Chapter 11-15 Leadership, Control And Communication Flashcards
Why is the nature of the work organization so important?
It defines responsibility and authority, outlines reporting arrangements, determines the management overhead costs, sets the structure, determines one group of stakeholders
What is a team, describe the characteristics of a team
The output of the group is greater Than the sum of the output of the individuals
Greater range of options can be considered by exploiting differences
Decision-making is likely to be better
More openness to taking risk as the risk is shared
Higher overall level of motivation
Better support for the individuals within the team
Larger teams are managed in the same way as large project by breaking down the team into smaller manageable groups
Explain the lifecycle of teams
Teams can be seen as having various stages of development:
Collection: bringing together of individuals into a group
Entrenchment: as they work they begin to find out where each person stands on various issues
Resolution/accommodation: disagreements begin to be resolved, begin to be more productive
Synergy: the peak of effectiveness, the output of the whole is greater than the individual alone
Decline: effectiveness starts to decline
Break-up: where the project is not feasible anymore or task is accomplished this will happen
How do teams work? What is meant by disintegration and integration?
Disintegration: no agreement, breakdown of group processes, group reverts to a collection of individuals
Integration: total consensus leads to group think, initiative removed, group processes provide focus rather than task at hand
Not good with too much of one or the other, somewhere in the middle
What is a pure project organization?
You move away from the functional silo to the project based organization, the whole organization is organized around the project. People are employed according to the project.
What is matrix management? When is it appropriate?
Managing individuals with more than one reporting line, it is appropriate where:
There is more than one orientation to the activities of the operation
There is the need to process simultaneously large amounts of info
There is the need to share
Which models does the organization of the matrix follow?
The lightweight matrix: project manager acts as a coordinator, the weakest form of matrix structure, little commitment to project success, project manager is relatively powerless
The balanced model: it’s an attempt to balance the power of the project manager with that of the line manager, persons will have project responsibilities in addition to their line responsibilities
The heavyweight matrix: people work on the project on a full-time basis, on completion they return to the line function
According to Belbin what affect has individuals personalities on ire if behavior?
Personality, mental abilities, current values and motivations, field constraints, experience and role-learning
What are the 9 team roles described by Belbin?
Plant: creative, imaginative, solves difficult problems
Resource investigator: extrovert, enthusiastic, communicative etc.
Coordinator: mature, confident etc.
Shaper: challenging, dynamic etc.
Monitor evaluator: sober, strategic, sees all options
Team worker: cooperative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic etc.
Implementer: disciplined, reliable, conservative etc.
Completer: searches out errors and omissions
Specialist: single-minded, self-starting, dedicated etc.
What are the three broad categories for time allocation?
Proactive: emphasis on problem prevention
Reactive: firefighting, there is a problem, work to solve it
Inactive: resting between the sessions of proactive and reactive work
What are the main theories of individual motivation?
Content theories: focus on what motivates an individual, Maslow and motivation hygiene factors
Process theories: focus on how behavior is initiated, motivational force driven by expectation, ex: Vrooms theory of expectancy
Reinforcement: focus on how to reinforce desirable patterns of behavior
Scientific management: Taylorism, most applicable to repetitive work,separation of work tasks from any thinking process by the individual, motivation is purely financially based
What are the definition of two different management styles cooperation-coercion and coercion?
Cooperation-coercion: educating the individual, focus on the humanistic movement, works well in ventures that require active participation
Coercion: using whatever functional devises and authority to force the individual to carry out a particular task, the basis of Taylorism.
What are the basic requirements for a control system?
Defining system characteristics of importance, defining limits to their variation, measurement, progress visible, feedback, corrective action
What are the most Important aspects that need controlling?
Those that form part of our strategy, typically time, cost and quality. Normally there is a trade-off between these three
What are the two extremes of purchasing organization?
Centralized: all projects place their requirements through one purchasing office that has control of all the requirements for all the business
Localized: local purchasing officer, it is not uncommon for the purchasing function to be outsourced to an external provider
