Unit – V Presentation

Unit – 5 (Managing People and Organizing Teams)1) Introduction

Three main concerns are,Staff selectionStaff developmentStaff motivationThe project leader can encourage effective group working

and decision making while giving purposeful leadership where needed.

Stages of project planning and execution.

2) Understanding Behaviour

People with practical experience of projects invariably identify the handling of people.

The managers must be able to decide on whether it is better to have experienced staff or get an expert advice.

Sensitive management of staff comes only from experience.

Organizational behaviour has evolved theories that try to explain people’s behaviour.

3) Organizational Behaviour : a Background

Three basic objectives are,1. To select the best people for the job.

2. To instruct them in the best methods.

3. To give incentives in the form of higher wages to the best workers.

The encouragement to the staff will help the project group to work together in achieving their goals which ultimately increases thee productivity.

Theory X and Theory YThe mangers work for money being instrumental are

called as cash-oriented persons can be categorized based on their individual attitudes.

Theory X includes,On an average , not every human likes to work.Somebody must have the control and direct the person to

work.People do not like to hold responsibilities.

Theory Y includes,People must like to work not forced to do it.External control is not the way to reach organizational

goals.Commitment towards the work allocated to individuals.Average human can learn to accept and seek responsibilityCreative qualities must be widely distributed.

Identifying best practice is valid.A reward does not have to be a financial reward – it could

be something like a sense of achievement.

4) Selecting the right person for the job

Taylor formulated the factor of selecting the right person for

the right job.

The use of software tools and methodologies, affect

programming productivity.

It is always better to have best people employed in the right

place of work for effectively productivity.

4.1) The recruitment processRecruitment is often an organizational responsibility.There is a lot of stress for every project manager about

choosing the right people to make up their team.Meredith Belbin categorizes people in recruiting process in

to two different types,

Eligible candidates – persons who have the right information needed by the organization in paper i.e curriculum vitae.

Suitable candidates – can actually do the job well but are not officially eligible.

Actual skills have to be taken into account while selecting a person rather than mere eligibility.

The recruitment process must include,

1) Create a job specification

2) Create a job holder profile

3) Obtaining applicants

4) Examine curriculum vitae

5) Interviews

6) References.

5)Instruction in the best methods

The responsibility of the team leader becomes very high in

case of recruiting new members into the team.

Team members must be continually assessed by the team

leader to meet their demands in the development process.

Proper training must be given to every staff member

involved in the development of the project.

Decisions will need to be made about whether a newcomer

can more effectively pick up technical expertise on the job

or on formal training courses.

Team members finds about a new software tool and then

demonstrating it to colleagues.

The training process must be actually implemented by the

team members as a whole in order to meet the objectives.

6) Motivation

There are various theories formulated by different persons

for motivating the people to work.

They are,

Taylorist model

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

Herzberg’s two-factor theory

Expectancy theory of motivation

6.1) The Taylorist model

Piece rates can cause difficulties if a new system will change work practices.

Day-rates refer to payment for time worked.The amount paid to the workers will not directly relate to

maximize the output in order to maximize their income.The amount of output will normally depend on the working

group and not based on an individual.Rewards based on piece-rates need to relate directly to work

produced.

6.2) Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, formulated a

hierarchy of needs with different levels.

Money can be very strong motivator with respect to individuals

but even if the worker is satisfied with the payment.

Highest level of need defined by Maslow is “self-actualization”

which expresses the feeling that the individual is completely

fulfilling their potential.

The motivation of individuals varies.Peoples are motivated by different things at different stages

of their life.

6.3) Herzberg’s two-factor theoryPeople tend to be dissatisfied about their job due to certain

factors. They are, Hygiene or maintenance factors Motivators

A hygiene factor makes the person dissatisfied if they are not rightly used.

A motivators can make the person feel that the job is worth doing it, like a sense of achievement or challenge of the work.

6.4) The expectancy theory of motivationThree influences on motivation are,

Expectancy Instrumentality Perceived value

Expectancy – is a belief that working harder will lead to better performance.

Instrumentality – is the belief that better performance will be rewarded.

Perceived value – denotes the resulting reward.

