M010 – TEAM WORKING
1)How do you manage your Team?
Top 10 qualities of a leader:
1. Personal integrity deals honesty and gains trust
2. Has clear long vision, act and inspire other to action
3. Is Positive Enthusiastic Committed; Has Focus-ability,
4. Is Solution-oriented Creative; Makes Top Management Efficient; Empowers Others
5. Is A Catalyst; Creates Pygmalion Effect; Fosters Self Motivation
6. Strives for Excellence Always; Is a Transparent Influence
7. Is a Good Communicator; a Great Negotiator; Nurtures Relationships
8. Is Kind-hearted Generous and Giving; Serves Others
9. Balances Confidence with Caution; Adapts Management Styles for War & Peace
10. Rejuvenates Self; Sharpens his axe; Transforms his Strengths into Talents
2)You were asked by your manager to take on a new project where you will be handling 5 QS under you and providing project management services. What will you look for, or what will be your action?
Team role theories and team selection
There are two requirements in selecting team members: the team should include a range of the necessary technical and specialist skills, and there should be a variety of personal styles among members to fill the different roles that are involved in successful teamwork. The pioneering work on team roles or types was carried out by Dr Meredith Belbin in the 1970s. He lists nine team roles:
•Plant - creative, imaginative, and unorthodox; solves difficult problems.
•Resource investigator - extrovert, enthusiastic, exploratory; explores opportunities; develops contacts.
•Co-ordinator - mature, confident, a good chairperson; clarifies goals; promotes decision making.
•Shaper - dynamic, challenging; has drive and courage to overcome obstacles.
•Monitor evaluator - sober, strategic, and discerning; sees all options.
•Team worker - co-operative, mild, perceptive, diplomatic; listens, builds, averts friction.
•Implementer - disciplined, reliable, conservative; turns ideas into practical action.
•Completer - painstaking, conscientious, anxious; searches out errors and omissions, delivers on time.
•Specialist - single-minded, self-starting, dedicated; provides knowledge and skill in rare supply.
Team size
Most commentators suggest that between five and eight people is the ideal size for teams. Teams need to be large enough to incorporate the appropriate range of expertise and representation of interests, but not so large that people's participation, and hence their interest, is limited.
3)How would you define, Teamwork should work between various teams in a project?
•Coordination between teams strongly improved schedule performance, but didn't help quality and hurt budgets slightly. The researchers suggested this may be because coordinating on scope requires compromises with other teams, and coordination has time costs that could add to budgets (editorial note: if not accounted for in advance).
•High levels of coordination were more important early in the project than later for those teams that had to cooperate with a high number of other teams to complete their parts of the project. Overall, though, coordination was no more important early than later in the project.
•Commitment to project goals—as opposed to team goals—improved team performance, though this, too, was truer for teams needing a lot of outside cooperation.
•Better teamwork within teams improved performance, primarily through better meeting of schedule objectives. This was especially true for teams that had better teamwork early in the project.
•Better within-team teamwork strongly helped both project commitment and cooperation with other teams.
4)How Teamwork is important to you as a Quantity Surveyor in your day today practice?
- Distributing the workload
- Reinforcing individual capabilities
- Creating participation and involvement
- Making better decisions
- Feeling like we play a part in the work being done
- Generating a diversity of ideas, etc.
5)What are the benefits of working in a team than people working individually?
- Distributing the workload
- Reinforcing individual capabilities
- Creating participation and involvement
- Making better decisions
- Feeling like we play a part in the work being done
- Generating a diversity of ideas, etc.
6)What are the stages of team forming as per RICS?
Stages of team development
The main stages of team development are generally considered to be as follows:
•Forming (or undeveloped) - when people are working as individuals rather than a team.
•Storming - teams need to pass through a stage of conflict if they are to achieve their potential. The team becomes more aggressive, internally and in relation to outside groups, rules and requirements.
•Norming (or consolidating) - the team is beginning to achieve its potential, effectively applying the resource it has to the tasks it has, using a process it has developed itself.
•Performing - when the team is characterised by openness and flexibility. It challenges itself constantly but without emotionally charged conflict, and places a high priority on the development of other team members.
•Mourning - when the team disbands.
7)What are the benefits of working in a team than people working individually?
- Distributing the workload
- Reinforcing individual capabilities
- Creating participation and involvement
- Making better decisions
- Feeling like we play a part in the work being done
- Generating a diversity of ideas, etc.
