Project Management Notes PDF

Logic (julia) Definitions: General project model Idea > Pre-study > Planning > Execution > Closure > Impact Milestones: Project milestones are checkpoints for the project manager to see if the activities are in phase with the plan. They should be easy to define, identify and measure. Milestones a...

Logic (julia) Definitions: General project model Idea > Pre-study > Planning > Execution > Closure > Impact Milestones: Project milestones are checkpoints for the project manager to see if the activities are in phase with the plan. They should be easy to define, identify and measure. Milestones are also a natural way to communicate with the project owner and stakeholders. Background/task: Introduce project plan and purpose of it Goals: Benefits of project created and what you will deliver with it Situational analysis or stakeholder: A way to organize the stakeholders into primary, secondary and key Primary (decision makers/prime movers): Management, employees, project group and project manager Secondary(highly affected by project, want to influence): The board, shareholders, companies and customers, funding organisations Key (relatively low interest, will not influence): General public, The media, Politicians, Governmental bodies, collaboration partners SWOT analysis (analysing situations/situations): Study undertaken by an organisation to identify its strengths, weaknesses, external opportunities and threats The MoSCoW method: Four step approach to prioritising which project requirements provide the best return on investment. Must have: Requirements, Critical features, Minimum features, no substitutions Should have: Important, desired features, valued if present, with substitution Could have: Not necessary, improvements, sometimes valued, with alternatives Won’t have: Not appropriate, not worth it etc….. Work Breakdown structure (WBS): Breaks down a project into smaller, more manageable components or tasks. It visually organises the project’s deliverables into a hierarchical structure, making it easier to plan, track, and assign responsibilities. The WBS helps define the scope of the project by identifying all the individual tasks and their relationships, ensuring nothing is overlooked. Logical network: visually represents the sequence and dependencies of tasks or activities within a project. It shows the relationships between tasks, such as which tasks must be completed before others can start. Pert (program evaluation and review technique): Analysis method for calculation of uncertainties like the ones that might affect the project milestones. Texp = (Tmin + 4Tlikely + Tmax) / 6 Critical path: A (activity ES EF (t +ES) T (time) LS (LF - t) LF Resource analysis: Resource: People, time (man-hours), equipment and money(budget) Time schedule: Describes when work packages will be carried out. Communication plan: Should define who is involved in the project, their roles, how you communicate with them. Risk analysis: Evaluate probability of risk event occurring and what consequences this would have for the project. GAP analysis: What measures are needed to reduce risk level to desired level Traditional and agile methods: Agile: Working cycles, observe what you’re doing and continuously try to improve. Incremental working with scaled solutions where you can show something that is done but not complete. Meet deadlines but work strategically with scaled solutions to manage it. Check the agile manifesto lower in the documents if needed. Sprint:  Short iterative period in a project (1-4 weeks). TRADITIONAL AGILE The customer knows exactly what they want The customer will discover what they want The developers know how to solve a problem The developers will discover how it can be solved during the project No large changes are expected during the Changes are expected project Psychology (erik) Organisational behaviour: Field of research: Examines impact of individuals, groups and structures on behaviour within organisations with the aim of applying such knowledge to improve human and organisational behaviour. Personal and social psych. Important bc: Important to predict, understand, influence and control human factors in projects 1. Develop self and improve people skills 2. Anticipate “unseen” reality, what’s going on in the heads of team members 3. Develop ppl around you 4. Improve performance of individuals in groups 5. Improve work quality and quality of life in projects Relation between psychology and OB relating to project management Personal factor: - Identify good fit between personality and job requirement in project - Change personality for better if so desired and how you do it - Help someone overcome shortcomings and exploit personal strength Social factors: - Manage group conflicts - Create synergies and create a climate of respect and understanding - Managing good and bad leaders effectively - Lead others effectively  Well-being: - Helping someone deal effectively with negative emotions - Identify optimal levels of stress and read early signs of exhaustion/burnout and put supports in place to support - Identify healthy and unhealthy levels of turnover, absenteeism and sick leave. - Implement effective interventions when these levels decrease Performance - To motivate someone - Increase your own and others commitment - Identify and leverage optimal levels of productivity and learning - Create structures to support effective group work and decision making Leadership Leadership: Intended social influence of person A → person B on some specific factor (usually some internal psych state such as: motivation, stress, knowledge, opinions, skills or direct consequences of this which is behaviour) Leadership effectiveness: Intention fit (direction of change in relation to intention: our followers intended needs(in terms of social and psych factors) met by leadership) Difference between manager and leadership Manager: Organisational function. You can be a manager regardless of how you act or behave. Leadership: Leadership is an activity! You can enact leadership regardless of if you’re in a managerial/leadership position or not. Lewin’s force field analysis: A tool for organisations to see what is driving(driving forces) change and what is prohibiting(restraining forces) change. The information is then used to evaluate what they can strengthen to successfully implement change. Restraining forces are stronger than driving forces. Well-being and performance Personal psych factors driving well-being + performance Personality - Big 5 - Emotional intelligence Self determination - Intrinsic motivation - Extrinsic motivation Psychological resources: - emotion - Motivation - Attention Well-being: State of happiness and contentment with low levels of anxiety, generally good physical and mental health and vision or good quality of life. Job satisfaction: Workers attitude towards job often expressed as a hedonic response of liking or disliking work itself, the rewards, or the context Burnout: Physical, emotional and mental exhaustion accompanied by reduced motivation, reduced performance and a negative attitude towards self and others. Maslach and jackson: Argued Burnout multidimensional construct consisting of three separate, through related dimensions: 1. Emotional exhaustion arises from feelings of tension and frustration due to individuals fear that they will not be able to provide previous levels of job performance 2. Depersonalisation occurs when individuals distance themselves from their work by creating dehumanising perceptions of tasks clients or coworkers. 