Big Teams

Tony Llewellyn

Description

This is a book about working with large teams of people. Whether your team involves 30 people or 3,000, the organizational dynamics are significantly different for a project manager used to dealing with smaller teams. As the project scales up in size and complexity, the processes and skills required change. As project leader, your focus moves from the technical aspects of project delivery to enabling, facilitating and integrating the different sub teams into a cohesive whole.

Big Teams examines the research on team dynamics and the latest thinking on leadership in a project or program environment. It features stories and case studies based on interviews with project leaders from a range of major projects and programs.

Structured around three core themes - Alignment, Engagement, and Resilience - it gives you invaluable, practical guidance on setting up and running an effective team of teams.

As with all Tony Llewellyn's books, Big Teams is written in an accessible style with the focus on real-world application, but the academic underpinning is rigorous and will be a useful reference for any student studying project leadership.

List of figures .............................................................................................vii

List of tables...............................................................................................ix

Preface ....................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1 A model of team performance ........................................... 5

Chapter 2 Leading a Big Team ............................................................25

Chapter 3 Building a culture of alignment .......................................51

Chapter 4 Team set-up.........................................................................71

Chapter 5 Accelerated learning ..........................................................97

Chapter 6 Maintain engagement ......................................................121

Chapter 7 Feedback and behavioural risk .......................................145

Chapter 8 Building resilience ............................................................159

Chapter 9 A leap of faith ...................................................................177

References ...............................................................................................181

Index .......................................................................................................189

Sujets

• Gestion de projets
• Gestion de projet
• Project Management
• Gestion et management
• Economics
• Business

