The Dysfunctional Project Team

RUNNING HEAD: Behavioral Aspects of the Project Management Paper

Behavioral Aspects of the Project Management Paper: The Dysfunctional Project Team

Lee Jernigan

Lavina Hield

Roderick Robinson

Naomi Brown

The University of Phoenix

Atlanta Campus, Georgia

MGT 573

Project Management in the Business Environment

Dr. Abdel Mahdi Al-Husseini, MBA

July 24, 2004

Workshop # 2

Behavioral Aspects of the Project Management Paper: The Dysfunctional Project Team

The Dysfunctional Project Team

This paper will discuss how to make a dysfunctional project team successful. Project managers sometimes go through experiences of great success and dysfunctional failure. Some projects become "behind schedule, over budget, members quit due to disgust, team moral plummets, and fears of extra work without compensation" (Syllabus, 2004, p. 7). The authors will address in the paper how organizational culture and human behavior influences the success of projects (Syllabus, 2004, p. 7). First, the authors will discuss how organizational culture influences the selection, sponsorship, prioritization and ultimate success of projects. The authors will also discuss ways organizational culture creates conditions that could lead to project failure and success. Second, the authors will discuss how project leadership plays to the success of a project. The authors will discuss the changing of the roles and conditions for the success and failure of projects. Third, the authors will discuss how project mangers build and manage a successful project team. The authors will discuss how the project manager leads to the failure or success of a project. Last, the authors will discuss some strategies that could be used by a project manager to successfully manage the relationship among project team members and the relationship among the project team and external resources. The authors will discuss how the strategies would differ to the project manager under successful and failing conditions.

Good and Bad Organizational Culture Conditions

Project selection depends on the financial needs of the company. A project manager must find the needs of the company to influence a project selection to the management staff. Some common project selection criterion practices are the "matrix agreement, adequate resources, equipment, financial payback, net value analyses, present value analysis, lowest cost and having a strong comment focus to the project" (Gary-Larson, 2003, p.36; 66-67). A project manger must use the matrix agreement with the project team to analyze workload, prioritization, and ultimate project success with a Backlog Curve (Goldberger and Kaminsky, 2002, Appendix 1). A backlog curve will show how to appropriately delegate resources to team members by looking at the current backlog with a project task demarcation line and by analyzing available resources. When analyzing committed man hours verses duration, if the available manpower is in an acceptable range beneath the project task demarcation line then the project team has a low back log. If the available manpower is slightly above the project task demarcation line then the team has a backlog that needs to be addressed with overtime. If the backlog is out of the acceptable range then there are not enough man-hours to get back on schedule with over time (Goldberger and Kaminsky, 2002, Appendix 1). This is how a project matrix works in the project management field to help task prioritization and this also helps tasks smoothly, budget, and projects receive funding. Last, a project manger could sell a project for funding and sponsorship by "reviewing and defining the organizational mission, help set long-range and objectives, help analyzing and formulate strategies to objective, and implement to strategies through projects" (Gary-Larson, 2003, p.25).

Organizational Behavior Failure and Success

According to Brownell (2000), "there are [three reasons] why management organizations have failed to create an empowered [motivated work environment]:

1. Management fears they will lose control or power.

2. Employees are not trusted to complete their task and responsibilities or to make decisions.

3. Previous organizational experiences with empowerment [motivation] have not worked" (para. 1).

Job satisfaction and motivation are to the key to a good organizational culture. Employee uncertainty is a main ingredient to poor project teams and bad organizational culture. People need some type of motivation to remain active during the failure of a project. The secret to any successful project is keeping important key players in place to help aid out the transition to the next project team (Jernigan, L., Hammond, L., and Robinson, T., 2003).

Job satisfaction is also a personal need to maintaining a healthy and happy career. This is a major component in the project management transition process. An employer's job satisfaction program will allow the projects with companies to offer good compensation for people to stay aboard and enable them to provide focus on the tasks at hand. Employees who are happy in their career field tend to stay longer at one job than employees who are not as happy. During the project management transition process a team must focus on job environment and the project to help keep those employees to stay with the project (Jernigan, L., Hammond, L., and Robinson, T., 2003).

Motivation is the component of good project management leadership. Good project management leadership focuses on influencing employees who are key players but are at high risk at the start of an uncertain project. Positive motivation management plans should be in place before announcing the project transition. These plans could be benefits and compensation for employees. Good faith jesters between management and the employees are also needed during project transitions. Good faith jester plans entail motivation and they create a good perception of management (Jernigan, L., Hammond, L., and Robinson, T., 2003).

The importance