3. (reduced)Personal performance defined as self evaluative feelings of incompetence and lack of performance at work Check performance: a diversified concept below if needed 5 generic personality traits Extroversion:  Sociable and confident Agreeableness: Good natured, cooperative and trusting Conscientiousness: Responsible, reliable, persistent and organized Emotional stability (neuroticism): Calm, confident and secure under stress. Vs neuroticism which involves tendencies to be nervous, insecure under stress and depressed(neuroticism strongest relation to well-being) Openness: Curious, imaginative, artistic and sensitive Emotional intelligence: Ability to process emotional info and use it in reasoning and other cognitive activities: - Self awareness - Self regulation - Social skills - Empathy Increases performance: - Negotiation - Colleague and customer service - Motivation 3 psychological needs to motivate ppl: - Need for relatedness - Need for competence - Need for autonomy Intrinsic motivation: Incentive felt to complete task simply bc it interests you or it’s enjoyable Extrinsic motivation: External motivators like rewards, salary etc. Conservation of Resource theory COR and Self determination theory SDT Psychological resources - Motivation - Emotions  - Attention Build psychological resources - Acceptance - Love acceptance - Treated with respect and compassion - Deep meaningful relationships - Competence - Successfully achieve goals - Optimal predictability - Predict how to achieve success - Understand why others disapprove of you Depleted psych resources - Acceptance - Dislike, not accepted - Being treated with disrespect or misunderstanding - Superficial meaningless relationships - Competence - Failing to achieve goals - Feeling helpless and unable to take responsibility - Negative feedback criticism etc - Optimal predict - Cannot predict success - Not understanding others disapproval of you - Not understanding why things happen as they do Self determination theory (SDT) Framework of factors that can affect one's intrinsic motivation and when one is self determined they don’t need incentives because their need for autonomy, competence and relatedness are already filled. Suggests that all humans have those basic needs. How conservation of resource (COR) theory relates to SDT - perspective of basic needs combines with conservation of resource theory(COR) to calibrate the SDT - Both describe a spectrum of demotivation /amotivation to motivation based on satisfaction/frustration of psychological needs - Acceptance/Relatedness - Competence - Optimal predictability/autonomy Demotivation: concerned with environmental factors that diminish initiation of action  Amotivation: unrealistic beliefs about outcomes, inability to reach a desired outcome Need for belonging Strongest basic need of humans. Behaviour driven by having positive feedback/connections, and hindered by negative ones. Rejection hurts, we feel physical and mental pain. Social comparison theory People evaluate their abilities and attitudes relative to those of others in a process that plays a significant role in self-image and subjective well-being. Traditionally promotes a sense of inferiority associated with negative changes in self-concept. Recent research suggests the opposite could be the case depending on circumstance, may promote inspiration. Can be negative force(envy,anxiety,contempt) or positive (admiration,inspiration,compassion) Equity theory Derivation of self comparing oneself with others relating to fair treatment. When ratio is equal: equity exists and no tension. When conditions are unequal: equity doesn’t exist because of injustice. On the other hand, over rewards may lead to guilt, tension motivates to act and bring justice to the situation. Social identity theory For every group you belong to there is an opposite. When groups are formed we automatically begin to think more highly of the in-group and less of the out-group. The 3 stages that lead to the us vs. them mentality: 1. Categorization 2. Identification 3. a. biassed in favour of the in-group b. Biassed to detriment of the out-group Sociometer theory and the need to belong Self esteem: gauge(sociometer) of degree to which people feel they are accepted or rejected by others. Way to keep track in our mind of how well our interpersonal relationships with other people are going. Why good people do bad things Before the fact: Pebople are often afraid to do the right thing - Fear: what is the price I have to pay for standing up for my values? - Contextual pressures: a. If an authority says so, it’s probably right b. If the majority normal, it should be ok - Distribution of responsibility: someone else would/should take responsibility - Perceived capacity to make a difference After the fact: People rationalise why their bad behaviour was ok - Rationalisation: bad behaviour is often justified afterwards with logic and a little creativity, even when it is actually inappropriate Rationalisation: A post-hoc defence mechanism to protect against guilt, where seemingly logical reasons are given to justify unacceptable behaviour that is motivated by unconscious instinctual impulses. Used to defend against guilt, maintain respect and protect against criticism. An inaction hypothesis Action is driven by motivation and motivation to inaction - There is a non-linear relationship between perceptions of psychological risk and the negative motivational forces; low levels of psychological risk are sufficient to induce high levels of social disincentives (inaction) - Non-linear: changes in psychological risk do not result in a proportional change in motivation - Even a small perceived risk can create enough fear of social consequences (such as judgement or rejection) to make someone avoid taking action. This highlights how people's fear of social repercussions can override their willingness to act, even when the actual risk seems minimal. Three examples of constructive behaviours inhibited by social disincentives ACTION INACTION Raise your hand and ask a question Keep your hand down  Come dressed in your favourite clothes Dress according to perceived ‘dress code’ Raise criticism and problems, especially if Keep to your ‘current lane’ outside the established role Assumptions underpinning the defensive inaction hypothesis: 1. Need for inclusion 2. Social judgement 3. Impression management 4. Continuous monitoring for social risk 5. Actions are expressions These five assumptions have 2 implications: - Social distinctives of actions - Defensive inaction We are afraid to be judged because we are dependent on the group. What do we judge? - Aspects that indicate reduced survival risk - that a group member is or may become a risk or danger to the group and thus to the individual We are being judged on: - Lacking ability - the degree to which others depend on the person - Lacking popularity - the degree to which others like a person - Lacking trust - the degree to which others trust the person A mouse analogy Incentives: the perceived value of what you get out of the behaviour (Social) disincentives: the perceived risk of giving a bad impression; the worry of being expelled from the group becomes a form of deterrence. 