7) The Oldham-Hackman job characteristics model Managers should group together the elements of tasks to be

carried out to satisfy the assignments. The satisfaction that a job gives is based on five factors, Skill variety Task identity Task significance

AutonomyFeedback

7.1) Elements of Tasks

Factors that make the job meaningful to the person who is doing it are skill variety, task identity and task significance.

Skill variety – different skills that the job holder has the opportunity to exercise.

Task identity – person work and its results are identifiable as belonging to the person.

Task significance – the job has an influence on others.Autonomy – discretion about the way the person works.Feedback – information the person receives back about the

results of his work.

7.2) Methods of improving motivation

Managers must adopt the factors listed below to improve motivation.Set specific goalsProvide feedbackConsider job design

Set specific goals – demanding goalsProvide feedback – reflects the performance of the

staff about how they are progressing.Consider job design – the job more interesting and

provides the staff with greater responsibility.

7.3) Measures for Enhancing job

Managers must involve the following measures to enhance the job design, Job enlargement Job enrichment.

Job enlargement – exactly reverse of specialization where the person doing the job carries out a wider variety of activities.

Job enrichment – where the job holder carried out tasks at managerial and supervisor level.

8) Working in Groups

Not all people involved in the development process like to work in groups.

Working in groups and many people attracted to software development find this difficult.

Formal groups can be formulated based on the different departments and task groups can be formed based on specific tasks carried.

Task groups can contain different people from different departments to work together to carry out a specific task.

9) Becoming a Team

Making people work together is the most difficult task that the project manager has to carefully handle.

A team cannot perform instantly, it has to develop over time.

9.1) Team Formation Model

Every team has to go through five different stages of development as depicted in the team formation model namely,

Forming – rules and general behavior Storming – methods of operation Norming – conflicts are largely settled Performing – how tasks are handled by the team Adjourning – disbanding of the group.

9.2) Individual Characteristics

A team must be formed with the best mix of different personalities.

Belbin formulated the need of balanced teams based on individual characteristics of people.

The chairThe plantThe monitor-evaluatorThe shaperThe team worker

The resource investigatorThe completer-finisherThe company worker.

9.3) Group Performance

The groups are more effective than individuals working. It is the responsibility of the project manager to

distinguish the tasks which are supposed to be carried out together and those tasks to be carried out by individuals

There are four different ways of categorizing group tasks, they are,

Additive tasksCompensatory tasksDisjunctive tasksConjunctive tasksA major problem can arise with additive tasks that lead to

social loafing.Social loafing is a problem where some individuals do not

make their proper contribution when carrying out group assignments.

10) Decision MakingEffective groups make decisions.

10.1) Categorize of Decisions Decision making process can be categorized into,

Structured Unstructured

Structured – decisions are generally simple where the rules are applied in a straight-forward way.

Unstructured – decisions are often more complex and require a great degree of creativity.

The amount of risk and the uncertainty involved in the development process can affect the decision making process.

10.2) Obstacles to good decision making

Few factors that affect good decision making process are,Faulty heuristics – rules of thumbEscalation of commitment – when a wrong decision is

made which cannot be altered easily later Information overload – too much of information also

might lead the decision process to choose a wrong one.

10.3) Group decision making

In group discussions, different specialist and point of view

stakeholders can be brought together to make a better

decision.

Decisions made by a team can be approved and accepted

easily than decisions imposed by individuals.

Every group meeting takes the collective responsibility of

having properly briefed of solving complex problems.

A group can arrive at better solutions for complex problems

because the members of the group have complementary

skills and expertise.

Group meetings provide an opportunity for people to

communicate freely and easily among the members of the

group.

Groups are less effective for poorly structured problems

where brainstorming techniques can be used to help the

groups to make it structured.

10.4) Obstacles to Good Group Decision Making

Group decision making process has its own disadvantages,

It is time consuming processConflicts can arise among the members of the groupDecisions can be influenced by dominant personalities.Sometimes people in groups take hasty decisions that

can cause more risk than when they make their decisions on their own known as risky shift.

10.5) Measures to reduce Obstacles of Group Decision Making

To make group decision making process to be more effective and efficient the Delphi technique can be adopted.

Delphi technique endeavourers to collate the judgements of a number of experts without actually bringing them face to face.