8)What is team work?
The process of working collaboratively with a group of peoples in order to achieve the goals. Teamwork is often a crucial part of a business, as it is often necessary for colleagues to work well together, trying their best in any circumstance. Teamwork means that people will try to cooperate, using their individual skills and providing constructive feedback, despite any personal conflict between individuals.
9)How do you collaboratively work at your site with other stakeholders?
As a team
10)What do you mean by 'natural forces" in team working?
In the business world, the term natural forces might appear in a legal contract to refer to influences beyond human control that no one can be considered legally accountable for. Further….Suppose in a small team of six people working in one office there are two people who have a particularly strong friendship. This friendship is a "natural force" that may have an influence on the rest of the team, and can be manifest in various ways, either positively or negatively. Other factors can also play an influence. For example, if a wall of cupboards were to be placed across the middle of the office, this would also form a 'natural force' that influences the communication flow and may separate the group into two further sub-groups. Sometimes, an "absence" of a natural force can also be a team dynamic. For example, if the leader or manager is permanently removed from the office, the group may be drawn into a change of behaviour.
Team Dynamics are the unseen forces that operate in a team between different people or groups. Team Dynamics can strongly influence how a team reacts, behaves or performs, and the effects of team dynamics are often very complex. This page considers what team dynamics are and the impact they have on the team.
11)What is Team Dynamics?
How do you recognise team dynamics?
You can recognise team dynamics by looking for the forces that influence team behaviour. These forces might include:
■Personality styles (eg: including or excluding people)
■Team Roles (eg: see MTR-i team dynamics)
■Office layout (eg: cupboards dividing teams into two)
■Tools and technology (eg: email, bulletin board, information pool enabling hidden communication).
■Organisational culture (eg: company cars acting as status symbols to separate groups of employees)
■Processes/methodologies/procedures (eg: problem-solving methodology)
- How can team dynamics be managed constructively?
You need to:
a.look for the team dynamics - the 'natural forces' at play
b.determine whether they are acting for good or ill,
c.make interventions to make the effect of those dynamics more positive.
For example, if a wall of cupboards is inhibiting communication within a group, that wall can be repositioned and the room layout designed to encourage communication (without making the environment too uncomfortable for those who value their privacy when working on individual tasks).
Example: The impact of a friendship
The positive effect of a strong friendship in a team might be:
■the friends communicate a lot together...
■...which naturally results in other members being drawn into the discussion
■...which results in a good 'social' feel to the group
■...which makes people enjoy being in the group
■...which improves motivation and commitment
The negative effect of a strong friendship might be:
■to cause the other four people to feel excluded...
■...which means they are less likely to include the two friends in decision making
■...which means that there are likely to be two sub-groups
■...which means that information may not flow across the whole group, but only within the subgroups
■...which means that miscommunication may lead to misunderstanding and poor collective performance
This friendship has an impact on the group's performance, and is therefore a team dynamic. Whether it is good or bad depends on other factors. In the first, positive, example, there is a natural force of "inclusion" which results in people being drawn into productive discussions. In the second, negative example, there is a natural force of "exclusion" which results in communication between groups being stifled.
Advantages of team work
- Sharing of ideas
- Motivational - not wanting to let the team down. Shared targets and aims for the team to meet.
- Employees needs - employees have social needs; go to work not just for the money but for human contact with workmates etc. Employees can therefore be happier in a team.
- Support - eg: more experienced members can help, mentor and develop the less experienced members.
Disadvantages of team work
- Not all work is suited to working in a team - there are some one man tasks.
- Teams can cause conflicts eg personality clashes between members.
- The contribution of quieter members of the team can get crowded out by members with larger personalities. Some good ideas can get lost this way.
- Team mentality. Workers start to identify just with their own team and this harms relationships between different teams and departments and harms communication in the organisation.
Characteristics of effective teams
An effective team has the following characteristics:
- Common sense of purpose;
- Clear understanding of the team's objectives;
- Resources to achieve those objectives;
- Mutual respect among team members, both as individuals and for the contribution each makes to the team's performance;
- Valuing of members' strengths and respecting their weaknesses;
- mutual trust;
- Willingness to share knowledge and expertise;
- Willingness to speak openly;
- Range of skills among team members to deal effectively with all its tasks;
- Range of personal styles for the various roles needed to carry out the team's tasks.