2 strategies to counter social disincentives: 1. Reducing the costs - remove/disarm risk by normalising the action so that the follower can act without fear of giving bad impression 2. Protect against the costs - guard/protect/arm employees with psychological security to give the impression that deviation will cause less harm. Financial analogy onto defensive inaction: People engage in defensive inaction to avoid social costs Leaders can reduce defensive inaction by: - Reducing social costs (by normalising behaviour) - Increasing social credit (by increasing in-group status) - Increasing social insurance (by increasing psychological safety) Reducing social costs: Manage impressions of failure: most failures are learning opportunities Guidelines for normalising action: - Normalise the desired behaviour - Be a role model - Act publicly when others are watching - Find or “force” your first follower - Normal makes it scary not to do it - Clarify the difference between red flags and learning opportunities - Be aware of which standards you are flexible and inflexible with Increase psychological safety: Create a climate of psychological safety: - Promote acceptance - Promote respect - Promote empathy How can you as a leader increase psychological safety in your group? - Create multiple communication channels - Create team discussion groups to encourage sharing - Be fair! Make people feel equal - Encourage members to share their personal experiences and expertise - Celebrate instances of courageous behaviour (admitting mistakes) - Moderate and mediate sharing between team members when things get out of control - Polish the language used - encourage members to rephrase the wording when it is not appropriate - Ask silent members for input - Ask for alternative ideas - Create a clear plan for decision-making to encourage information sharing and eliminate dominant tendencies of certain team members  - Be absent from group discussions - let people decide on their own if that feels more comfortable Summary of the Mouse Analogy in Organisational Behaviour: Mice in a lab: Like employees in an organisation, they balance the rewards of their actions with perceived risks. Defensive inaction: Mice avoid risky behaviours if they perceive danger, just as employees might avoid contributing out of fear of social penalties. Leader’s role: A good leader, like a good experimenter, can reduce perceived risks (normalise desired behaviour) and create a safer environment (psychological safety), encouraging action and innovation. In this analogy, the behaviour of employees is compared to the decision-making of mice when faced with rewards and dangers, with leadership strategies playing a key role in influencing how freely people contribute in an organisational setting. General project model: Idea > Pre-study > Planning > Execution > Closure > Impact Lecture 1 - Course introduction The project management skills: - Social skills: effective communication, negotiation, leadership; - Technical skills: scheduling and time management, technical expertise, risk management, critical thinking and problem solving CHAPTER 1 & 2 The basis The purpose of a company (any organisation) is to generate value! Resources => Consume/Refine => Value Value = Revenue Consume = Cost The difference = Result Creating values with the use of projects. Level of dependability and complexity: Projects - an important part of many companies’ operations Project is a: - A task with: Specified goals A beginning and an end A number of limited resources A temporarily organisation - Something done temporarily - Own economical control - An activity to create something unique Fundamentals of a project: - Running projects enables the organisation to gather and focus resources and competences towards a defined goal. - The resources are not seldom gathered from the ordinary line organisation. - Projects can be used when faced with: - A new uncertain task - A unique task - A complex task - A need to collaborate across organisational boundaries - Situations of development and change - A need of extended competences - A need of flexibility Not everything can and should be handled in/with a project! Continuing of fundamentals of a project: - Different types: 1. Purpose: - Client order projects - Product development projects - Change projects - Event projects - Research 2. Fields: - Healthcare - IT - Infrastructure - Construction General project model: Idea > Pre-study > Planning > Execution > Closure > Impact Lecture 2 - Crash course in leadership Psychology, projects and leadership What is psychology? What is organisational behaviour?  - A field of research; examines the impact that individuals, groups and structures have on behaviour within organisations, with the aim of applying such knowledge to improve human and organisational behaviour. - The study of both personal and social psychology (cognition, emotion and behaviour) in organisations. Why should we care about psychology and OB? - Businesses are beginning to understand that although technical skills are necessary, they alone are not sufficient to ensure the success of a project. - Psychology and OB are important to predict, understand, influence and control human factor in projects: 1. Develop yourself and improve your own people skills 2. Anticipate the “unseen” reality (what is going on in the heads of team members?) 