Essay On Project Team Leadership

The success of an organization relies on strong leadership and the performances of the team members. In order to gain vast customer base and huge annual return effective performances of individuals are essential. The nominated organization for which the report is prepared below is Woolworths Limited. For developing effective project team leadership, different organization’s project approaches need in-depth analyzed by the professionals. There are different ways to design and structure project team. 
The project team environment also has to be collaborative and productive. Some probable problems are also there that may hamper the project’s execution. The problems experienced in this area are also elaborated in this report. Besides this, the strength and weaknesses relevant to the Woolworth Limited company’s project are also elaborated in this report. The report is supported with the detail organizational context and a detail literature review. The project manager and team always need to maintain the team structure to meet project objectives and organizational aims.

 

The report is prepared for Woolworths Limited’s supply chain management system implementation project context. The leadership is drilled through counselling, guidance of subordinates during the execution of project plan.

 

For adopting volatile, competitive market the leaders have shifted their focus from system control to customer support.  For giving amazing performance in the Australia and global competitive market, Woolworth’s leadership practice involves continuous competitive reliability by encouraging, supporting effective behavior and attitude within the company’s workforce (Bouton 2021). The company’s leadership action facilitates collective and individual notion of responsibilities to promote the store’s conception and safeguard all their quality products. Recently the company has adopted a great leadership team under Dan Murphy, the managing director of Woolworths Limited. Woolworths limited maintains Autocratic leadership approach to govern the team members and collaborate all.

 

The strategy is implemented to categorize the products and services with other competitive organizations and to gain competitive advantages in the market. For reaching a wider range of customer base the company has a decentralized distribution system. For improving the supply chain management system, Woolworths Limited has e-commerce websites and modern information technology support. The report is developed for the supply chain management project of Woolworths Limited.

 

A well-organized design and structured project team provides an ideal setup for small, medium to large business organizations. Project team is defined as an essential element of project management. The major strength of Caniëls et al. (2019) article is that, it elaborates the role of mastery and climate to collaborate project team. For managing any project and even organizational performances, team design and structuring are important.  In other words, team structure plays significant role behind project success. The motive of an ideal project team can be “All for one, one for all”. Henderson Stackman and Lindekilde (2018) article only shows the impact if cultural intelligence on global project team but does not present any strategy to overcome the challenge. According to Scott-Young Georgy & Grisinger (2019), a strong project team structure just not provides a bunch of people with professional skills and attitude but also helps to setup a cohesive work environment.  The primary key elements that a project leader should follow to design and structure a project team includes cooperation, communication and innovation. The team members are also needed to have mutual trust and respect for each other. Lichtarski (2018) opined that, teamwork is an act that bring multiple individuals altogether to effectively perform and complete a project on time and budget. Again Hans and Mnkandla (2022) argued that, PMO plays vital role to enforce software project team’s attendance. A project manager knows how tam collaboration can boost-up team performance and make a productive project team.  For smoothly running a project towards success, teamwork is defined as an enabler. It helps to speed up project success and ensures that all project targets are achieved (Zachko, Kobylkin & Kovalchuk 2019). A well-organized and structured project team can help professionals to overall obstacles. A team should be designed and structured to get associated synergy of ideas. Workplace unity gets improved a lot with team design.in other words, workplace environment development is other strong reason behind teamwork.

 

Considering departmental needs- Many projects are there, which are performed by collaboration of different organizational departments. Mikhieieva (2020) stated that, to achieve project deliverables sometimes many organizational departments need to work together. Within a tea structure, each department need to be governed with a leader, who usually manages the departmental activities (Muszyńska 2020). Therefore, at first the departments that are supposed to be part of the project team should be identified.

 

Creating communication practice- Team structure includes different tiers of individuals. It is essential to communicate with everyone frequently to share information and keep everyone informed (Wiesche 2021). The project manager should follow-up the status report and ensure that, the project is progressing accurately towards the project/organizational goals.

 

Defining clear expectations- In order to set communication up for success. The best way is to clearly define the client’s expectation from the project. It is found that, projects are usually ruled by project managers. The rules towards project success are set with clear boundaries. Clear documents should be set by the project team and the project manager needs to ensure that the rules are successfully tracing by the project manager. Usually, project team are structured followed by top-down manner. This structure will clearly show the project team about whom one should report to. A project team structure is always driven by project objectives and project expectations. The demands of different projects are different. project team structure is custom tailored to these demands.  A smart team management solution should be developed by the project manager to design and structure a best project team. 