Informations

• Publié par: Practical Inspiration Publishing
• Date de parution: 26 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781788601276
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published in Great Britain by Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2020
© Tony Llewellyn, 2020
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN 978–1–78860–104–7 (print)
978–1–78860–127–6 (epub)
978–1–78860–105–4 (mobi)
All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the author.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
For Ed Moore, who opened the doors that made this book possible
Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Preface
Chapter 1 A model of team performance
Chapter 2 Leading a Big Team
Chapter 3 Building a culture of alignment
Chapter 4 Team set-up
Chapter 5 Accelerated learning
Chapter 6 Maintain engagement
Chapter 7 Feedback and behavioural risk
Chapter 8 Building resilience
Chapter 9 A leap of faith
References
Figures
1.1 The three elements of project competence
1.2 Team performance curve on complex projects
3.1 Competing Values Framework
5.1 Team performance curve showing lift-off point
5.2 Kolb Learning Cycle
5.3 Team learning sequence
6.1 Illustration of the cycle of doubt
7.1 Message filtering process
8.1 Resilient vs driven teams
8.2 Six-step model of team resilience
9.1 The positioning of a project team coach
Tables
2.1 Summary of Frederic Laloux’s stages of organizational development
4.1 Alternative theories of team development
4.2 Relationship levels
5.1 Team learning short cuts
7.1 Examples of behavioural blockages to the use of EWSs
Preface
I n the modern workplace, individuals rarely work in isolation but are grouped with other colleagues into notional teams. The degree to which these collections of individuals come together to work as an effective unit is a topic that is of significant interest both to organizations and to academics. Given the right conditions, people working in teams can often achieve amazing outcomes. They can just as easily devolve into dysfunctional groups.
There has consequently been a great deal of research in recent years into the question of how to build an effective team. The attention of most of the research into team performance has tended to consider individual units of between 8 and 12 people. Less attention has been paid to what happens when there is a need to create a very large team of hundreds or even thousands of human beings, all focused on achieving the same outcome. This book takes a step into a void in the literature to consider the challenges and opportunities that arise when creating what might be called a Big Team . As will be explained in Chapter 1, Big Teams tend to be found in the world of projects rather than what is often called the business-as-usual operations of a large organization.
The content of this book is structured around a model derived from my research over the past seven years, both as a practising consultant and a part-time academic. I have spent much of my career working in the construction industry where the word ‘team’ is often used to describe anyone involved at a particular moment in the development of a physical asset. As I shifted my career to become more focused on how to help teams work together more productively, it became clear to me that the people and the organizations involved in the construction process habitually operated in a way that was often dysfunctional. The desire to improve how such large project teams work has been one of the drivers for my continued interest in this field.
As I have expanded my research beyond the construction sector into major projects in other industries, it has been fascinating to see the consistency of the behaviours of humans working in large groups. I have found that irrespective of sector or specialization, people working in large complex projects demonstrate the same propensity for collaborative creativity on the one hand and disruptive conflict on the other. Through the following nine chapters, I will introduce you to the components that have been found to help improve the chances of success, by tapping into the human instinct to work in teams. The content will also help you understand the darker side of human nature, and how the impact of our disruptive tendencies can be diminished.
The book is written in a style that is intended to be informal, but informative. It is not therefore an academic book, but is nevertheless intended to be academically credible. I have tapped into the knowledge and wisdom of numerous authors and have tried to ensure they are credited where appropriate. It has been written for anyone who aspires to take on a leadership role in a major project. The concepts, observations and ideas are also likely to be of interest to a growing segment of professionals who wish to develop their skills as team coaches. I use the term project leader and project manager as the primary title, but the qualifying attribute is leadership in whatever form or whatever element of a role you may occupy.
My hope is that the content intrigues and inspires you to learn and develop a skill set that I believe will be critical to the world’s ability to find answers to the growing need for sustainable infrastructure and technological change. As projects grow in size and complexity, the world needs people who are able to lead and manage the large collections of specialist teams working at scale. This is not easy, as the skills and abilities learned on smaller projects do not automatically transfer to much bigger enterprises. This book is intended to stretch your thinking, and open your mind to a set of alternative possibilities.
The intention is to create some momentum for those engaged in large projects to continue to learn and explore. This book is not a comprehensive compendium of everything you might need to know about leading a Big Team. The content examines a range of specific elements set within a framework for improving team performance. As you will find, there are many additional future paths for a student of human behaviour to explore, but my intention is to present a number of ideas and concepts within a structure that is easy to absorb, understand and apply.
I have a website www.teamcoachingtoolkit.com where I post tools, techniques and other material that might be of interest to anyone who wishes to master the art of shaping team dynamics. You will find I have included links throughout the book to certain pages on the website that provide additional information to support an idea or suggestion made within the framework.
My intention is to continue to study and explore this fascinating area and I am keen to connect with those who share my interest. If you would like to contact me, the best route is through the email address [e-mail]
In the meantime, read on and see where this learning expedition takes you.
Chapter 1
A model of team performance
B ig Teams are an essential feature of modern working life. The tasks and challenges faced by people in organizations require the collective skills and knowledge of different people assembled into effective units. Humans have been adept at working cooperatively in groups for thousands of years, but are also equally capable of finding reasons to disagree and disconnect from each other. In the last 50 years or so, leaders and academics have tried to understand the factors that influence a team to achieve results beyond expectations or to fall in to dysfunction. For those interested in teamwork and team development, there is plenty of material to explore. Most of the published research focuses on the dynamics occurring within a small team, usually containing five to ten people. The research also tends to concentrate on static teams working in permanent organizations where a team is regarded as a unit of the organization’s structure.
There is relatively little information on another significant segment of the working population world, which operates in the world of projects. Project teams have a different set of internal dynamics, which can both positively and negatively affect how they function. Projects come in many shapes and sizes, some requiring the attention of perhaps a dozen or so people, whilst others may require the skills of thousands. As we move through the change and upheaval of the 21st century, projects are growing in scale, being driven by governments upgrading a country’s infrastructure or commercial businesses seeking to take advantage of new opportunities that may have global reach.
Large projects require many people from different professional, technical and social backgrounds to come together and work as a cohesive entity, which can be called a Big Team. The book is written for those who must lead, manage and deliver large projects in which people are assembled in a continually shifting organization structure. The content is therefore focused on how a project or programme is organized and influenced when the number of people involved grows beyond the scale and control of an individual leader. Should you decide to invest some time in learning, you will find there is both an art and a science to the development and maintenance of a Big Team. We will be exploring some of the technical structures and processes that are a part of the organization of a major project but the primary focus is on lead