3. Develop people around you and improve performance of individuals and groups 4. Improve work quality and the quality of life in projects How does all this relate to project management? How does psychology and OB relate to project management? Personal factors: - Identify a good fit between personality (yours or someone else’s) and job requirements in a particular project - Change your personality for the better? If so desired, how do you do it - To help someone (yourself or others) to overcome personal shortcomings and to exploit personal strengths Social factors: - Manage group conflict: disagreements, disrespect, disapproval - Create synergies and create a climate of respect and understanding - Managing good and bad leaders effectively - To lead others effectively Well-being in project work: - Helping someone (yourself or someone else) deal effectively with negative emotions - Identify an optimal level of stress and read early signs of exhaustion and burnout and put supports in place to support - Identify healthy and unhealthy levels of turnover, absenteeism and sick leave - Implement effective interventions when these levels decrease Performance in project work: - Motivate someone (yourself or someone else) - Increase your own and others’ commitment - Identify and leverage optimal levels of productivity and learning - Create structures to support effective group work and decision making Leadership is needed wherever people work together. - Is “diffuse” - Can be carried out by different people - Can manifest in different behaviours Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish charred objectives. In psychology, leadership effectiveness measures the degree to which the mind of others is (or can be) affected: - Motivation, emotion, attention - Opinions and worldviews - Behaviours Ex: Nazi Germany and the Holocaust Definition: Leadership is the intended social influence of Person A -> person B on some specific factor (usually some internal psychological state such as motivation, stress, knowledge, opinions, skills, or a direct consequence of these - i.e., behaviour). Definition of leadership effectiveness: Intention fit (Direction of change in relation to intention: are followers’ intended needs (in terms of social and psychological factors) met by leadership) - Psychological resources: motivation and trust, emotions, attention? - Knowledge and skill, opinions and values? - Behaviours Effect size (magnitude of change) - To what extent were people affected? - How many people were affected?  - How quickly is the change implemented? - How long does the effect last? The need for leadership skills Leadership is an important success factor where people are involved. People have all sorts of problems: - Lacking direction - Lacking drive 1. Lacking physical resources (e.g. tools, materials, labour) 2. Poor communication or feeling of mistrust 3. Lacking psychological resources - Emotions: uncertainty, fear, anxiety - Motivation: low motivation or lack of self-confidence - Attention: distraction, confusion, difficulty understanding - Skills: unable to carry out a specific task or obligation In all these cases, leaders have potential to contribute. Difference between manager and leadership: - Manager is an organisational function: you can be a manager regardless of how you act or behave - Leadership is an activity! You can enact leadership regardless of whether you are in a managerial/leadership position or not. Lewin’s force field analysis - Lewin’s force field analysis provides a framework for looking at the factors (“forces”) that influence behaviour. - Usually the focus is on BUT people are often (strongly) motivated NOT to act (ie inaction). - Driving forces (helps movement towards a goal). For ex: motivation (i desire to do this) - Inhibiting forces (drive movement in the opposite direction from the target). For ex: fear, worry (i desire to NOT do this). - Restraining forces are normally stronger than driving forces. Inaction motivation is usually stronger than action motivation - Action is driven by motivation to action and by motivation to inaction. - There is a non-linear relationship between psychological risk and the negative forces; low levels of psychological risk are sufficient to induce high levels of restraint (inaction). Lecture 3 - Crash course in personal dynamics and drive Psychological science distinguishes between PERSONAL psychology and SOCIAL psychology. Personal psychology: Who you ARE determines how you feel, think and behave. Social psychology: Who you are WITH determines how you feel, think and behave. Personal psychological factors driving well-being and performance: - Personality: 1. Big 5 2. Emotional intelligence - Self-determination 1. Intrinsic motivation 2. Extrinsic motivation - Psychological resources 1. Emotion 2. Motivation 3. Attention Well-being is a state of happiness and contentment, with low levels of anxiety, generally good physical and mental health and vision, or good quality of life. Job-satisfaction is a worker’s attitude toward his job, often expressed as a hedonic response of liking or disliking the work itself, the rewards (salary, promotion, recognition), or the context (working conditions, colleagues). See also job involvement. Burnout: the extreme opposite of high well-being. - Physical, emotional or mental exhaustion accompanied by reduced motivation, reduced performance and negative attitudes towards self and others. It is the result of performing at a high level until stress and tension, especially from extreme and prolonged physical or mental exertion who work in service-oriented occupations (eg, social workers, teachers, correctional officers) and experience chronically high levels of stress. - Maslach and Jackson (1981) argued that burnout is a multidimensional construct consisting of three separate, through related, dimensions: 1. Emotional exhaustion arises from feelings of tension and frustration due to individuals’ fear that they will not be able to provide previous levels of job performance. 2. Depersonalization, the second dimension of burnout, occurs when individuals distance themselves from their work by creating dehumanising perceptions of tasks, clients, or co-workers. 3. (Reduced) Personal performance, which is defined as self-evaluative feelings of incompetence and lack of performance at work. Performance: a diversified concept - Performance: any activity or collection of responses that leads to a result or has an effect on the environment.  - Effort: the persistent effort to put unfamiliar ideas into more familiar terms in an attempt to understand ambiguous or unfamiliar material. See repeat rendering. - Learning: the acquisition of new information, behaviours, or abilities following practice, observation, or other experiences, as evidenced by changes in behaviour, knowledge, or brain function. Learning involves consciously or unconsciously attending to relevant aspects of incoming information, mentally organising the information into a coherent cognitive representation, and integrating it with relevant existing knowledge activated from long-term memory. - Creativity: the ability to produce or develop original work, theories, techniques or thoughts. A creative individual usually shows originality, imagination and expressiveness. Analyses have failed to establish why one individual is more creative than another, but creativity appears to be a highly durable trait. See also creative imagination; creative thinking; divergent thinking. - Initiative: a work behaviour characterised by being a self-starter, taking a proactive approach and being persistent in overcoming difficulties that arise in the pursuit of the goal. - Organisational citizenship behaviour: an action taken by an employee to benefit the organisation that is not formally required by the job or that goes beyond formal requirements (volunteering to help a co-worker with a computer problem). - Voice: expressing ideas, concerns and perspectives about the workplace in order to influence and influence things that affect them at work. - Turnover: the number of employees who leave their job during a certain period. A distinction is generally made between controllable turnover, such as through termination or voluntary resignation, and uncontrollable turnover, such as through retirement or dismissal. - Absenteeism: unexcused absence from work or school, especially when it is regular or persistent. Although absenteeism has been linked to job satisfaction, other factors, such as organisational culture and particularly absenteeism culture, may be more relevant. There is a direct link between well-being and performance. 