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Semester: III
McGregor’s Theory
· X theory
· Y theory
X theory:
4. Under favorable conditions, the average employee will seek and accept
responsibility
Maslow’s theory:
2. People’s needs change predictably over time, which means that – new needs
arise as the needs of people lower in the hierarchy are met
(Which is also known by the three letter anagram PDF) refers to a specific
project management technique in which the project management team and or
the project management team leader employs a schedule network diagramming
technique in order to graphically represent any known and preexisting schedule
activities via the use of boxes (which can also be referred to as nodes). Once all
of these particular schedule activities have been graphically displayed in this
box, or node format, at that point all of the individual boxes are linked together
Ans:
Avoidant:
Some people will do anything to avoid a direct confrontation. They agree even
though they are opposed to the outcome. This style can not be tolerated on the
project team. Each person’s input and opinion must be sought. It is the
responsibility of the project manager to make sure that this happens. A simple
device is to ask each team member in turn what he or she thinks about the
situation and what he or she suggests be done about it. Often this approach will
diffuse any direct confrontation between two individuals on the team.
Accommodating:
Here, one party is ready for keeping the psychological door open to the other
party. When the issue is more important to oneself than to the other person, this
strategy works better under such situations. Forgetting or Forgiving on one issue
may be key to moving the conflict to a new level where issues may be discussed
better. It can be a useful, but a temporary fix among the parties.
Consensus Building:
Consensus building is an excellent tool to have in the project team tool kit. In all
but a few cases, there will be a legitimate difference of opinion as to how a
problem or issue should be addressed. There will be no clear-cut action on
which all can agree. In such situations the team must fashion an action or deci
sion with which no team members have serious disagreement even though they
may not agree in total with the chosen action.
To use the method success fully, make sure that everyone on the team gets to
speak. Talk through the issue until an acceptable action is identified. Conflict is
good, but tries to be creative as you search for a compromise action. As soon as
no one has serious objections to the defined action, you have reached consensus.
Once a decision is reached, all team members must support it.
Collaborative approach:
In this approach, the team looks for win-win opportunities. The approach seeks
out a common ground as the basis for moving ahead to a solution. This
approach encourages each team member to put his or her opinions on the table
and not avoid the conflict that may result. At the same time, team members do
not seek to create conflict unnecessarily. The approach is constructive, not
destructive.
Ans:
The trend of knowledge intensity refers to the focus on knowledge as the most
strategically-significant resource of the firm. Knowledge is then considered to
be the fundamental source of competitive advantage and there is also a stream
of research that addresses the ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘knowledge workers’.
Moreover, several researchers argue that knowledge intensity is tightly coupled
with the increased use of project-based structures. For example, Sydow, et al.
(2004:1475) suggests that “Recent interest in the emerging knowledge economy
has reinforced the view that project organizations in their many varieties are a
fast and flexible mode of organizing knowledge resources.” For knowledge-
intensive organizations and their survival in highly competitive markets, the
skills and competencies of individual employees are then crucial, so
competence and competence development are important issues. This is reflected
in the results from the Cranet Survey 20041, which indicate that firms invest
more than ever in competence development of their employees. Today’s
working life, in which employees change employer and assignments
increasingly often, requires a solid competence base and an individual
responsibility for developing that base. Several authors have also discussed
changes in traditional competence development approaches within
contemporary organizations, due to the increasingly knowledge-intensive work,
changing organizational structures and project-based work. In this context,
project-based learning is a product of the times.
Ans:
Ans:
· Shortage of staff
· Shortage of skills
Those shortages have made it possible for a whole new type of business to grow
– tech-temps are the name we associate with this new business opportu nity.
The day of the small contractor and niche market player is here to stay. To the
project manager, this brings the need to effectively manage a team whose
membership will probably include outside contractors. Some may be with the
project for only a short time. Others may be no different from core teams except
they are not employees of your company.
Typically, contracted team members are available for only short periods of time
on the project. They possess a skill that is needed for just a brief time. They are
assigned to the project when it is time for them to contribute their skills. As
soon as they have completed their assigned task, they leave the project.
