Introduction
When starting a new project, agile project managers must recruit team members that are skilled for the project at hand. This is only the beginning of developing a team though, as project managers and their teams must work together to accomplish the project goals that have been set by stakeholders. Though each member is skilled in their own right, it takes a collaborative effort by the entire team to complete these goals. It is important for project managers to understand how to effectively develop a project team so that they can improve the projects performance. There are many methods to develop a project team, and, in this article, we will address a few for new project managers to get a basis for what they can implement.
Steps to team Development
Dr. Bruce Tuckman created a model of team development, known as the Tuckman Model, that lays out the five stages of the team development process. These steps are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. The first step, forming, is the phase where team members introduce themselves and get to know each member of the group. In forming not much work is done as the team is just getting to know each other. The second step, storming, happens when team members voice their opinions which can create disagreements or conflict of opinions. In this stage team members will gain more trust for each other and find out how to work better together. This will also help the project manager understand how to better manage the group and individual members.
The third step, norming, is when the team has passed the storming stage and have begun to comfortably work together. They will have had gained a better understanding of team goals and direction. Through this they will develop a common working method that is effective for the team. The fourth step, performing, is when the team has relationships and working methods down and begin emphasis on completing the team goals. At this point the team is at peak performance. They are able to complete more complex tasks and handle change better. The last step, adjourning, comes after the team has completed their goals and finished the project. This is where the team goes their separate ways to work on another project.
Graphic from: Atlassian
Training
Training can play an important role in the ease of success for a project team. Project teams and their members can learn all sorts of skills through training such as interpersonal, to help manage and deal with fellow team member, necessary skills for their job or project, and much more. Training can be very effective when implemented in a just-in-time fashion. Just-in-time training is when a team or team member have a project coming up that will require a certain skill and they receive training in that skill. An example of this would be a team that has a program being created on a new programming language team members have not worked with coming up, such as python, and the team goes to a training in python together. These training courses can either be offered in-person or online for ease of access to employees. Offering the ability for team members to have access to training will improve the overall quality of the projects that they work on as they will learn new skills that they can implement not only on the current project, but also future projects.
Team-building Activities
Another effective tool in developing a project team can be team-building activities. These are exercises that a team does together to form and deepen the bond and trust that they have with each other. They can either be physical or mental. A physical team-building activity is something that gets the team active and moving. An example of this could be a scavenger hunt where the team is broken into smaller groups and compete to find items. A mental team-building activity is where the team talks, brainstorms, and just gets to know each other better. An example of this would be a team dinner where the members set down, have a meal together, and talk about anything and everything they want to talk about. Companies can also reach out to other specialized companies that focus on creating and hosting team-building activities. All of this will strengthen the bond and trust between members of your project team to help the process of team development and completion of project goals.
Graphic From: kissclipart.com
Other
Here are some other things to keep in mind as an agile project manager when in the process of developing a team:
Sharpen focus- Managers need to set priorities for teams to keep the members focused on what matters most and progressing their way to the team’s goals.
Break down barriers- Managers must be able to identify barriers to progress and be able to address them for the team to keep stability and confidence
Optimize failures- Teams are prone to have failures within their project and leaders should use these as teaching moments for the team. Take time in retrospectives or weekly recap meetings to address these moments.
Build optimism- In times of crisis managers need to be the rock of the team, offering confidence, strength, and positivity to the team members
Reassure team members- When crisis occurs managers should keep team members minds at ease by affirming their roles, value, and future.
Plan for recovery- Develop contingency plans or at least a rough outline to recovery to help team members be able to focus on making forward progress
Agile
Agile approaches rely heavily on teamwork and collaboration to reach end goals and objectives. This means that agile project managers need to know effective and efficient ways for developing the project team since agile is quite fast paced and changing from approaches such as waterfall. Team chemistry, bond, and trust are important to improve the team’s ability to complete the tasks at hand. There are many methods that project managers and teams can implement to better the experience and progress of the project. With agile a team needs to develop to the point that they can adapt to changes together and make decisions as a group about their project in quite a short amount of time. Managers need to be available and ready to supplement this growth of the team to methods that can be implemented. We have addressed just a few methods of team development in this article, but there are many more that have been explored and tested. Managers should work with their team to find effective methods for their team and situation.
References:
deBara, D. (2021, June 8). The storming phase: How to manage during challenging times. Officevibe. Retrieved October 29, 2021, from https://officevibe.com/blog/storming-phase.
Drumond, C. (2021). How to build a kick-ass agile team. Atlassian Agile Coach. Retrieved October 29, 2021, from https://www.atlassian.com/agile/teams.
Pulakos, E., & Kaiser, R. (2021, August 27). To build an agile team, commit to organizational stability. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved October 29, 2021, from https://hbr.org/2020/04/to-build-an-agile-team-commit-to-organizational-stability.
Schwalbe, K. (2019). Information technology project management (9th ed.). Cengage.
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