 

Siangchokyoo (2018) stated that, team teams are either transverse and ephemeral or dedicated towards specific project management. The organizational steering committee is responsible to compose and design a structured project team. On the other hand, Bouton (2021) stated that, project team is one of the vital stakeholders. Regardless of the nature, type and size of the project or organization project team is important. Muszyńska (2020) opined that, it is vital for every organization to have a well-organized work efficient project team to meet company’s expectations and project objectives. The reasons for developing a project team are to combine diverse values, skills and ideas of different people, to define clear key contacts, to find out best business and organizational solutions and to assign varied roles and responsibilities to each. Again Hall et al. (2018) stated that, a project team can be designed of one member who might play the different roles using varied technology, tools for achieving common goals. There are different types of project team available in terms of line organization structure, line and staff organization, functional organization, divisional organization, matrix organization, virtual organization and divisional organization. Based on the type and size of the project the organizational structure is usually formed. 

 

According to Zhang et al. (2018), there are five phases of designing and structuring a project team. The stages include forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. All the stages are connected to each other. Forming is the first stage of team structuring. In this stage the team orientation is developed (Siangchokyoo 2018). The company owner search for the best leader and authority. In this phase, most of the interactions that took place are social. Storming is the most difficult and critical stage to go through. This phase is usually marked with competition and conflict because individuals start emerging in this stage. Attaran, Attaran & Kirkland (2019) stated that, team should be designed based on the project objectives and requirements. It is not mandatory that all the team members will have similar skills and abilities. A project team can be comprised of multiple people with diverse skills and competencies to deliver quality project outcomes.

 

Sagar et al. (2021) stated that, there are huge possibilities of disagreement among the team members in this stage. The strong personalities usually dominated subgroups. In order to overcome these challenges, the leaders should keep focused on overcoming barriers, acceptance of individual differences, work on conflict causing ideas etc. If the project leader fails to deal with this problem, then long-term problems can occur (Scott-Young, Georgy & Grisinger 2019). Norming stage resolves probable conflicts because people start learning how to perform collaboratively. In performing stage, cooperation and consensus are achieved. In adjourning stage, team’s objectives are all achieved.

 

The success of a project is dependent on performance of the project team member. In order to deliver successful project outcomes, the project manager needs to develop a comprehensive team and collaborate the members with best practices. In this section some recommendations are shared to ensure that the team is performing well and working towards the project objectives. The recommendations are elaborated in the below section

 

Setting clear goals- The project manager needs to develop clear project goals and share the goals with the team members. The projects goals should be defined clearly with measurable objectives. The project team should clearly understand the project objectives and the direction and roadmap of its success. If one of the team members is found not clearly understand the project objective then he or she should be again discussed the same. The project manager must involve all team members within the setting to make the process valuable. In order to clearly set the SMART goal, the project requirements should be defined followed by resource support, time and knowledge.

 

Well defined roles and responsibilities- The project manager should clearly define the roles and responsibilities of individuals. A project team is usually comprised of diverse project team members with varied skills and knowledge. The project manager should analyze and evaluate individual’s skills and team distribute the roles and responsibilities.
Open communication- Communication is the best key behind project success. In order to successfully accomplish any project, the project manager should communicate with the team members. The style of communication recommended to the team is open communication. Open communication provides a common discussion forum to all where the team members can share their ideas and opinion with each other. Open communication will empower each team member and make them believe that they are important for the project.

 

Leadership- Co-operative work is always encouraging.  In order to lead a project towards success, it is important to have efficient leadership and management support. For managing conflicts, leadership is important. Leadership will handle the situation and eliminate all negative impact from the project success roadmap. The project manager usually takes the charge of leadership and project success. The PMP certification is defined as a great course for recognizing leading competence.

 

Positive atmosphere- Project morale and well-being are crucial to build project success. The team members who are negative and disengaged can disrupt great work environment and project progress harmony.  Therefore, a project manager should develop a well-organized work ambiance to support the project objectives and organizational goals. 

