Managing IT Personnel with the Role of Leadership

Prepared by:Guinto,Merwin Arthur M.

“People are our most important

asset.”

Recruitment of IS/IT Personnel

EducationWork ExperiencePersonalitySkills Set

What factors would you consider most important in recruiting employees?

Does the applicant possess the required educational attainment for the job?

Education

Work experience is any experience that a person gains while working in a specific field or occupation

Work Experience

Internship (OJT) is often offered between the second and final years of an undergraduate degree course, especially in the science, engineering and computing fields. Courses of this nature are often called sandwich courses, with the work experience year itself known as the sandwich year. During this time, the students on work placement have the opportunity to use the skills and knowledge gained in their first two years, and see how they are applied to real world problems.

This offers them useful insights for their final year and prepares them for the job market once their course has finished. Some companies sponsor students in their final year at university with the promise of a job at the end of the course.

No two people are identical; certain personality traits can make people similar or dissimilar to others. The importance of different personalities in the workplace can be traced to several different factors. A team made up of several different compatible personalities that complement one another can be more productive than a team made up of those who are so similar they cannot work productively together.

Importance of different personalities in a workplace

Ideally, a team is composed of the six major personality types: driver, adventurer, energizer, cheerleader, stabilizer and perfectionist. Each person has a dominant personality type and a latent personality type. By combining all of these personalities on the same team, you have the ingredients for success in a project. The driver and the energizer keep the rest of the team on task, the stabilizer helps smooth over any disagreements, the cheerleader improves morale, the adventurer helps the team take risks that it might not otherwise tak and the perfectionist helps ensure that the project is done precisely. Take away one of these personalities, and the team may lose direction

Team Diversity

Different personalities can motivate one another, while similar personalities may actually prove to be harmful in a workplace environment.

Motivation

Employee morale is a serious issue within any company. Workers with a hard driving personality type typically get their jobs done and encourage others to the same. Laid-back stablizers may not have the focus and the drive to stay on task and can get distracted, dragging others with them. By keeping your workforce full of diverse personalities, you can be assured that morale is high while distractions are low.

Employee Morale

The main goal of team development is to help people work together more effectively to improve project performance

Team Development

1) Forming2) Storming3) Norming4) Performing5) Adjourning

Five stages of Team development

Involves the introduction of team members,either at the initiation of the team or as new members are introduced.

Forming

Occurs when team members have different opinions for how the team should operate.People test each other,and there is often conflict within the team.

Storming

A norm is a guideline or an expectation for behavior.

Is achieved when team members have developed a common working method,and cooperation and collaboration.

Norming

Occurs when the emphasis is on reaching the team’s goals rather than working on team process.Relationships are settled,and team members are likely to build loyalty toward each other.At this stage,the team is able to manage tasks that are more complex and cope with greater change.

Performing

Involves the break-up of the team after it successfully reaches its goals and completes the work

Adjourning

Managing Project Teams

Observation and conversation : Project managers need to observe team members at work to assess how they are performing and ask team members howthey feel about their work. Many project managers like to practice “management by walking around ” to physically see and hear their team members atwork. Informal or formal conversations about how a project is going can provide crucial information.

For virtual workers(e.g. Teachers,Freelance programmers), project managers can stillobserve and discuss work and personal issues via e-mail, telephone, or othermedia.

Project performance appraisals:

The need for projectperformance appraisals and the types required vary depending on the lengthof the project, its complexity, organizational policies, contract requirements,and related communications. Even if a project manager does not provide official project performance appraisals for team members, it is still important to provide timely performance feedback.

If a team member hands in sloppy or late work, the project manager should determine the reason and take appropriate action. Perhaps the team member had a death in the family and could not concentrate. Perhaps the team member was planning to leave the project.The reasons for the behavior should have a strong impact on the action the project manager takes.

Interpersonal skills :

Project managers mustpossess several interpersonal skills. To effectively manage teams, it is especially important to focus on leadership, influencing, and decision making skills.

Conflict management :

Few projects are completed without conflicts. Sometypes of conflict are actually desirable on projects, but many are not. It’ simportant for project managers to understand strategies for handling conflicts and to proactively manage conflict.

Strategies for

handling conflicts

1.Confrontation

When using the confrontation mode , project managers face aconflict directly using a problem-solving approach that allows affected parties to work through their disagreements. This approach is also called the problem-solving mode.

2. Compromise

With the compromise mode, project managers use a give-and-take approach to resolving conflicts.

They bargain and search for solutionsthat bring some degree of satisfaction to all the parties in a dispute.

3. Smoothing

When using the smoothing mode , the project manager deemphasizes or avoids areas of differences and emphasizes areas of agreement.

This approach is also called accommodating

4. Forcing

The forcing mode can be viewed as the win-lose approach to conflictresolution.

Project managers exert their viewpoint at the potential expense of another viewpoint.

5. Withdrawal

When using the withdrawal mode , project managers retreat or withdraw from an actual or potential disagreement. This approach is alsocalled avoiding, and is normally the least desirable conflict-handling mode,