Week 10 Project Management 2 PDF

Factors in Managing people 1 Managing people People are an organisation’s most important assets.  The tasks of a manager are essentially people-oriented. Unless there is some understanding of people, management will be unsuccessful.  Poor people management is an important contributor to project...

Factors in Managing people 1 Managing people People are an organisation’s most important assets.  The tasks of a manager are essentially people-oriented. Unless there is some understanding of people, management will be unsuccessful.  Poor people management is an important contributor to project failure.  2 People management factors  Consistency ◦ Team members should all be treated in a comparable way without favourites or discrimination.  Respect ◦ Different team members have different skills and these differences should be respected.  Inclusion ◦ Involve all team members and make sure that people’s views are considered.  Honesty ◦ You should always be honest about what is going well and what is going badly in a project. 3 Motivating people   An important role of a manager is to motivate the people working on a project. Motivation means organizing the work and the working environment to encourage people to work effectively. ◦ If people are not motivated, they will not be interested in the work they are doing. They will work slowly, be more likely to make mistakes and will not contribute to the broader goals of the team or the organization.  Motivation is a complex issue but it appears that their are different types of motivation based on: ◦ Basic needs (e.g. food, sleep, etc.); ◦ Personal needs (e.g. respect, self-esteem); ◦ Social needs (e.g. to be accepted as part of a group). 4 Human needs hierarchy 5 Need satisfaction  In software development groups, basic physiological and safety needs are not an issue. Social  Esteem  Self-realization  ◦ Provide communal facilities; ◦ Allow informal communications e.g. via social networking ◦ Recognition of achievements; ◦ Appropriate rewards. ◦ Training - people want to learn more; ◦ Responsibility. 6 Personality types 1   The needs hierarchy is almost certainly an over-simplification of motivation in practice. Motivation should also take into account different personality types: ◦ Task-oriented people, who are motivated by the work they do. In software engineering. ◦ Interaction-oriented people, who are motivated by the presence and actions of co-workers. ◦ Self-oriented people, who are principally motivated by personal success and recognition. 7 Personality types 2  Task-oriented. ◦ The motivation for doing the work is the work itself;  Self-oriented. ◦ The work is a means to an end which is the achievement of individual goals - e.g. to get rich, to play tennis, to travel etc.;  Interaction-oriented ◦ The principal motivation is the presence and actions of co-workers. People go to work because they like to go to work. 8 Motivation balance Individual motivations are made up of elements of each class.  The balance can change depending on personal circumstances and external events.  However, people are not just motivated by personal factors but also by being part of a group and culture.  People go to work because they are motivated by the people that they work with.  9 Teamwork Considerations 10 Teamwork  Most software engineering is a group activity ◦ The development schedule for most non-trivial software projects is such that they cannot be completed by one person working alone. A good group is cohesive and has a team spirit. The people involved are motivated by the success of the group as well as by their own personal goals.  Group interaction is a key determinant of group performance.  Flexibility in group composition is limited  ◦ Managers must do the best they can with available people. 11 Group cohesiveness In a cohesive group, members consider the group to be more important than any individual in it.  The advantages of a cohesive group are:  ◦ Group quality standards can be developed by the group members. ◦ Team members learn from each other and get to know each other’s work; Inhibitions caused by ignorance are reduced. ◦ Knowledge is shared. Continuity can be maintained if a group member leaves. ◦ Refactoring and continual improvement is encouraged. Group members work collectively to deliver high quality results and fix problems, irrespective of the individuals who originally created the design or program. 12 Team spirit See Case Study in Textbook 13 The effectiveness of a team  The people in the group ◦ You need a mix of people in a project group as software development involves diverse activities such as negotiating with clients, programming, testing and documentation.  The group organization ◦ A group should be organized so that individuals can contribute to the best of their abilities and tasks can be completed as expected.  Technical and managerial communications ◦ Good communications between group members, and between the software engineering team and other project stakeholders, is essential. 14 Selecting group members A manager or team leader’s job is to create a cohesive group and organize their group so that they can work together effectively.  This involves creating a group with the right balance of technical skills and personalities, and organizing that group so that the members work together effectively.  15 Assembling a team May not be possible to appoint the ideal people to work on a project ◦ Project budget may not allow for the use of highly-paid staff; ◦ Staff with the appropriate experience may not be available; ◦ An organisation may wish to develop employee skills on a software project.  Managers have to work within these constraints especially when there are shortages of trained staff.  16 Group composition     Group composed of members who share the same motivation can be problematic ◦ Task-oriented - everyone wants to do their own thing; ◦ Self-oriented - everyone wants to be the boss; ◦ Interaction-oriented - too much chatting, not enough work. An effective group has a balance of all types. This can be difficult to achieve software engineers are often task-oriented. Interaction-oriented people are very important as they can detect and defuse tensions that arise. 17 See Group composition Example 18 Group organization 1  The way that a group is organized affects the decisions that are made by that group, the ways that information is exchanged and the interactions between the development group and external project stakeholders. ◦ Key questions include:  Should the project manager be the technical leader of the group?  Who will be involved in making critical technical decisions, and how will these be made?  How will interactions with external stakeholders and senior company management be handled?  How can groups integrate people who are not co-located?  How can knowledge be shared across the group? 19 Group organization 2    Small software engineering groups are usually organised informally without a rigid structure. For large projects, there may be a hierarchical structure where different groups are responsible for different sub-projects. Agile development is always based around an informal group on the principle that formal structure inhibits information exchange 20 Informal groups     The group acts as a whole and comes to a consensus on decisions affecting the system. The group leader serves as the external interface of the group but does not allocate specific work items. Rather, work is discussed by the group as a whole and tasks are allocated according to ability and experience. This approach is successful for groups where all members are experienced and competent. 21 Group communications 1 Good communications are essential for effective group working.  Information must be exchanged on the status of work, design decisions and changes to previous decisions.  Good communications also strengthens group cohesion as it promotes understanding.  22 Group communications 2  Group size ◦ The larger the group, the harder it is for people to communicate with other group members.  Group structure ◦ Communication is better in informally structured groups than in hierarchically structured groups.  Group composition ◦ Communication is better when there are different personality types in a group and when groups are mixed rather than single sex.  The physical work environment ◦ Good workplace organisation can help encourage communications. 23 Key points 1    Good project management is essential if software engineering projects are to be developed on schedule and within budget. Software management is distinct from other engineering management. Software is intangible. Projects may be novel or innovative with no body of experience to guide their management. Software processes are not as mature as traditional engineering processes. Risk management involves identifying and assessing project risks to establish the probability that they will occur and the consequences for the project if that risk does arise.You should make plans to avoid, manage or deal with likely risks if or when they arise. 24 Key points 2     People management involves choosing the right people to work on a project and organizing the team and its working environment. People are motivated by interaction with other people, the recognition of management and their peers, and by being given opportunities for personal development. Software development groups should be fairly small and cohesive. The key factors that influence the effectiveness of a group are the people in that group, the way that it is organized and the communication between group members. Communications within a group are influenced by factors such as the status of group members, the size of the group, the gender composition of the group, personalities and available communication channels. 25