UC: 17 Develop Teams and Individuals

1. Provide team leadership

A team leader or team lead is someone who provides guidance, instruction, direction and
leadership to a group of other individuals (the team) for the purpose of achieving a key result or
group of aligned results. The team lead reports to a project manager. The team leader monitors
the quantitative and qualitative result that is to be achieved.

A good team leader listens constructively to the membership and to the customer(s) of the results
that the team is charged with delivering. The responsibilities of a team lead vary greatly between
organizations, but usually includes some responsibility for team building and ensuring
teamwork.

Effective team performance derives from several fundamental characteristics.First, team

members need to successfully integrate their individual actions. They have specific and unique
roles, where the performance of each role contributesto collective success. This means that the
causes of team failure may reside not only inmember inability, but also in their collective failure
to coordinate and synchronize theirindividual contributions.

Second, teams are increasingly required to perform in complex and dynamic environments.
This characteristic applies particularly to organizational teams, and especially to top management
teams.
1.1. Functional leadership
One perspective of leadership, the functional leadership approach, specifically addresses in broad
terms the leader’s relationship to the team
This perspective defines leadership as social problem solving, where leaders are responsible for

 Diagnosing any problems that could potentially impede group and organizational goal
attainment,
 Generating and planning appropriate solutions, and
 Implementing solutions within typically complex social domains. This definition offers
several critical distinctions regarding team leadership.

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 First, it emphasizes leadership as a boundary role linking teams to their broader environment.
Because most team problems originate from their environment, their diagnosis requires that
leaders be attuned to developments and events outside of the team.
The second distinction is that leadership typically involves discretion and choice in what
solutions would be appropriate in particular problem domains. Team actions that are completely
specified or fully elicited by the situation do not require the intervention of team leaders. 1.1.1.
Leader performance functions
The perspective of leadership as functional social problem solving suggests a core of basic
requisite leadership functions that are linked to the effective generation, selection, and
implementation of problem solutions. Organized these activities into taxonomy of leadership
performance functions having four super ordinate dimensions .The super ordinate dimensions
are:
 Information search and structuring
 Information use in problem solving.
 Managing personnel resources.
 Managing material resources.

Team effectiveness
Cognitive
processes
Leadership Processes

Information search and

structuring
Information use in problem Team
solving motivational Team effectiveness
Managing personnel processes
resources
Managing material resources

Team affective
processes

Team
coordination
processes
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2. Foster individual and organizational growth

In competitive markets, the success of any organization depends on its ability to continuously
expand and improve the collective and individual capabilities of its people. In many
organizations, "performance development" is viewed as a solution to a problem, improving a job-
threatening performance gap or fixing unproductive behavior.

Develop Project Team is the process of improving the competencies, team interaction, and the
overall team environment to enhance 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. High team performance can be achieved
by using open and effective communication, developing trust among team members, managing
conflicts in a constructive manner, and encouraging collaborative problem-solving and decision-
making. The project manager should request management support and/or influence the
appropriate stakeholders to acquire the resources needed to develop effective project teams.

3. Monitor and evaluate workplace learning

3.1. Measure the success of your project

Monitor and evaluate the project, this is generally considered the most difficult step in education
project planning .Monitoring and evaluation of your project can:

 help you make decisions and recommendations about future directions

 identify the strengths and weaknesses of your project
 enable judgments to be made about the worth of the project
 determine stakeholder and target group satisfaction
 determine the rate and level of attainment of the objectives
 monitor performance
 Meet demands for accountability.

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How?

Evaluation is about collecting information and keeping records that show the progress of your
project, and problems and achievements against your goal and objectives. This can be done
simply through recording and documenting, or in a more scientific approach which involves
comparison and rigorous experimental design.

There are two main types of project evaluation:

1. Process evaluationprovides information about what is happening throughout your project

development and implementation. It involves examining, describing and documenting the
project's activities or processes. It is characterized by qualitative assessment.

2. Impact evaluationassesses the overall effectiveness of a project in achieving its stated goal
and objectives. It generally requires some form of planned evaluation design that will measure
impact over time and determine whether that impact was the result of your project. Impact
evaluation usually requires significant resources and expertise, particularly if experimental
designs are used. Impact evaluation is often characterized by quantitative assessment methods.

4. Develop team commitment and cooperation

4.1.How to Develop a Commitment to Teamwork

Within an organization, teamwork cannot simply be a program - it should be a fundamental and

necessary attitude. It is acknowledging that as a team we all bring our perspectives, backgrounds
and expertise to bear in order to accomplish a job. It is the development of the supremely
important aspect of trust in each other, realizing that without trust, there is no team.

Teamwork within the organization is having a high regard for each other and treating all people
with respect. It is empowering people with the responsibility for all functions of the business. It
is the powerful combination of workers who equip themselves to be competitive employees and
people in leadership roles who provide a challenging work environment. It is the realization that
all employees (team members) should be in a collective position to have a high degree of impact
on the customers they serve.

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Leaders should realize that it is important for people to be involved in creating, transforming and
maintaining meaning within the organization. Participation and relationship building are a must
and allows individuals to capitalize on their collective knowledge and use technology to
influence their particular industry or organization deliverable. The use of teamwork ties it all
together.

4.2. Develop team cooperation

Workplace cooperation can mean:

 Lab our-management cooperation

 Participative or cooperative practices in an enterprise
 Employees participation or involvement in decision-making at various levels

Workplace cooperation is a process whereby employees or their representatives participate with

management, through consultation and discussion, in resolving issues of common concern. It is a
communication mechanism enabling both parties to understand each other needs, interests and
difficulties.

Benefits of workplace cooperation

 An effective workplace cooperation mechanism helps minimize unnecessary

misunderstanding, especially in times of changes and uncertainties. While setting up or
strengthening the mechanism for workplace cooperation may sound complicated, costly
and time consuming, it is worthy investment which will bring enormous benefits to the
enterprise in terms of enhanced efficiency, productivity and competitiveness.
Specifically, an effective workplace cooperation mechanism helps an enterprise to:

 Improve its decision making process and organizational performance

 Improve the employees¡¦ performance and commitment
 Build up mutual trust between management and staff
 Increase job satisfaction
 Improve working environment.

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5. Facilitate accomplishment of organizational goals

Most operational planning processes require that organizational goals be set as a starting point
for fiscal year planning and budgeting. The development of the operating plan triggers the onset
of the performance management system by which individuals set their personal objectives and
plans their activities which, collectively, mobilize employees' efforts in the achievement of
organizational goals. This terminology simply distinguishes between the individual and the
organization and raises a consciousness about the need to do direction setting at both levels.
Better understanding of organizational goal setting should result in greater achievement of those
goals and increased organizational performance. Too often, managers interpret procedures as
principles. Procedures change as needed according to the situational requirements, but principles
are reliable and steady guides. Given the rapid change within most organizations today, you can
increase your confidence as a manager if you become grounded in the principles.