Jenna Doucet (2oo9).
Project Planning in Teams
Working in teams has become common place for most education and workforce instituitions. The successful team project is dependent on how well the team develops a plan to attack the project. Team members should focus on the planning stages of the project as the primary goal. Successful project planning is dependent on team leadership, identifying the project and defining its goals and planning for effective collaboration amongst team members. Understanding the various aspects involved in project planning is not only a constituent to effectively achieving the team’s goals, but a reflection of the institution’s ability for success.
The first step in project planning is the election or appointment of a team leader. A team leader’s role is to facilitate the success of a project, through careful and meticulous planning the effective leader establishes a road map that ensures all parties involved have coordinated tasks and responsibilities to accomplish. “All groups need leadership. Without leadership, a group may be nothing more than a collection of individuals lacking the coordination and motivation to achieve a common goal ” (Leadership in Groups, p. 173).
The next logical step in project planning is the implementation of the project’s scope or specifics. This is where the team establishes their goals and objectives. The use of a comprehensive team charter can help the team leader’s and members cooperate on a plan of action that meets the project’s demands (Hayes, 2000). The Team charter is a cooperative project where all team members are encouraged to give input on such delicate subjects such as the team’s goal and guidelines for managing limitations and conflicts. A comprehensive team charter should incorporate the following elements :
Project objectives
The first step of the team charter should be to identify the project’s objectives. Objectives are the what, when and where of the project. These include the project’s overall timelines and content as well as the individual goals of the team’s members (Grey and Larson, 2003). For example, in an educational setting, a team might be tasked with writing an academic paper on Team work. Together the team might decide that the project’s objectives are to write a paper on conflict resolution and set the assignement’s due date as their timeline. Furthermore, they may collectively have a common goal of achieving a mark of 80% or higher. Team members will have individual goals as well and some may wish to achieve a grade of 90% while others would be happy just to get a passing grade. In this case, the simple act of defining the team’s collective and individual goals will bring the team one step closer to meeting each other’s expectations. In an organizational setting the compilation of individual successes translate to the organization’s overall success.
Deliverables
According to Grey and Larson (2003) the next step of the project planning process is to state major deliverables, which are “ the expected outputs over the life of the project” (p.101). For example, when tasked with writing an essay the outputs could be each of the five stages of the writing process: Planning, Outlining, Drafting, Revising and Editing. In the oganizational setting, deliverables usually include time, quantity and costs estimates (Grey and Larson, 2003).
Milestones
Milestones fall into the third step of the project planning stage and are defined by Grey and Larson (2003) as the individual project tasks that must be completed by specific dates. Organizations typically structure milestones as the natural control points in a project. For any writing assignement in the educational instituition, this could categorize individual processes and timelines for the the five stages of the writing process. For example, in the planning stage of the academic paper the team would define the steps such as researching subtopics A,B and C and by a set compilation date.
Barriers and Limitations
Defining barriers and limitations are the final stage of defining the project scope. According to Grey and Larson (2003), defining a project’s limitations can help prevent the team from establishing false expectations. Barriers or limitations are any challenge the team may face in meeting the project’s goals and objectives, which include such things as timelines, potential conflicts amongst team members, and in the organizational project other factors such as budget.
Finally in order for the team members to reach their goals they must be able to come together as a team. Careful preparation and planning is also a key factor in ensuring the team’s ability to work together effectively. In the early stages of planning it is important to take into consideration the potential of arising conflicts.Traditionally conflict management has not been of interest to most individual’s planning a team project, however neglecting this step can have serious consequences of the project’s success (Bubshait and Farooq, 1999). It is important to understand that no team is immune to conflict and even the most productive and cohesive of groups will have their share of disagrements. Conflicts can yield constructive results if managed successfully (Capozzoli, 1999). It can be difficult however, to manage a conflict constructively in the heat of an argument. It is therefore a good idea to brainstorm on potential conflict scenerios and have team members negotiate and comit to a plan of action before an incident occors. Pre-determining resolution techniques can help ensure the team’s commitment to the resolution and overall success of the project.
In conclusion project planning is a key factor in the success of a project. Any project can be successfully managed with a competent leader, the implementation of a comphrehensive charter, where details such as objectives and goals, deliverables, milestones and limitations are considered, and finally where a plan of action for conflict resolution has been adopted.
References
A. Bubshait and G. Farooq (1999). Team building and Project Success. Retrieved june on 13th 2009 from:http://proquest.umi.com/pqdwebdid=43052090&sid=1&Fmt=4&clientId=2606&RQT=309&VName=PQD&cfc=1
C. Grey and E. Larson (2003). Project Management: The Managerial Process, 2e The Mc-Graw Hill companies.
D. Hayes (2000). Evaluation and Application of a Project Charter Template to Improve the Project Planning Process. Retrieved on june 11th 2009 from: The Meritus University Library Learning Team Toolkit: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=107&sid=7198cd8b-a486-4dc8-9dee- 35118af9270a%40sessionmgr108
Leadership In Groups (n.d). Retrieved on june 4th 2009 from: The Meritus University Library Learning team toolkit: http://www.apollolibrary.com/LTTMU/download/LeadershipInGroups.pdf
T. Capozzoli (1999). Conflict Resolution: A key ingredient in successful teams. Retrieved on june 12th 2009 from: The Meritus University Library Learning Team Toolkit: http://proquest.umi.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/pqdwebindex=0&did=000000045982839&SrchMode=5&Fmt=3&retrieveGroup=0&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&x=&VName=PQD&TS=1065547552&clientId=13118
Short Essays (Economics, Politics, Law and Business) 