Now that you have identified the individuals who will become the project team,
it is time to make them function as a team. Remember right now that they are a
herd of cats; they are not a team – at least not yet. First, we’ll briefly look at
authority and responsibility, then several procedural matters that the team will
have to discuss and agree on.
Authority
Authority and responsibility go hand in hand. To have one and not the other
makes no sense. How often have we been in situations where we were respon
sible for making a certain thing happen but had no authority over the resources
needed to make it happen or no authority to make and carry out a decision? To
be effective, the project manager must have authority over the" project. It is his
or her job to get the project done on time, within budget, and according to
specification. That authority is often delegated, but it is the project manager
who is ultimately responsible.
The major difficulty that project managers have is that the project team is not
their line responsibility. Team members are assigned based on their expertise
Responsibility
Balancing a Team
Balance on the team is a critical success factor for any team that hopes to suc
cessfully complete its project. There are several ways to measure balance and
several characteristics of the team that have been used to define balance. Let’s
take a simple example – learning styles. Learning styles are measured using an
instrument, the Learning Styles Inventory (LSI), which was developed by David
Kolb in 1981. Kolb identifies four learning styles:
Assimilating. Assimilators are people who excel at collecting and repre senting
data in crisp logical form. They are focused on ideas and concepts rather than
people. These individuals like to put data and information together into models
that explain the situation from a larger perspective. As a result, they are more
interested in something making sense logically than they are in any practical
value. They are not results-oriented people. These types of individuals are
generally found in the more technical or specialist careers, such as developers.
Diverging. These individuals like to look at alternatives and view the situation
from a variety of perspectives. They would rather observe than take action.
Now suppose you have a team that is loaded with convergers and does not have
a single diverger among their members. What do you think might hap pen?
With no one on the team to encourage looking for alternatives (the role of the
diverger), you would very likely have a rush to judgment, or "group think," as
the convergers press the team into action. We have personally wit nessed many
situations where a single approach to a problem is presented, and the convergers
on the team aggressively suggest that the team go forward with the single
proposed solution without even considering whether there is an alternative.
Teams that are involved in high-technology projects are likely to display this
behavior,
A team that has balanced learning styles among its members is a team that is
prepared to do a very good job at solving problems and making decisions.
Ans:
Delegation
Delegation is considered essential when one has to be at more than one place
and doing more than one thing simultaneously. A manager at his individual
level can achieve this by entrusting some task to the care or management of his
subordinates. In project management delegation has to take place not only at the
individual level but also at the institutional level. An organization desirous of
executing a project will be required to delegate authority to the project manager
commensurate with the tasks entrusted to him. The project manager, in turn,
may entrust a part of his task to insiders and part to outside organizations having
requisite skills for management of the same. Each time he has to delegate
authority necessary for the accomplishment of the tasks.
It is interesting to note that the reasons for delegation, the process of delegation
as also the expected outcome from delegation are almost the same with
individual as well as insti tutional delegation. But delegation at the individual
level and with insiders is known more for various lapses, and if the same is
allowed to perpetuate at the institutional level it may be disastrous for any
project. We should, therefore, examine what goes wrong with delegation at the
individual level so that the same is avoided when delegation is institutionalized.
1. What to delegate?
2. When to delegate?
3. How to delegate?
Delegation is one of the most important management skills. These logical rules
and techniques will help you to delegate well (and will help you to help your
manager when you are being delegated a task or new responsibility - delegation
is a two-way process!). Good delegation saves you time, develops you people,
grooms a successor, and motivates. Poor delegation will cause you frustration,
Confirm in your own mind that the task is suitable to be delegated. Does it meet
the criteria for delegating?
What are your reasons for delegating to this person or team? What are they
going to get out of it? What are you going to get out of it?
Is the other person or team of people capable of doing the task? Do they
understand what needs to be done. If not, you can't delegate.
