Development and Analysis of Management Essay: Project Teams

DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS OF MANAGEMENT

ESSAY

INTRODUCTION

The assignment consists of an essay that reflects a discussion regarding the management of different types of teams with a special emphasis on project teams. The essay attempts to reflect the characteristics that make project teams distinctive from other types of teams. Also, it attempts to address the relation that the same is having with other types of teams. The essay assesses these aspects through considering a case study that better enables the acknowledgement and understanding of assignment objectives and outcomes. Also, the challenges that are faced in managing the teams due to project working are discussed in the essay. The completion of the assignment is through module learning and use of information available through secondary sources.

DISCUSSION

PROJECT TEAMS AND DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS

There are different types of teams that are constituted for a specific purpose and are designed or constituted in a specific manner. This factor eventually results in development of different types of teams that are having distinctive characteristics. A team can said to be a collection of individuals that are there to perform their specific roles that are assigned to them that in turn their individual objectives and accomplishment of these individual objectives of all team members leads to the accomplishment of team objectives (Catalano et al., 2021). There are multiple factors that eventually lead to development of different types of teams. One of the prominent types of team is project teams.

Project teams are the ones that comprised of different individuals that are delegated with tasks and responsibilities the accomplishment of which allows with the development of project deliverable that are expected as per the project plan. Project teams works in accordance with the project plan and the schedule that is pre-developed. The members of a project team work as per instructions and under the guidance of team manager that leads the functioning of the team. Also, the level of participation of each member is pre-defined. One of the characteristics of project team is that it is not necessary that all the members of the project team will remain part of the same throughout the life cycle of the project (Liu and Cross, 2016). They may or may not, depending upon their role. A project team consists of multiple roles such as project management, business analysts, experts etc.

One of the major characteristic or aspect that differentiates a project team from other type of teams making the same a distinctive one is the constitution of the team or the selection of member in that team. The project managers ask for the functional or departmental managers for the availability of their human resources as per the demand of the project. Thus the project team comprised of best talent and expertise from different departments and functional area making the talent base of the project team to be diversified. The diversified talent base will work together and in appropriate coordination in order to generate required deliverables (Navimipour and Charband, 2016). Thus in essence, where other teams are constituted with homogenous talent to perform roles and responsibilities in similar areas such as finance team, management team etc., and a project team consists of heterogeneous talent pool that allows the accomplishment of project objectives rather than specific departmental objectives.

Apart from these distinctive characteristics of project teams, the purpose and organizational structure of the team also defines the difference among different teams. A project team is having a manager i.e. the project manager that is responsible for the acquisition and management of all essential resources as per the desired project objectives. This is not the case with all other teams such as self-managed team in which the individual are themselves responsible for their work and their functioning is not managed by any manager (Task, 2022). Under project teams, the roles, responsibilities and limitations are pre-decided and delegation of work is as per the project plan whereas there is no such pre-planning regarding delegation of roles and responsibilities rather the work is managed through mutual agreements. Similarly project teams require being at the same place in order to develop and maintain appropriate communication and understanding of the work with regular checks and alterations. Effective communication is essential for project teams as the members are from different departments and may be new to others team members. Thus project teams prefers being physically at a common workplace. But this is not the case in regards with virtual teams or remote teams that are highly depends on virtual communication channels. Another type of team is operational team that contains homogenous talent pool in order to perform tasks of similar area. These teams can be human resource teams, accounting teams etc. (Navimipour and Charband, 2016). But as acknowledged earlier, project teams are not comprised only homogenous talent rather members from different functional departments. Thus through these characteristics of project team, it is distinct from other types of teams.

RELATION WITH OTHER TEAMS

Project teams are different from other types of teams but they are having relation with other teams. The development of a project team in itself initiates the relation with other teams. The development and constitution of a project team is based on project plan and the project manager. The accomplishment of project objectives first requires the accomplishment of objectives related to individual roles. These individual roles in a project team are not similar rather require expertise of different departments (Mueller, 2015). In order to fulfil the talent gap of the project team as per the expected standards and objectives of project plan, the project manager required to consult with other teams regarding the requirements and asks for the resources they are having that can help the accomplishment of project objectives.in this ways the expertise and resources that can be data or machinery of different departments are acquired by the project teams in order to perform specific tasks. Also, the association of a project team with almost all other functional teams due to diversified roles and responsibilities (Task, 2022). Project teams are having relations with other teams as different projects are having different needs and thus different resources that are taken from other teams.

