Lecture 5.

How to Manage a Team

1. Understand the goals and expectations that your managers have for your team. Educate your team about the objectives by communicating clearly about their roles, responsibilities and deadlines.

2. Assess the strength and weakness of each team member by initially assigning simple work. Evaluate their performance and their ability to meet the deadline. Delegate work accordingly based on the skill and interest level of each person.

3. Give clear instructions as to what is expected out of the team member and follow through as required instead of micromanaging. A clear understanding of the requirements encourages the employee to live up to your expectation, feel accountable in executing the tasks and solve issues proactively.

4. Take responsibility for the team and acknowledge their efforts in meetings. A boss that sticks up for his team creates loyalty and motivates the team members to go the extra mile for the team's success.

5. Handle problems and changes effectively. Request feedback from the team and incorporate their suggestions in your decisions. This input encourages them to value their role in the workplace.

6. Treat the team members with respect and remain courteous while correcting their mistakes. Be friendly and approachable to them. Understand and be accommodating of their family commitments and difficulties.

Project management failures are due to the following results: Unrealistic or unarticulated project goals Inaccurate estimates of needed resources

 Badly defined system requirements Poor reporting of the project's status Unmanaged risks Poor communication among customers, developers, and users Use of immature technology Inability to handle the project's complexity Poor project management Stakeholder politics Commercial pressures

Project management triangle

Projects need to be performed and delivered under certain constraints. Traditionally, these constraints have been listed as "scope," "time," and "cost". These are also referred to as the "project management triangle", where each side represents a constraint. One side of the triangle cannot be changed without affecting the others

The time constraint refers to the amount of time available to complete a project. The cost constraint refers to the budgeted amount available for the project. The scope constraint refers to what must be done to produce the project's end result. These three constraints are often competing constraints: increased scope typically means increased time and increased cost, a tight time constraint could mean increased costs and reduced scope, and a tight budget could mean increased time and reduced scope. The discipline of project management is about providing the tools and techniques that enable the project team (not just the project manager) to organize their work to meet these constraints

Problem management
Problem management aims to resolve the root causes of incidents and thus to minimize the adverse impact of incidents and problems on business that are caused by errors within the projects, and to prevent recurrence of incidents related to these errors. A 'problem' is an unknown underlying cause of one or more incidents, and a 'known error' is a problem that is successfully diagnosed and for which either a work-around or a permanent resolution has been identified. A problem is a condition often identified as a result of multiple incidents that exhibit common symptoms. Problems can also be identified from a single significant incident, indicative of a single error, for which the cause is unknown, but for which the impact is significant. A known error is a condition identified by successful diagnosis of the root cause of a problem, and the subsequent development of a work-around. Problem management differs from incident management. The principal purpose of problem management is to find and resolve the root cause of a problem and thus prevent further incidents; the purpose of incident management is to return the service to normal level as soon as possible, with smallest possible business impact.