5 generic personality traits: 1. Extroversion - sociable and confident. 2. Agreeableness - good-natured, cooperative and trusting. 3. Conscientiousness - responsible, reliable, persistent and organised. 4. Emotional stability (also labelled with its opposite: neuroticism) - calm, confident and secure under stress. Versus neuroticism involves tendencies to be nervous, depressed and insecure under stress (negative). 5. Openness (to new impressions and experiences) - curious, imaginative, artistic and sensitive. Out of the Big 5 traits, neuroticism has the strongest and most consistent relationship to well-being across a wide range of considerations. Extraversion and consciousness, too, correlates strongly. Openness and agreeableness, less so. Emotional intelligence is a multidimensional concept Emotional intelligence is the ability to process emotional information and use it in reasoning and other cognitive activities. Includes several activities: - Self-awareness and self-understanding: being able to perceive, assess and understand one’s own feelings. - Self-regulation: regulating and managing (avoiding or eliciting one’s own emotions) in ways that favour one’s thinking, motivation, decision making and behaviour. - Social skills: understanding and being able to express oneself in emotional language and to use emotional information. To regulate one’s own and others’ emotions to promote growth and well-being. - Empathy: understanding others and being able to feel others’ situations and being able to see the world from a different perspective. Emotional intelligence increases performance: - Negotiation: there is a strength in dealing with anger, uncertainty, nervousness; of understanding others; of being able to express oneself well and charismatically. - Colleague and customer service: ability to remain calm under stress leads to slower (and usually more effective) decision-making. - Motivation: more positive mood -> higher motivation. Emotional intelligence is a processual chain in which emotion perception increases emotion understanding, which increases emotion regulation (managing what emotion to feel and to what extent). There are 3 psychological needs to motivate people: - Need for relatedness - Need for competence - Need for autonomy (freedom) Intrinsic motivation - the incentive we feel to complete a task simply because we find it interesting or enjoyable. It is a strong contributor to performance. The importance of intrinsic drivers for performance remained in place regardless of whether incentives were presented. Externally driving forces (incentives) affected the effect of intrinsic motivation on performance in a crowding out manner: intrinsic motivation was less strongly linked to performance (effect size is 0.30; significant) and was more important when incentives were indirectly tied to performance (effect size is 0.45; significant). With respect to performance, incentives and intrinsic motivation are not necessarily antagonistic and are best considered simultaneously: - Extrinsic incentives predicted performance quantity better (although intrinsic incentives both were strong predictors)  - Intrinsic incentives predicted performance quality well; extrinsic incentives failed to predict performance quality. Conclusions: - Providing extrinsic motivation (a reward or other external incentive) for behavior that had previously only been intrinsically rewarded tends to reduce the overall level of motivation AND performance. - Important implications for work rewards: 1. Internal and external driving forces are not independent 2. Extrinsic motivators (rewards) reduce (mostly) intrinsic motivators 3. For most jobs, pay should not be dependent on performance Lecture 4 - Project Management (Pre-Study) Organisation and roles - 4 categories - Governing and monitoring (Project owner/Steering committee) - Organising and managing (Project manager/Project management team) - Executing (Project group) - Supporting (Resource owner, Reference group, Quality manager, Communicator) Tasks of the project manager: - Ensuring that the project goal is achieved - Organising and planning the project - Delegating and following up on activities - Solving problems and handling conflicts - Influencing others and getting things done - Communicating, involving and motivating - Reporting outcomes and handling risks and changes - Calling and leading project meetings - Applying project tools and models MILESTONES - project milestones are checkpoints for the project manager to see if the activities are in phase with the plan. They should be easy to define, identify and measure. Milestones are also a natural way to communicate with the project owner and stakeholders. Idea and pre study - The selection process - First parts of the project plan (background and task) - The project triangle - Goals - SWOT - Stakeholder analysis  - MoSCoW - prioritisation demands - Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Selection process - During this stage we need to Identify, Classify, Quantify and Prioritise. Identify = Idea Classify, Quality, Prioritise = What kind of project? How vital is the project? Compare & Choose! Background and task - You introduce the project plan, the purpose of it. The project triangle - Quality/Scope (result) => Resources/Investments (budget) => Time/Deadline(time) Goals - impact (purpose) and product - What benefits will the project create - short and long term? - The purpose - What is to be delivered Lecture 5 - prestudy Chapter 4 and 5 from the book The project paradox - Important decisions in projects are made in the early stages when the knowledge of the project is the lowest. Later in the project the knowledge is high, however the cost and challenge of making changes is very high. Analysing the project stakeholders: A) Decision Makers / prime movers (primary) - Management - Employees - Project group - Project manager B) Highly affected by the project, that wants to influence it (secondary) - The board - Shareholders - Companies and customers - Funding organisations C) Relatively low interest, will not influence it (key) - The general public  - The media - Politicians - Governmental bodies - Collaboration partners SWOT