Team meetings as a basic mechanism for project management
V.B. Slavianska,
д-р по социальному управлению, доцент, университетский преподаватель, Университет по агробизнесу и развитию регионов (Болгария, Пловдив, бул. Дунав, 78; e-mail: viara_bfu@abv.bg)
Аннотация. Коммуникации находятся в основе почти каждой деятельности проектного менеджмента, включительно процесс поручения задач, контроля их выполнения, принятия решений, управления конфликтами и т.д. В зависимости от своего предназначения, проектные коммуникации могут принимать различные формы - формальные или неформальные, устные или письменные, структурированные или неструктурированные, и могут распространяться путем различных каналов. Настоящая статья обращает специальное внимание на заседания командой как основной механизм для информационного обмена на протяжение всего жизненного цикла проекта. В этой связи рассматриваются функции, которые заседания выполняют при старте, выполнении и окончании проекта. Кроме того выставляются некоторые факторы, влияющие на их эффективное проведение.
Abstract. Communications are at the root of almost every project management activity, including the process of assigning tasks, controlling their execution, making decisions, managing conflicts, etc. According to their purpose, the project communications could take different forms - formal or informal, oral or written, structured or unstructured, and could be disseminated through different channels. The present article turns a special attention to the team meetings as a basic mechanism for information exchange during the whole project life cycle. In this connection there are considered the functions which meetings perform during the project start-up, execution and close-out. Besides this there are presented some factors influencing their effective implementation.
Ключевые слова: коммуникации, заседание, команда, проект.
Keywords: communications, meeting, team, project.
Introduction
Communications are at the root of almost every project management activity, including the process of assigning tasks, controlling their execution, making decisions, managing conflicts, etc. According to their purpose, the project communications could take different forms - formal or informal, oral or written, structured or unstructured, and could be disseminated through different channels - personal face to face appointments or group meetings, internal or external e-mail, social networks, fax, telephone, project Web-site, etc. [5] Although every mechanism has its advantages and is suitable for a concrete situation, team meetings could be considered as a basic mechanism for information exchange during the whole project life cycle.
I. First team meeting as instrument for project start-up
Forming a team of qualified specialists, which do not know why they are together, what work they have to do, what skills they possess, what are the possible obstacles and what will the successful project look like, could very fast lead to failure of the project itself.
Introduction to the project. The first meeting of the newly formed team is exceptionally necessary. It not only marks the official project start-up, but mostly gives an opportunity to the participants to meet each other and to get familiar with the goal of their joint activity. The main question, which the presents ask themselves on the meeting, is "Who are you and why we are here?" In general the behavior of participants is nervous, impatient, careful, unsure, reserved, tense, silent, waiting. This tension and anxiety is almost inevitable and is usually connected
with many aspects, such as the leadership style of the project manager, the necessity of eventual moving, the nature of the project, the consequences, the fairness in the allocation of the work and rewards, the security, the feeling of isolation from the daily work in their functional department, the other participants in the team, the professional development, career, etc [6]. The faster the state of tension is overcome, the earlier the team will focus on the needs of the project.
The main task of the project manager is to inspire a feeling of comfort and ownership in the group, and to quickly cope with the hesitations and fears of the presents. This should also include personal introduction of the participants, as well as clarifying their concrete contribution (knowledge and skills) to the project success. Every team member should leave this meeting perfectly informed about: the goal of the project, his personal role in the attainment of this goal, the skills and the expected results from all the other members, the necessary information and resources, the possible obstacles in front of the project success and the available resources for their overcoming, the internal personnel and budget limitations, etc [3].
Creation of work organization - assigning roles and responsibilities. The next meeting (or a series of meetings) of the team has another important function, and namely - organizing the performance. This is essentially the preliminary control over the project activities, which is realized before the actual beginning of the project. It fixes the parameters, which will be controlled and the criteria, which will be used for assessment of the progress.
Although the participants are already clear about the general project goal, they still know little
Экономика и предпринимательство, № 9, 2014 г.
МИКРОЭКОНОМИКА
about their concrete engagements and responsibilities. So some period is necessary for clarifying the roles and orientation in the assigned tasks. At this meeting the foundations of the future team functioning are laid. A so called "constitution", specifying the rules of the group activity is prepared. In this connection it is necessary: to define all activities, necessary for the execution of the project goals; to make a time schedule; to determine the standards for quality of the product or service, which will be created as a result of the project execution; to make a list of the necessary resources; to develop a structure of the project tasks and to allocate the technical and team roles according to the personal qualification and preferences of the participants; to define precisely the role, tasks and expected results from every member; to determine the rules, procedures and norms of behavior - models of interaction, communication, conflict management, etc.; to develop a documentation for the operative project execution [2].
II. Periodical team meetings as instrument for managing the project execution
Periodical team meetings are an important instrument for managing the project activities. They perform many functions, such as: assigning current tasks and reporting their execution, decision making and solving emerging problems.
Control functions of the meeting. The project manager bears the responsibility for realization of the project plan. The plan is of critical importance for the project, but actually the way its execution is controlled predetermines whether the project will succeed. For this reason the continuous control is so important. No matter how carefully and detailed is worked out the project plan, during its execution always emerge accidental influences. Some of the problems are expected to a certain extend, rather others arise surprisingly (for example, somebody gets ill and should be away for a long time). The foreseeing of the problems depends on the experience of the manager and mostly on his ability to identify the symptoms. In this connection it is necessary to constantly monitor the impact of the current activities upon the execution of the project schedule and budget and to register every time, cost or resource exceeding, emerging conflicts, etc. This helps him prognosticate and timely solve the problem situations.
In order to monitor the influence of many factors the project manager should build, introduce and maintain an effective system for internal control. Its purpose is to provide complete and objective information about the state and progress of the whole project, the running of the planned activities, the utilization of the resources, etc. [1] Although not the only one, the team meetings are an important instrument for control. They are used for current check-up of the project team's work, discussion of the emerging problems and formulation of suggestions for work improvement, preventing diversions from the plan. The basic parameters observed are duration, volume and cost of the work, as heightened attention receive the diversions from the proJournal of Economy and entrepreneurship, Vol. 8, Nom. 9
ject schedule, the change in the quality and spending of the budget. Unsolved problems escalate, become more serious and stir other problems. Besides this, the team meetings as an element of the control system provide a regular feedback for the performers about how well are they coping with their work and what is necessary to improve in their performance.
Decision making and problem solving.
The team meetings are an arena for solving the emerging problems. The classical model for problem solving includes the following steps [4]:
1) defining the problem - the team members try to formulate and define the problem, as well as the desired results;
2) collecting the necessary information - the team identifies and specifies the information, which will be necessary for further analysis of the problem and provides a base for formulation of possible decisions;
3) generating ideas - this step usually starts with a brain storm, through which the team identifies as much as possible alternative decisions. This is a stage of non-standard thinking and seeking creative and innovative approaches. The ideas provoke new ideas, until the team exhausts its creative energy;
4) assessing and rating the ideas - here the list of possible variants is reduced to one or two practically applicable solutions. There are developed criteria for choosing the best id
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