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Project Management Orientation

Building a Team  (continued)

4. Maintain the Team  

After the team is formed, your time, effort, and attention are required to maintain it.  In addition to making necessary adjustments in team personnel, organization, and communication, you must consistently:
  
5. Motivate the team.

Once the team is assembled, the team members must be motivated to work.   The team members' degree of motivation determines how much they give to the project and how supportive they are of the project goals.  As a project manager, you might not have the same leverage as a functional manager, who controls motivators such as pay and promotion.  As a result, you must choose your motivators carefully.
  
All motivators can be classified as appealing to either logic or emotion.  Logical motivators can be positive, for example, benefits or quality; negative, for example, loss of benefits and poor quality; or educational, for example, objectives, conditions, explanations, demonstrations, and good judgment.  Emotional motivators include generating trust and confidence, stimulating thought, and avoiding hidden agendas.
  
6. Recognize and reward team behavior.
  
You must recognize and reward team behavior and support team-based incentives.  In doing this, you should emphasize the team's collective performance rather than singling out individuals for their specific achievements.
  
7. Respond to team change.
  
Throughout the life of a project, individuals will be added to the team and members will leave the team.  Fluctuating team membership is a challenge for every project manager and must be recognized and dealt with in a direct and timely way.


Considerations for the Multicultural Team

When managing a multicultural team, always consider variations in social customs, time zones, protocol practices, and language proficiency.  Failure to recognize differences often leads to hurt feelings and misunderstandings that might affect the smooth functioning of the team.  Some rules are:

A graphic that shows the seven parts of team management as pieces of a pie.
1: Getting Started
2: Define the Project Team
3: Team Management
4: Identify and Validate Requirements
5: Create Decomposition Structures
6: Risk Management
7: Project Estimates
8: Project Schedules
9: Change Management
10: Project Control and Execution
Defining the Project
11: Project Management Review
12: Project Closeout
13: Project Management Tool Suite
14: Self-Assessment and Final Exam
Fast Points
Concepts
Seven Keys
Case Study
WWPMM
Mentor
Check Point
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