analysis - analysing the situation / conditions - A SWOT analysis is a study undertaken by an organisation to identify its strengths, weaknesses, external opportunities and threats. The Moscow Method - It is a four step approach to prioritising which project requirements provide the best return on investment Must Have - requirements, critical features, minimum features, no substitution Should Have - important, desired features, valued if present, with substitution Could Have - not necessary, improvements, sometimes valued, with alternatives Won’t Have - least important, not appropriated, not worth it, not programmed Lecture 6 - chapters 5, 7 and 10 Why project planning? - Reduce uncertainty - Assess realism - Assess needed resources - Calcule costs - Coordinate activities - Determine how to organise - Create a base for information - Get members involved The planning chain (page 170 till page 171) High level planning Planning the chain: - Identify dependencies between different working packages - Identify the milestones - Place the work packages in a logical network/line along with the milestones LOOK INTO logical network ( activity-on-nod ) PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) - Analysis method for calculation of uncertainties like the ones that might affect the project milestones. Texp = ( Tmax + 4Texp + Tmin ) / 6 - PERT METHOD Critical Path A ES EF t LS LF A = Activity T = time ES = Earliest start LS = Latest start EF = Earliest finish LF = Latest finish SLACK - slack for an activity is defined as how long the activity can be delayed without extending the project Resource and time assessment: - Resource is a collective name for: people, equipment, time and money - A project needs a certain level of resources in any given period - Work effort ( working hours ) = effective work ( paid for ) - Expenditure of time (duration) = the actual time used for the package Activity list / resource analysis Time schedule / GANTT - The time schedule describes when the work packages will be carried out - The earlier planning steps - identifying the activities, estimation of time and resources needed and the analysis of dependency - form the basis for drawing up the time schedule - Gantt chart is an example of time schedule Float (slack) = difference available time and estimated time Lead = overlap between two activities Lag = a planned delay Resource conflict: - It is common that one particular resource is (machine, tool, person) is required at more than one activity at the same time - It is important to check when such resource conflict occur - You constantly need to revise plans - the reality does not always follow the plan DURING PRE-STUDY: - Background - Impact goal - Project goal - Situational analysis: SWOT and Stakeholder analysis - Requirements: MoSCoW - WBS PLANNING: - Logical network, critical path/PERT - Time plan - Risk-handling - Stakeholder-handling - Resource/budget Lecture 7 - Managing personal dynamics to stimulate engagement and performance Part 1: How psychological resources drive well-being and performance An integrated understanding of leadership: - Leadership is any attempt to lead - Leadership effectiveness is influenced by many factors (behaviours, situational adaptation, relationships, roles, personality) - BUT ALSO of a more psychologically based adaptation: to reduce factors that decrease psychological resources and increase factors that increase psychological resources RESOURCE THEORY Psychological resources: - Motivation - Emotions - Attention ^ psychological resource - increases well-being, motivation and performance V psychological resources - increases stress, burnout, decreases motivation and performance BUILD psychological resources: 1. Acceptance: - To feel loved and accepted for who you are - To be treated with respect and compassion - To have deep and meaningful relationships 2. Competence: - To successfully achieve set goals - To feel that one is in control and can take responsibility - To receive positive feedback or praise 3. Optimal predictability: - Being able to predict how to achieve success and avoid failure - Understanding why others approve or disapprove of you - Understanding why things happen the way they do DEPLETED psychological resources: 1. Acceptance: - Feeling disliked and rejected for who you are - Being treated with disrespect or misunderstanding - Having superficial or meaningless relationships 2. Competence: - Failing to achieve set goals - Feeling helpless and unable to take responsibility - Receiving negative feedback, criticism or complaints 3. Optimal predictability: - Not being able to predict how to achieve success or avoid failure - Not understanding why others approve or disapprove of us - Not understanding why things happen the way they do HOW conservation of resource theory relates to SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY - The perspective of basic needs combines with the conservation of Resource theory (COR) to calibrate the self-determination theory - Both theories describe a spectrum from demotivation/amotivation to motivation based on satisfaction/frustration of inner psychological needs - acceptance/relatedness - Competence - Optimal predictability/autonomy - Both predict motivation and performance - But the COR+basic needs perspective has unique values: - The COR+basic needs also predicts well-being/stress, in addition to performance - This perspective also includes ‘small’ influences; not just big ones  - It also provides more nuances about the differences between positive and negative; bad is stronger than good but good acts as an antidote to bad - It also provides more nuances about fluctuations over time, outlining positive and negative spirals (more good creates more good; more bad leads to more bad) AS A FUNCTION OF INFLOW AND OUTFLOW OF psychological resources over time - Exhaustion understood as the lack of resources required for basic functioning in (working) life - Without positive experiences and proper rest and breaks, everyone becomes depleted sooner rather than later - Important to pay attention when you notice early signs - Breaks and rest are important investments - Negative experiences deplete more than positive experiences energise - SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY: Positive and negative experiences as a series of events - There is a compounding effect of dealing with repeated stressors over time Part 2: Managing basic needs satisfaction/frustration to boost well-being and performance In psychology: - Leadership effectiveness measures the degree to which the mind of others is (or can be) affected: - Motivation, emotions, attention - Opinions and worldviews - Behaviours How can you do this? 1. You must be aware of the psychological mechanisms 2. You must be attentive and aware of the psychological situations of your employees 3. You must take the initiative to help 4. You must be efficient in this help LEWIN’S FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS REVISITED - Usually the focus in on factors that drive action - BUT people are often (strongly) motivated NOT to act - Lewin’s force field analysis provides a framework for looking at the factors (“forces”) that influence behaviour - Force field analysis distinguishes 2 forces: - 1. DRIVING FORCES - helps movement towards a goal. For example motivation, excitement - 2. INHIBITING FORCES - drive movement towards the opposite direction from the goal. For example fear, worry. Restraining forces:  - Much social action and performance is driven by the unwillingness or perceived inability to act - Generally, negative experiences harm more than positive experiences of equivalent proportions benefit (by a ration of about 2-to-1) - Thus, when negative factors are present, it's about twice as effective to remove these Lecture 8 - Chapters 14, 15 and 16 Communication plan: - Should define who is involved in the project - Their roles - How the communication flow will be carried out and when - Important to have a clear understanding of what is to be discussed with whom and why Risk assessment: - Evaluate the probability of a risk event occurring and what consequences this would have for the project - The Mini Risk Method is a simple tool to help us do this Identifying the risk: Cause, Effect and Response GAP analysis in risk mini method - what measures are needed to reduce the risk level to the desired level IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE - Traditional methods - deliveries takes place at the end of the phase or at major milestones - Agile methods - deliveries are continuously made in smaller pieces. Here we work in so called Sprints What is a SPRINT? - An iteration active during a shorter time period (1-4 weeks) - Time and quality is already predetermined, but the actual content can be changed if needed - During a sprint: - No changes allowed that can jeopardise the sprint goal - Content can be renegotiated and clarified with the product owner and the team in case there are new insights - The product owner has the right to cancel a sprint if needed Sprint review: demoting the work that was just completed Sprint retrospective: identifying areas of improvement to make the next sprint better Lecture 9 - Crash course in social dynamics Psychological science distinguishes between personal psychology and social psychology Personality psychology: - Who you are determines how you feel, think and behave Social psychology: - Who you are with determines how you feel, think and behave Why are groups formed? - We have been group members for +150,000 generations - An evolutionary basis: a need to form and maintain social bonds has both survival and reproductive benefits - Increases survivability - Increases ability to reproduce THE NEED FOR BELONGING - the strongest basic need of humans - This evolutionary selection has driven the development of a set of internal mechanisms that guide individuals into social groups and enduring relationships. These mechanisms include tendencies to: - Orient oneself towards other members of the species - Experience anxiety at the deprivation of social contact or relationships - Feel joy or positive influence from social contact and kinship - These affective (emotional) mechanisms stimulate learning by providing feedback: - Behaviour is driven by the prospect of making positive social connections (acceptance, status) - perceived towards increase interest in performing more of the behaviours that cause the reward - Behaviour is thwarted by the prospect of making negative social contacts (exclusion, diminishment) - perceived punishments decrease interest in performing more of the behaviours that cause the punishment Rejection hurts - Neurological evidence shows a shared location in the brain for physical pain and social pain - Because of the individual’s dependence on the group, there has been an advantage for people to sense the risk of exclusion early on - Evolutions has made social anxiety share the site of a more primitive centre in the brain: the centre that registers physical pain - It even hurts to be rejected by someone you hate SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY  - States that people evaluate their abilities and attitudes relative to those of others in a process that plays a significant role in self-image and subjective well-being - Traditionally, social comparison theory has held that upward comparisons promote a sense of inferiority and are thus associated with negative changes in self-concept. Recent research suggests that, depending on the circumstances, upward comparisons may instead promote inspiration and be associated with positive changes in self-concept. - Importantly, social comparisons can be a positive force (admiration, inspiration, compassion) and a negative force (envy, anxiety, contempt) EQUITY THEORY - A derivation of social comparison theory - We compare with others and are motivated to receive fair treatment - Employees compare their performance/effort ration with that of relevant others - When the ratios are equal: equity exists - no tension - When conditions are unequal: tension exists because of injustice - Over-rewarded => guilt, The tension motivates people to act to bring justice to their situation SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY - For every group you belong to - there is an opposite - When groups are formed, we automatically begin to think more highly of the in-group and less of the out-group - 3 stages that lead to the us vs. them mentally: 1. Categorization 2. Identification 3. 3a: biassed in favour of the ingroup, 3b: biassed to the detriment of the outgroup SOCIOMETER THEORY and the need to belong - Self esteem is a gauge, or a measuring stick - we call it sociometer - of the degree to which people feel they are accepted or rejected by other individuals. It is a way for us to keep track in our mind of how well our interpersonal relationships with other people are going. When we feel valued, or accepted, our self-esteem increases, when we feel devalued or rejected, our self-esteem decreases. Thus, self-esteem provides feedback about the quality of our interactions and the degree to which a person is an acceptable person to other people. Why do “good” people sometimes do bad things? - Before the fact: people are often afraid to do the right thing  - Fear: what is the price I have to pay for standing up for my values? - Contextual pressures: A - If an authority says so, it is probably right. B - If the majority is normal, it should be okay. - Distribution of responsibility: Someone else would / should take responsibility - Perceived capacity to make a difference - After the fact: people rationalise why their bad behaviour was okay - Rationalisation: bad behaviour is often justified afterwards with logic and a little creativity, even when it is actually inappropriate RATIONALIZATION: a post-hoc defence mechanism to protect against guilt, where seemingly logical reasons are given to justify unacceptable behaviour