It is helpful if the project management team has relevant Interpersonal Skills in their attempt to improve the interactions and skills of the project team. Training can increase competencies of individual members, and Team-Building Activities and Ground Rules can increase the overall functioning of the team. Recognition and Rewards can be used in a fair manner to recognize and increase desirable behavior. The primary output to this process is Team Performance Assessments which evaluate the effectiveness of the team. Also see the related posting of Develop Project Team – Team-building (posted February 5, 2009).

The project manager that can encourage the rapid development of a team has a great advantage. According to a well-known theory, teams go through stages of Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. A team that reaches the Performing stage will work most effectively. At the beginning, project managers should make certain that team members understand the objectives and importance of the project to help guide their individual decisions and to make the project goals their own. If the team members have individual agendas overshadowing a mutual team goal, problems are likely to ensue as they work against each other rather than together. Also, the project manager should try to encourage an atmosphere of trust and communication. To these ends, team-building activities may be introduced. Examples that people have used include: ice-breakers, ropes courses, off-site corporate events, games, company parties, and workshops. It can be difficult to find and execute a good team-building activity. What team-building activities have you experienced? Please share any ideas for team-building activities that you’ve found useful.