You must explain why the job or responsibility is being delegated. And why to
that person or people? What is its importance and relevance? Where does it fit
in the overall scheme of things?
7 Agree deadlines
When must the job be finished? Or if an ongoing duty, when are the review
dates? When are the reports due? And if the task is complex and has parts or
stages, what are the priorities?
At this point you may need to confirm understanding with the other person of
the previous points, getting ideas and interpretation. As well as showing you
that the job can be done, this helps to reinforce commitment.
Methods of checking and controlling must be agreed with the other person.
Failing to agree this in advance will cause this monitoring to seem like
interference or lack of trust.
Think about who else needs to know what's going on, and inform them. Involve
the other person in considering this so they can see beyond the issue at hand. Do
not leave the person to inform your own peers of their new responsibility. Warn
the person about any awkward matters of politics or protocol. Inform your own
boss if the task is important, and of sufficient profile.
9 Feedback on results
It is essential to let the person know how they are doing, and whether they have
achieved their aims. If not, you must review with them why things did not go to
plan, and deal with the problems. You must absorb the consequences of failure,
and pass on the credit for success.
Ans:
Work Environment
A work environment can be identified as the place that one works. i.e. -in an
office building in a cube, at home at the kitchen table, from a car or truck, at a
construction site. All are work environments. We tend, however, to hear about
"healthy work environments." This can point to other factors in the work
environment, such as co-workers, air quality, ergonomic seating, management
(the boss!), child care, parking, noise, and even the size of one's cube. A work
environment doesn't require a job. It requires that work has to be done in some
place. Say you need to do homework. Where do you do it? At school in study
hall? At your kitchen table? On the floor at a friend's house? These can also be
considered work environments.
Work environment means the milieus around a person. It is your social and
professional environment in which you are supposed to interact with a number
of people. All of them are to be there with you. They are working there. They
are supposed to co-ordinate with you in one way or he other. They may be
working under you or you may be working under them. It depends upon your
position at status at a work place.
It is not important that an office would always be called your work place. It can
be your home environment where you use to work for all the time where you
are supposed to interact with your family members by and by. This environment
is all about the people at your home and those who have any concern at your
home.
Work environment does not only counts the living world tings but also the
materialistic world stuff. It may count the room or home where you are
working. It may counts the things that you are using in one way or the other. It
is all about things and livings that are around you where you are working.
External/Internal Factors
External/Internal Factors
The purpose of this paper is to explain rapid change, globalization,
technology, E-business, innovation, diversity, ethics and how these external and
internal factors that can affect a company's management performance under
these conditions.
Ans:
Organization Chart
Various shapes such as rectangles, squares, triangles, circles etc. can be used to
indicate different roles. Colour can be used both for shape borders and
connection lines to indicate differences in authority and responsibility, and
possibly formal, advisory and informal links between people. A department or
position yet to be created or currently vacant might be shown as a shape with a
dotted outline. Importance of the position may be shown both with a change in
size of the shape in addition to its vertical placement on the chart.
· Hierarchical
Some organizations fall somewhere between the fully functional and pure
matrix. These organizations are defined in the Guide to the Project Management
Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) 4th Edition as composite. For example, even a
fundamentally functional or matrix organization may create a special project
team to handle a critical project.
· The use of a project team which is dynamic and able to view problems in a
different way as specialists have been brought together in a new environment.
· Project managers are directly responsible for completing the project within a
specific deadline and budget.
· A conflict of loyalty between line managers and project managers over the
allocation of resources.
· Costs can be increased if more managers (i.e. project managers) are created
through the use of project teams.
Matrix Management should not be confused with "tight matrix". "Tight Matrix",
or co-location, refers to locating offices for a project team in the same room,
regardless of management structure.
Ans:
One key result of Human Resource planning is the Effective Human Resource
planning must think and plan for these factors and widen Human Resource
options.
Accurate inputs for creating a Human Resource (HR) plan leads to good results
which have a strong foundation.
The different tools and techniques used by project team for creating a Human
Resource (HR) plan are:
- Text-oriented format
Q.4 Describe people management skills that a project manager should possess.
