PMP Exam Quiz 27

Acquire Project Team: Outputs
1. Project Staff Assignments
2. Resource Calendars
3. Project Management Plan Updates

Develop Project Team is the process of improving competencies, team member interaction, and overall team environment to enhance project performance. The key benefit of this process is that it results in improved teamwork, enhanced people skills and competencies, motivated employees, reduced staff turnover rates, and improved overall project performance.

Project managers should acquire skills to identify, build, maintain, motivate, lead, and inspire project teams to achieve high team performance and to meet the project’s objectives. Teamwork is a critical factor for project success, and developing effective project teams is one of the primary responsibilities of the project manager. Project managers should create an environment that facilitates teamwork. Project managers should continually motivate their team by providing challenges and opportunities, by providing timely feedback and support as needed, and by recognizing and rewarding good performance. The project manager should request management support and/or influence the appropriate stakeholders to acquire the resources needed to develop effective project teams.

Objectives of developing a project team include, but are not limited to:
• Improving knowledge and skills of team members to increase their ability to complete project deliverables, while lowering costs, reducing schedules, and improving quality
• Improving feelings of trust and agreement among team members to raise morale, lower conflict, and increase team work
• Creating a dynamic, cohesive, and collaborative team culture to
(1) improve individual and team productivity, team spirit, and cooperation and
(2) allow cross training and mentoring between team members to share knowledge and expertise.

Develop Project Team: Inputs
1. Human Resource Management Plan
2. Project Staff Assignments
3. Resource Calendars

Interpersonal skills, sometimes known as “soft skills,” are behavioral competencies that include proficiencies such as communication skills, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, negotiation, influence, team building, and group facilitation. These soft skills are valuable assets when developing the project team.

Training includes all activities designed to enhance the competencies of the project team members. Training can be formal or informal. Examples of training methods include classroom, online, computer-based, on-the-job training from another project team member, mentoring, and coaching.

The objective of team-building activities is to help individual team members work together effectively. Team-building strategies are particularly valuable when team members operate from remote locations without the benefit of face-to-face contact. As an ongoing process, team building is crucial to project success. While team building is essential during the initial stages of a project, it is a never-ending process. The project manager should continually monitor team functionality and performance to determine if any actions are needed to prevent or correct various team problems.

Forming.
This phase is where the team meets and learns about the project and their formal roles and responsibilities. Team members tend to be independent and not as open in this phase.

Storming.
During this phase, the team begins to address the project work, technical decisions, and the project management approach. If team members are not collaborative and open to differing ideas and perspectives, the environment can become counterproductive.

Norming.
In the norming phase, team members begin to work together and adjust their work habits and behaviors to support the team. The team learns to trust each other.

Adjourning.
In the adjourning phase, the team completes the work and moves on from the project. This typically occurs when staff is released from the project as deliverables are completed or as part of carrying out the Close Project or Phase process.

Ground rules establish clear expectations regarding acceptable behavior by project team members. Early commitment to clear guidelines decreases misunderstandings and increases productivity.

Ground rules establish clear expectations regarding acceptable behavior by project team members. Early commitment to clear guidelines decreases misunderstandings and increases productivity. Discussing ground rules in areas such as code of conduct, communication, working together, or meeting etiquette allows team members to discover values that are important to one another. All project team members share responsibility for enforcing the rules once they are established.

Colocation, also referred to as “tight matrix,” involves placing many or all of the most active project team members in the same physical location to enhance their ability to perform as a team. Colocation can be temporary, such as at strategically important times during the project, or for the entire project.

Colocation, also referred to as “tight matrix,” involves placing many or all of the most active project team members in the same physical location to enhance their ability to perform as a team. Colocation can be temporary, such as at strategically important times during the project, or for the entire project. Colocation strategies can include a team meeting room, places to post schedules, and other conveniences that enhance communication and a sense of community.

Personnel assessment tools give the project manager and the project team insight into areas of strength and weakness. These tools help project managers assess the team preferences, aspirations, how they process and organize information, how they tend to make decisions, and how they prefer to interact with people.

Part of the team development process involves recognizing and rewarding desirable behavior. The original plans concerning ways in which to reward people are developed during the Plan Human Resource Management process. It is important to recognize that a particular reward given to any individual will be effective only if it satisfies a need which is valued by that individual. Award decisions are made, formally or informally, during the process of managing the project team through project performance appraisals. Cultural differences should be considered when determining recognition and rewards.

The performance of a successful team is measured in terms of technical success according to agreed-upon project objectives (including quality levels), performance on project schedule (finished on time), and performance on budget (finished within financial constraints). High-performance teams are characterized by these task-oriented and results-oriented outcomes.

The evaluation of a team’s effectiveness may include indicators such as:
• Improvements in skills
• Improvements in competencies
• Reduced staff turnover rate
• Increased team cohesiveness

Manage Project Team is the process of tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing team changes to optimize project performance. The key benefit of this process is that it influences team behavior, manages conflict, resolves issues, and appraises team member performance.

Manage Project Team is the process of tracking team member performance, providing feedback, resolving issues, and managing team changes to optimize project performance. The key benefit of this process is that it influences team behavior, manages conflict, resolves issues, and appraises team member performance. Managing the project team requires a variety of management skills for fostering teamwork and integrating the efforts of team members to create high-performance teams. Team management involves a combination of skills with special emphasis on communication, conflict management, negotiation, and leadership. Project managers should provide challenging assignments to team members and provide recognition for high performance.

Manage Project Team: Inputs
1. Human Resource Management Plan
2. Project Staff Assignments
3. Team Performance Assessments
4. Issue Log
5. Work Performance Reports
6. Organizational Process Assets

Issue Log
Issues arise in the course of managing the project team. An issue log can be used to document and monitor who is responsible for resolving specific issues by a target date.

Manage Project Team: Tools and Techniques
1. Observation and Conversation
2. Project Performance Appraisals
3. Conflict Management
4. Interpersonal Skills

Observation and conversation are used to stay in touch with the work and attitudes of project team members. The project management team monitors progress toward project deliverables, accomplishments that are a source of pride for team members, and interpersonal issues.

Successful conflict management results in greater productivity and positive working relationships. When managed properly, differences of opinion can lead to increased creativity and better decision making. If the differences become a negative factor, project team members are initially responsible for their resolution. If conflict escalates, the project manager should help facilitate a satisfactory resolution. Conflict should be addressed early and usually in private, using a direct, collaborative approach. If disruptive conflict continues, formal procedures may be used, including disciplinary actions.

Factors that influence conflict resolution methods include:
• Relative importance and intensity of the conflict
• Time pressure for resolving the conflict
• Position taken by persons involved
• Motivation to resolve conflict on a long-term or a short-term basis

Manage Project Team: Outputs
1. Change Requests
2. Project Management Plan Updates
3. Project Documents Updates
4. Enterprise Environmental Factors Updates
5. Organizational Process Assets Updates

Project documents that may indirectly be updated include:
• Issue log
• Roles description
• Project staff assignments