that is motivated by unconscious instinctual impulses. Rationalisations are used to defend against feelings of guilt, maintain self-respect and protect oneself from criticism. Lecture 10 - AGILE METHODS Waterfall Stage gate: - Useful when: - You know what the end result will e - The customer knows exactly what they want - You do not expect changes in requirements Traditional problems: - Project delays - Exceeding project budgets - Change in customer requirements - Increased complexity - More and more projects are carried out for the first time - Digitalization - agile for system development - “Simple” things seems to be time demanding Agile methods Agile methods and way of working are: - Iterative: work in cycles - you observe what you are doing and continuously try to improve the way of working  - Incremental: working with scaled solutions, where we can show something that is done but not complete (SPRINTS) - Time constraint: we meet deadlines, but work strategically with scaled solution to manage it Agile methodologies are built upon pulse, visual planning and self-organisation. Agile manifesto: - Individuals and interactions over processes and tools - Working product over comprehensive documentation - Customer collaboration over contract negotiation - Responding to change over following plan The Agile Principles: - Satisfy the customer - Welcome change - Deliver frequently - Work together - Face to face time - Build projects - Measure of progress - Sustainable development - Continuous attention - Keep it simple - Organised teams - Reflect for effectiveness DIFFERENCES TRADITIONAL AGILE The customer knows exactly what they want The customer will discover what they want The developers know how to solve a problem The developers will discover how it can be solved during the project No large changes are expected during the Changes are expected  project Two different backlogs: 1. Product backlog: - Product’s owner responsibility - High level of planning - No tasks - Dynamics - Living document 2. Sprint backlog: - The teams’ responsibility - Detailed planning - Task oriented - Static during sprint 6 tips and tricks on how to avoid common project traps as a project manager: 1. Do not start a bunch of projects at the same time 2. Include the customer early and continuously throughout the process and communicate 3. Plan for continuous feedback/retrospectives throughout the project 4. Do not plan everything in the beginning and deliver only at the end 5. Do not make it more difficult than it is 6. Have fun… Lecture 11 - Managing social dynamics An inaction hypothesis - action is driven by motivation to action and motivation to inaction - Negative drives usually weigh more heavily than positive ones - Loss aversion combined with the primacy of the feeling of inclusion (primitive hardwiring; a matter of survival for countless generations) means that the negative driving forces are stronger than the positive ones - There is a non-linear relationship between perceptions of psychological risk and the negative motivational forces; low levels of psychological risk are sufficient to induce high levels of social disincentives (inaction) Three examples of constructive behaviours inhibited by social disincentives ACTION INACTION Raise your hand and ask a question Keep your hand down  Come dressed in your favourite clothes Dress according to perceived ‘dress code’ Raise criticism and problems, especially if Keep to your ‘current lane’ outside the established role Negative forces weigh heavier - When inaction motivation is present, motivating action is ineffective - More effective in handling the inaction motivation Assumptions underpinning the defensive inaction hypothesis: 6. Need for inclusion 7. Social judgement 8. Impression management 9. Continuous monitoring for social risk 10. Actions are expressions These five assumptions have 2 implications: - Social distinctives of actions - Defensive inaction We are afraid to be judged because we are dependent on the group. - People are mostly ‘trigger friendly’ when it comes to judging others. (an aspect of the dark side of mankind) - Why do we judge? - For thousands of generations it has been a matter of survival; judgement is in our DNA - We are group animals: we judge because our own ability to survive depends on the nature and character traits of other grouå members - What do we judge? - aspects that indicate reduced survival risk - that a group member is or may become a risk or danger to the group and thus to the individual. We are being judged on: - Lacking ability - the degree to which others depend on the person - Lacking popularity - the degree to which others like a person - Lacking trust - the degree to which others trust the person A mouse analogy Incentives: the perceived value of what you get out of the behaviour (Social) disincentives: the perceived risk of giving a bad impression; the worry of being expelled from the group becomes a form of deterrence. 2 strategies to counter social disincentives: 3. Reducing the costs - remove/disarm risk by normalising the action so that the follower can act without fear of giving bad impression 4. Protect against the costs - guard/protect/arm employees with psychological security to give the impression that deviation will cause less harm. Financial analogy onto defensive inaction - People engage in defensive inaction to avoid social costs - Leaders can reduce defensive inaction by: - Reducing social costs (by normalising behaviour) - Increasing social credit (by increasing in-group status) - Increasing social insurance (by increasing psychological safety) REDUCING THE SOCIAL COSTS Manage impressions of failure: most failures are learning opportunities Guidelines for normalising action: - Normalise the desired behaviour - Be a role model - Act publicly when others are watching - Find or “force” your first follower - Normal makes it scary not to do it - Clarify the difference between red flags and learning opportunities - Be aware of which standards you are flexible and inflexible with INCREASE PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY Create a climate of psychological safety: - Promote acceptance - Promote respect - Promote empathy How can you as a leader increase psychological safety in your group? - Create multiple communication channels - Create team discussion groups to encourage sharing - Be fair! Make people feel equal - Encourage members to share their personal experiences and expertise - Celebrate instances of courageous behaviour (admitting mistakes) - Moderate and mediate sharing between team members when things get out of control - Polish the language used - encourage members to rephrase the wording when it is not appropriate - Ask silent members for input - Ask for alternative ideas - Create a clear plan for decision-making to encourage information sharing and eliminate dominant tendencies of certain team members - Be absent from group discussions - let people decide on their own if that feels more comfortable