Ans:
a. Effective Communications
5. Planning skill: It requires the ability to negotiate the necessary resource and
commitments from key personnel in the various supporting organizations with
little or no formal authority. The planning must be done such that at any point of
time in the project, the plan remains viable.
6. Organizational skill: The project manager must be a social architect, that is,
he must understand how the organization works. And how to work with the
organization. Organizational skills are particularly important during the project
formation when the project manager establishes the project organization by
integrating people from different discipline into an effective work team.
In many cases, the project manager will just have to take a calculated risk that
the team member possesses these characteristics even though the individual has
not previously demonstrated that he or she has them. It will become obvi ous
very quickly whether or not the individual possesses these characteristics. If not,
and if those characteristics are critical to the team member’s role in the project,
the project manager or the team member’s line manager will have to correct the
team member’s behavior.
Thus the project manager must be both socially and technically aware to
understand how the organization functions and how these functions will affect
the project organization of the particular job to be done. The project manger
must also understand the culture and value system of the organization he is
working with.
Some of these team structures such as project teams and cross functional teams
were not necessarily new, but how the teams operated and the impact of these
teams on organizations were far different and much more empowered than in
the past to make changes. The team-based structure quickly become a norm in
organizations Business and projects benefited when people together well as a
team. Successful team based companies saw higher employee morale,
innovation, and financial success. But creating a productive, sustainable team
environment took more work.
In the past decade, the focus on strategies and process has significantly shifted
to team behaviors and project executions. It has been recognized that successful
execution requires a stronger emphasis on people skills such as leadership and
collaborations, and team behaviors around decision making, problem solving,
and conflict resolution. To help, companies began personalizing their value
statements by defining specific behaviors that supported those values. These
values define how people work together on a day to day basis.
First of all, the project manager had better know where the imbalance exists.
What characteristics does the team have? Where are its strengths and where are
its weaknesses? For example, suppose a confrontation has arisen with the client.
We would much rather send an accommodator than a converger to resolve the
confrontation. However, there might not be an accommodator on the team.
Ans:
The staffing management plan, a part of human resources plan within the
project management plan, describes when & how human resource requirements
will be met. The staffing management plan can be formal or informal, highly
detailed or broadly framed, depending upon the needs of the project. The plan is
updated continually during the project to direct ongoing team member
acquisition & development actions. Information in the staffing management
plan varies by application areas & project size, but items to consider include:
· Staff acquisition
· Resource Calendars
· Training needs
· Compliance
· Safety
After acquiring the project team, you must create a proper Project Management
procedure that allows feedback and maximum productivity to occur. A staffing
management plan or process is ultimately a document that explains the various
human resources requirements that will be met for both staff management and
employees alike. The plan is essentially a portion of the project management
plan in which allows projects to be successful by properly managing various
teams to complete tasks effectively and efficiently. A project management plan
is created to showcase specific target goals as well as project deadlines for
various tasks that your company may need to complete. A staffing management
plan can be created in two ways – whether informal and broad, or formal and
details, each staffing management plan are tailored to the various needs of each
specific project. The information provided within said staffing management
plan is determined by the application being completed as well as the size of the
project. Thus, creating a staffing management plan that is tailored to your
business is imperative to its overall success in your daily operations.
Staff Acquisition
Determining the method and timing of releasing team members benefits both
the project & team members. When team members are released from a project,
the costs associated with those resources are no longer charged to the project,
thus reducing project costs. Morale is improved when smooth transitions to
upcoming projects are already planned. A staff release plan also helps mitigate
human resource risks that may occur during or at the end of the project.
Compliance
Safety
Policies and procedures that protect team members from safety hazards can be
included in the staffing management plan as well as risk register
A specific type of RAM is the RACI matrix. This shows the resources that are
responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed in project activities. Table 7.1
shows a typical RACI matrix
The matrix is typically created with a vertical axis (left-hand column) of tasks
(e.g., from a work breakdown structure or WBS) or deliverables (e.g., from a
product breakdown structure or PBS), and a horizontal axis (top row) of roles
(e.g., from an organizational chart) – as illustrated in the image of an example
responsibility assignment (or RACI) matrix.