The set of procedures is carried out as follows,

1. Cooperation of a number of experts is enlisted.

2. Experts record their recommendations

3. Collected responses are recirculated

11) Leadership

Leadership means the ability to influence others in a group to act in a particular way to achieve group goals.

A leader need not be a very good manager or vice-versa since mangers have different roles such as organizing, planning and controlling.

It is very difficult to list the common characteristics of good leaders.

Leadership is generally based on the idea of authority or power.

11.1) Positional Leadership Power

Power can take the form based on the position of the person.

Positional power can be analyzed as,

Coercive power – ability to force someone to do something by threatening punishment.

Connection power – having access to those who have power.

Legitimate power – person’s title giving a special status.

Reward power – holder gives rewards to those who carry out tasks to the satisfaction of their leader.

11.2) Personal Leadership Power

Personal power depicts the person’s individual qualities.

Personal power can be analyzed as,

Expert power – who is capable of doing specialized tasks.

Information power – the holder has exclusive access to information.

Referent power – personal attractiveness of the leader.

11.3)Leadership Styles

The leaders must be an authoritative but at the same time more flexible and tolerant.

The leaders must be democratic as well, to have a very disciplined execution of the plan.

Leadership styles can be classified as,

Directive vs Permissive

Autocratic vs Democratic

Directive autocrat makes decisions alonePermissive autocrat also makes decisionsDirective democrat makes decisions participativePermissive democrat also makes decision participative

12) Organizational Structures

Organizations are the foundations of software project management that rests on project management skills and techniques, software engineering processes and quality systems and measurement.

Definition

Organizations can be defined as groups of people who must coordinate their activities in order to meet the organizational objectives.

An organizational structure has a greater impact on the way a project is conducted.

12.1) Formal and Informal Structures

Formal structure is expressed in the organizational chart and it is concerned with authority.

An informal organizational structure can be represented as a

web of relationships that typically crosses formal boundaries.

Hierarchical forms of organization shifts towards flatter,

loosely structured team based models.

Authority will always flow from top to bottom through the

structure.

Staff working in organization can be called as line workers

who develop the end product and support staff who does the

supporting staff role.

12.2) Departmentalization

Departmentalization of organizations depends on staff specialties, product lines, categories of customer .

The software development process approach is referred as either function-oriented or task-oriented.

Function oriented approach deals with different groups that are formed on their functional specialization.

Task oriented approach, members are grouped together with respect to a specific task.

Departmentalization is also base don life cycle phase.

Matrix form of departmentalization can also be formed where there are two managers namely project manager and programming manager.

Egoless programming.

12.3) Chief Programmer Teams

The chief programmer defines the specification , design, code, tests and documents the entire software.

The chief programmer can have a co-pilot who can assist in writing some code and discussions.

The editor –write up the documentationProgram clerk – maintains the actual codeTester – validates the codeDisadvantage – overload with lots of information and

cannot manage at some point of time.Extreme programming concept can overcome this

disadvantage.

13) Stress

Every project will have obstacles and it has to overcome those obstacles by achieving the objectives.

Handling pressure in work spot must be healthy and it

should not lead to health hazards.

Productivity and the quality of output decreases when

people work for more than 40 hours a week.

Good planning and control of project management can help

reduce unexpected problems generating unnecessary crises.

Stress is usually caused by role ambiguity when the staff

does not know what they are supposed to do or what their

role in the development process.

Role conflict can increase stress where the person demands two different roles.

14) Health and Safety

The two important factors that are more prominent in construction and other heavy engineering projects are health and safety.

A project manager must be aware of the safety policy document that applies to the environment in which the product is developed.

Safety policy document must be maintained by the manager

to meet the safety objectives such as the reliability of the

completed application or the overall cost of the project.

Responsibility of safety issues must be clearly defined at

different levels and includes,

Top management must abide by the safety policy

Delegation of responsibilities for safety must be clear and

must be agreed upon.

Job descriptions should include duties related to safety.

Deployment of a safety officer and the support of experts in

technical areas.

Consultation of safety.

Adequate budget for the safety costs.

Safety procedures must be known to the employees and

necessary training must be given wherever needed.