 

Training and development- Training and development is the best way to improve individual’s performances. In order to assist the project team towards objectives and project goals, the project manager should arrange effective training ad development based on project requirements and client’s expectation. It will help the project manager to create a great team with quality skills and abilities.

 

The current supply chain management of Woolworths Limited is the leading supermarket brands of Australia. In Woolworths limited leadership is significantly related to function at each management level. Woolworths Limited uses autocratic leadership style to govern the projects and manage the team as well. The different types of leadership styles are affiliative, democratic, emergent, bureaucratic, coaching etc use by different business organizations. The project manager should develop effective management strategies to enhance team member’s commitment towards project performance. Probable challenges with communication are needed to be resolved to optimize team collaboration and team co-ordination. The project manager should implement unique team building activities to overcome managerial barriers. The team members should be motivating in such a way so that, they can adopt frequent changes. The roles and responsibilities developed for each team member should be performed by the associates successfully. The team should report to the project manager and immediate supervisor about the project progress to achieve the project objective

 

Attaran, M., Attaran, S., & Kirkland, D. 2019. The need for digital workplace: increasing workforce productivity in the information age. International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems (IJEIS), 15(1), 1-23.

 

 

Bouton, G. A. 2021. Effects of Project Managers Use of Human Resource Management Tools and Techniques to Plan, Estimate, Acquire, Develop, Manage, and Control Project Teams Within Acquisition Mission-Oriented Organizations of The United States Department of the Navy.

 

 

Caniëls, M.C., Chiocchio, F. & van Loon, N.P., 2019. Collaboration in project teams: The role of mastery and performance climates. International Journal of Project Management, 37(1), pp.1-13.

 

 

Hall, K. L., Vogel, A. L., Huang, G. C., Serrano, K. J., Rice, E. L., Tsakraklides, S. P., & Fiore, S. M. 2018. The science of team science: A review of the empirical evidence and research gaps on collaboration in science. American psychologist, 73(4), 532.

 

 

Hans, R., & Mnkandla, E. 2021. A model for assisting software project managers to treat project teams as key stakeholders: What do experts say?. Procedia Computer Science, 181, 1105-1113.

 

 

Hans, R., & Mnkandla, E. 2022. The role of the PMO in enforcing and standardizing attendance to the needs of software project teams by project managers. Procedia Computer Science, 196, 782-790.

 

 

Henderson, L.S., Stackman, R.W. & Lindekilde, R., 2018. Why cultural intelligence matters on global project teams. International Journal of Project Management, 36(7), pp.954-967.

 

 

Lichtarski, J. M. 2018. PROJECT-DRIVEN HETERARCHY: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON PROJECT TEAMS’LEARNING ABILITIES AND CREATIVITY. European Project Management Journal, 8(1), 10-16.

 

 

Mikhieieva, O., 2020. Agile mindset competencies for project teams. Research and Education in Project Management (Bilbao, 2020), p.48.

 

 

Muszyńska, K. 2020. Gamification of communication and documentation processes in project teams. Procedia Computer Science, 176, 3645-3653.

 

 

Sagar, S. K., Arif, M., Oladinrin, O. T., & Rana, M. Q. 2021. Exploring factors affecting trust in construction virtual project teams.

 

 

Scott-Young, C. M., Georgy, M., & Grisinger, A. 2019. Shared leadership in project teams: An integrative multi-level conceptual model and research agenda. International Journal of Project Management, 37(4), 565-581.

 

 

Siangchokyoo, N. 2018. A Multi-Level Longitudinal Investigation of Transformational Leadership Influence on Team Members Development in Engineering Project Teams.

 

 

Wiesche, M. 2021. Interruptions in agile software development teams. Project Management Journal, 52(2), 210-222.

 

 

Zachko, O., Kobylkin, D., & Kovalchuk, O. 2019. MODELS OF PROJECT TEAMS’FORMATION IN A SAFETY-ORIENTED SYSTEM. Innovative Technologies and Scientific

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Zhang, Y., Sun, J., Yang, Z., & Wang, Y. 2018. Mobile social media in inter-organizational projects: Aligning tool, task and team for virtual collaboration effectiveness. International Journal of Project Management, 36(8), 1096-1108.