Is the one who has the liability to give account of his/her action towards
accomplishing the task. There is typically one role with a participation type of
Responsible, although others can be delegated to assist in the work required (see
also RASCI below for separately identifying those who participate in a
supporting role).
Those who are ultimately accountable for the correct and thorough completion
of the deliverable or task, and the one to whom Responsible is accountable. In
other words, an Accountable must sign off (Approve) on work that Responsible
provides. There must be only one Accountable specified for each task or
deliverable.
Consulted:
Those whose opinions are sought; and with whom there is two-way
communication.
Informed:
Those who are kept up-to-date on progress, often only on completion of the task
or deliverable and with whom there is just one-way communication.
Very often the role that is Accountable for a task or deliverable may also be
Responsible for completing it (indicated on the matrix by the task or deliverable
having a role Accountable for it, but no role Responsible for its completion, i.e.
it is implied). Outside of this exception, it is generally recommended that each
role in the project or process for each task receive, at most, just one of the
participation types. Where more than one participation type is shown, this
generally implies that participation has not yet been fully resolved, which can
impede the value of this technique in clarifying the participation of each role on
each task.
After listing each deliverable down the side, list each resource across the top of
the table.
Now, you will assign deliverables to resources using the following code for
roles:
R: Responsible – this is the resource that owns the work. Each deliverable
should have at least one person responsible for it.
A: Accountable – this is the person who approves the work. There is only one
accountable resource.
V: Verifies: This is the person who ensures that the work meets standards.
F: Final Authority: This person gives the final stamp on the completed work.
Ans:
Objectives:
Real education is supposed to change the mental make-up of a man, his outlook
towards life and things around him, in short, his commitment. If we really
possess the shortcomings that have been highlighted in the above referred
report, then we need a good education programme and not simply short-term
training programmes. The short-term training pro grammes are good to impart
skills in preparation of networks, development of performance budgets, design
of systems, performance measurement, project reviews, etc. but they would not
prepare a man to accept uncertainties without any grouse, continuously project
things he would be required to manage, and above all manage a project through
installation of self-controlling systems.
Perhaps the need for a basic degree in engineering comes from acceptance of
the fact that an engineer’s main business is design, operation and maintenance
of systems, though the emphasis there is mainly on hardware systems. The
hardware system forms the core in any project and the concern for effective
performance of the hardware is so over-riding that almost all recruitment
advertisements for project managers look for an engineer having a basic degree
in the hardware system of the project. Whether this is necessary can be debated
at length, but the employers as also the educational planners seem to have
agreed on one point that a project manager must have basic education in the
hardware system which forms the heart of any project.
A project manager may be positioned in many situations, and in each case the
authority he can wield and consequently the end results he can produce will be
different. He serves, at best, as a staff assistant to the chief executive. The
project manager, in this position, does not make any decision for the project, nor
does he provide any staff service to the functional departments who make all the
decisions relating to the project. The project manager merely collects
information – collects and communicates the same to the chief executive. This
arrangement may be chosen by a chief executive who wants to directly control
the project but cannot devote much time to keep track of details.
The chief executive may expect the project manager to coordinate and expedite
the project which the latter will find a very trying proposition in view of his not
having any authority. He may influence some decisions taken by the chief
executive or by the functional depart ments, but he cannot himself make any
decision which can become binding for others. In other words, he has to rely
on personal authority for getting things done and not on positional authority.
Many would consider that at least for engineering construction projects, the
project manager should possess a basic degree in engineering – advanced
education in project management and/or training in effective project
management could follow. Accordingly, almost all the universi ties who are
thinking of formal education in project management are planning for post-
graduate programmes after a basic engineering education. This, one could see,
is slightly different from general management education programmes where
even arts graduates are admitted.