usarmymagana
Need a replay and a critical thought question for the below…
Need a replay and a critical thought question for the below reading.
So the project I am going to review or use for this discussion is the first team that I started out as the team lead and then within 4 months was the project manager for. It was a 15 person training team that provided specialized training to 9 different installations within the United States. So to begin with, I would say the punctuated equilibrium model best described how our team progressed. This was primarily based on two major factors, the team was developed from a relatively specialized skillset and many either knew each other or had mutual friends within the small MOS community with the military. There was relatively little feeling each other out as the team came together for a common purpose and were ready to proceed with the training requirement.
As far as the 9 situational factors that influence team development. Most of them did not apply to the team, but here are my inputs based on each factor.
There are 10 or fewer members per team – There were 15 total members of our team. This was really beneficial to the team because it allowed for a very diverse level of experience amongst the team that in the end really helped the team develop as a whole. We quickly learned each other strengths and weaknesses and in the end helped each other become stronger in our weaknesses by matching them up with someone who had shown strength in that aspect.
Members volunteer to serve on the project team. I guess you could say we all volunteered for this project as we applied for a job and were hired. Plus we were getting paid to serve on the project.
Members serve on the project from the beginning to end. This one was not achievable due to we were unable to hire everyone at the beginning for each of the 9 locations, so in the end we had all 9 locations fulfilled, but a couple were a little difficult to hire for. This definitely hurt the overall productivity across the board and in the end our statistics suffered. The perfect scenario would have been that personnel would have all been hired to start on the same day.
Members are assigned to the project full time- Yes everyone was assigned to the project full time, but this goes back to the previous factor, we did not all start at the same time because a few locations were extremely difficult to hire to due to location.
Members are part of an organization culture that fosters cooperation and trust- We had a great team, with all of us being veterans. Having that baseline experience to draw from helps us to come into any job and overcome a lot of that normal distrust and storming phase of a team development. Being a veteran we are experienced in being add to or moved from team to team. That common core experience and having all been trained in a certain specialty, led to an atmosphere that fostered cooperation and trust.
Members report solely to the project manager-Yes everyone reported to me. Which was extremely beneficial. At the locations where we had multiple trainers, I would assign a team leader, but in the end, as the PM I was responsible for the development and progression of all 15 members of the team. We had initial check ins which were scripted all the same so that everyone received the same message from the beginning. Then each quarter we had employee checkins that had three sections. One that was similar to the initial which was scripted to have the same baseline information for everyone, then I had a section that was unique to each individual employee to address and compliment their specific career path, finally a section that was and opportunity for them to address with me what they liked or disliked.
All relevant functional areas are represented on the team-The core team was all specifically designated as trainers. All outside support was held within the PMO and program support team. The team and project were not large enough to warrant external functional areas outside of 14 trainers and myself as the PM.
The project involves a compelling objective-Being all from a very specialized MOS with the military and one that has many past, current and future growing pains, the team was extremely invested in helping the MOS to grow and expand into what it was designed for.
Members are located within conversational distance of each other-We were all spread out from the East Coast to the West Coast. We used modern day networking and collaboration tools like Teams and Zoom to communicate and manage the team on a day to day basis. This was extremely effective and beneficial for the team. We housed all of our data and training program materials on a centric hosting site that allowed the team to all add to and pull from the same site.
Meeting were conducted via Teams and Zoom. We started our meetings with a stakeholder update where I would provide an update on any happenings with our government sponsor, then we would go around to each location where each team would provide an update on their specific happenings and updates. Meetings were about spreading information amongst the team and not held to just hold meetings. We expected each other to collaborate via email, phone and message board throughout the week and the team would send in their weekly report prior to the weekly meeting so our meetings were meant to inform and better the team vs report everything that happened.
In the end there are two things that I would have changed about the team that I believe would have improved the overall success of the team. First I would have completed the expected training material prior to starting the project. The customer had 10 modules of training that was designed to be taught by the team, but the material was late in being finished and delayed the start date for training execution which dramatically hampered the training statistics for the team. Secondly, I would have hired everyone to start on the same day so that we could have leveled the training program and improved the original kick off of the training throughput. This would have helped the initial advertisement of the program and increased the follow-on execution of the training program past it’s original pilot year and follow on Firm Fixed Price project.
