Skills needed to lead a team

To deliver effective projects, managers should use a variety of strategies, techniques, and tools that will influence, direct, and help the team achieve its goals and objectives in accordance with the project's specifications. However, project managers are exclusively in charge of making sure the project is successful, thus they have the right to assemble and lead teams that will work well together to meet the project's objectives. I have discovered that there isn't a single project management tool that can handle all requirements. Therefore, the project manager's responsibility is to choose and use the tools that go best with their management strategies. The Program Evaluation Review Technique also referred to as PERT Chart and the Gantt Charts are the most common tools used in project management. PERT charts are used to schedule, assort, and coordinate tasks in a given project. Gantt charts assist in tracking complete assignments using calendar time in days, weeks, and months. All workdays are plotted under the scheduled days from the actual start day to the actual finish day. With this figures, the manager can determine the potential timeline slippages and the points of failure. Critical Path Analysis can also be performed to determine the tasks that can be delayed without making the project any longer (Wrote). Communication is a significant tool in ensuring a team’s cohesion. Project managers are required to convey the vision, goals, issues and goals regarding the project to the team which in turn leads to the overall success of the project (Carroll, 2007).

The project manager ought to assume leadership roles in the project team. Through leadership, the manager can allocate tasks according to the team members’ expertise which aids in implementing the actions and requirements of the team to achieve their goals. Project managers manage the team from the operational point of view through coordination, promoting team spirit, evaluation of performance and delegation of tasks that ensures a fluent flow of activities in the team and the entire project in general (Wageman, 2007). Through risk management, project managers can identify and fix issues in the project before they arise thus delivering the projects successfully.

The project manager needs to create a high-performance team made up of members who complement each other so as to deliver as per their goals and objectives. The manager should consider various factors while building and creating successful high-performance teams. The manager should also define and establish the broad need for the team (Sax, 2012). This is the vision of the team that should be an inspiration to the team as it determines the resources and scope of the team. Recruitment, therefore, becomes an important part of creating an efficient team. Team members should have diverse backgrounds, skills, and expertise. Diversity in culture and professionalism gives life to ideas and opinions of team members which should be taken into consideration and accounted for. They should also be willing to be committed to the vision of the team. The team should be made up of not more than seven members to avoid limiting member’s contribution. Members need to embrace the mission, values, vision of the team as it leads to improved collaboration. Having common goals enables the team to unite behind the common purpose and work together. By creating the goals, themselves, it creates a sense of ownership that enables them to collaborate to accomplish them leading to high performance.

Teams are comprised of individual members who are responsible for influencing the performance and success of the overall project. Individual brilliance within the team has a direct effect on the performance of the team. Through individual inspiration, a person can create energy and enthusiasm within the team that inspires other team members leading to increased productivity (Saynisch, 2010). Commitment to the project also plays an important role in ensuring the success of the project as they will share the same vision as the project thus strive for delivery of the project.

Planning provides the direction of the project thus help in meeting deadlines and remaining organized throughout the implementation phase. Communication is essential to the project as it prevents problems from occurring and all team members remain well informed. For an individual to build a high-performance team, a reward is important as it recognizes the effort and acknowledges individual achievement. It is imperative for an individual to give space to other members regarding letting them work and perform to the best of their ability without the fear of being undermined or overridden by other members. The individual should also communicate constantly with the team both as individual members and as a team in a whole. Personal communication with team members via emails is important in notifying them of the expectations from the project and also for performance appraisal purposes. Meetings with the team are important in addressing issues affecting the project and obtaining opinions and ideas for potential improvements.

Sometimes back, the Dripstone Business Law organized a business convention at a grand hotel that was attended by over 150 people. In this event, I met with a certain group I worked with under the local government. Their team leader was known as James, and he exhibited admirable competence regarding involvement with the team members. This boosted the morale and courage of team members leading to cohesion and increased productivity and became more productive. He was also known to solve disputes quickly in a way that he did not favor any party and ensured that the team remained strong and committed even after the occurrence of conflicts within the team. James believed in open communication with everyone in the group. James knew that Project management would be demanding with the task and many complex responsibilities. Good thing James knew about the needed project management tools to get the job done.

James knew the type of tools to use for a certain project and was always sure to employ them. Most of the tools he shared assisted in administration, planning, customization, learning, joint effort, support, asset management amongst other features. One such example was the Microsoft Project. James collaborated with his team members which enhanced working efficiency. It was evident from James that he would only recruit the best and people who had a very clear purpose of that they were trying to achieve. All the team members at the time were not afraid of taking risks. We would organize large-scale events that would complete successfully through hard work and teamwork. Everyone had an absolute clarity about their role. James knew that forming small teams would ensure everyone had a role different from the others but all complemented to one ultimate goal. For James to acquire this kind of team, he took a lot of time to recruit those who were good for specific tasks and the business in its entirety. If you spoke to James’ team, you would have realized that they shared the same ethos showing exactly how competent James was.









References

Hackman, j. R. (2007). Asking the right questions about leadership: Discussion and conclusions. American Psychologist, 1(62), 43 - 47.

Saynisch, M. (2010). Beyond Frontiers of Traditional Project Management: An approach to evolutionary, self-organized principles and the complexity theory - results of the research program. Project Management Journal(41(2)), 21 - 37.

Wrote, Y. (n.d.). Critical Path analysis and PERT charts: Planning and scheduling more complex projects. Retrieved January 08, 2017, from http://www.mindtools.com/critpath.html