Concerning the case study, in which the students of final year of interactive multimedia course were tasked to design and develop websites. One team contains 4 to 5 members and there are approximately 20 teams. They are tasked to identify a legitimate need in the industry and develop a website for the same. The roles of team members of this project teams are project management, programmer and graphic designer. This reflects that the project team is required to have association of relation with the management department, human resources department, financial department and other functional departments (Tarricone and Luca, 2002). This eventually reflects the manner in which project teams are related to other teams.

CHALLENGES FACING MANAGEMENT OF TEAMS

Every team is facing certain challenges that can be of general nature or may be of specific nature based on the requirements of the objectives. There are challenges in the management of team that are associated with project working. These challenges may differ from team to team due to different factors such as purpose, constitution, management, objectives etc. One of the major challenges is lack of collaboration. In a project team, the team members chosen are from different departments and thus are required to collaborate at appropriate levels in order to develop results that are required and also to better understand the views and opinions of each other. Thus development of collaboration and its maintenance is of a major challenge. Another prominent challenge is inflexibility. The employees in the contemporary business environment are keener to have flexible work arrangements that help them in better managing work-life balance (Stocker et al., 2016). But concerning the project teams that requires everyone to be at the location in order to better understand and collaborate the work requires rigidity in organizational functioning. Concerning the case study, that attempts to analyze two team among around 20 teams in order to assess the team management issues, one team was instrumental in development of successful results as they developed the quality product required. The reason for this was due to collaboration and appropriate understanding whereas concerning the second team; it was ineffective in collaborating appropriate that results into it getting dysfunctional and eventually to split (Tarricone and Luca, 2002). Through this observation it was recognized that absence of shared vision, interdependence, open communication and appropriate composition of the team serves as biggest challenges and eventually leads to failure. Thus these aspects are essentially required being part of the approach for managing the team in order to successfully accomplish the results.

CONCLUSION

The completion of the assignment is instrumental in facilitating with the acknowledgement of the difference that project teams are having with other type of teams. This also helps in acknowledging the distinctive characteristics that project teams are having in comparison to other types of teams. though project teams are different from other teams, they have appropriate and effective relations with other teams and departments. The maintenance of these relations is essential in order to maintain the effectiveness of team objectives. Also, the essay helps in acknowledging the major challenges that are faced during management of team such as collaboration, absence of interdependence etc. Thus in order to accomplish the objectives of a project, it is essential to manage the project team appropriately.

REFERENCES

Catalano, A.S., Jimmieson, N.L. and Knight, A.T., 2021. Building better teams by identifying conservation professionals willing to learn from failure. Biological Conservation, 256, p.109069.

Liu, W.H. and Cross, J.A., 2016. A comprehensive model of project team technical performance. International Journal of Project Management, 34(7), pp.1150-1166.

Mueller, J., 2015. Formal and informal practices of knowledge sharing between project teams and enacted cultural characteristics. Project Management Journal, 46(1), pp.53-68.

Navimipour, N.J. and Charband, Y., 2016. Knowledge sharing mechanisms and techniques in project teams: Literature review, classification, and current trends. Computers in Human Behavior, 62, pp.730-742.

Stocker, M., Pilgrim, S.B., Burmester, M., Allen, M.L. and Gijselaers, W.H., 2016. Interprofessional team management in pediatric critical care: some challenges and possible solutions. Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare, 9, p.47.

Tarricone. P. and Luca. J., 2002. Successful teamwork: A case study. (Online). Available at; http://www.unice.fr/crookall-cours/teams/docs/team%20Successful%20teamwork.pdf [Accessed on 18^th April 2022].

Task., 2022. Detailed Overview of different types of teams typically found in an organization. (Online). Available at; https://www.ntaskmanager.com/blog/types-of-teams/ [Accessed on 18^th April 2022].