MGMT 527 Week 1 DB Forum 1 Thread Example

Discussion Board Forum 1: Thread

MGMT 527 Leading Project Teams, Discussion Board Forum 1: Thread

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The prompt and the bridge project are composites standing in for the course's own forum; Starbird and Cavanagh, Scripture and the peer-reviewed studies are real; the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for MGMT 527.

On the first night we closed the Route 11 bridge over the Susquehanna, the contractor's foreman, the state's construction inspector and our design engineer stood in the rain for an hour arguing about a rebar lap detail while the concrete trucks idled at the barricades. We missed the pour window and lost the night. I was the field engineer for our design firm, and I remember thinking that we had three competent groups on that deck and no team. The project called for removing and replacing the deck in forty overnight closures, and at that rate we would have needed sixty.

By the tenth night, the same people were finishing pours an hour early. Three things changed. The foreman started a fifteen-minute huddle at 9 p.m. with the inspector and me, and we walked the night's work before anyone touched a tool. We replaced three separate punch lists with one shared list on a tablet that everyone could edit. And the foreman began asking the inspector what she needed to see before each pour instead of waiting for her to stop the work.

Starbird and Cavanagh (2011) distinguish a group whose members work alongside each other from an engaged team aligned around shared results and processes, and our deck crew moved from the first to the second. Research explains why the huddle mattered. Kozlowski and Ilgen (2006), surveying decades of work-group research for a general readership, describe shared mental models, the overlapping picture members carry of the job and of who covers which part, and they connect them to coordination that does not depend on instructions. Our walk-through built that common picture every night. Hoegl and Gemuenden (2001), studying 145 software development teams, found that teamwork quality, which they measured as six facets running from communication and coordination through balanced member input, backing one another up, effort and cohesion, was related to project success and to members' satisfaction and learning. Our shared punch list was a coordination tool, and the foreman's question to the inspector was mutual support in plain form. Mathieu et al. (2008) argue that team processes and emergent states, not just inputs such as talent, explain how teams turn resources into results, which fits our story: we had the same people on night ten as on night one.

The apostle Paul, writing to a church divided over which leader to follow, said that he planted, Apollos watered and God gave the growth, and that those who plant and those who water are one in purpose and are fellow workers (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, 1 Corinthians 3:6-9). Our deck had a planter, a waterer and an inspector, and it worked only when all three stopped keeping score. When the bridge reopened on night thirty-eight, nobody claimed credit for finishing early, and I think that is the clearest sign the team had become engaged.

If I led that project again, I would hold the joint walk-through before the first closure instead of after a lost night. The research suggests that a team's shared picture of the work can be built deliberately, and our first night showed what it costs when the team has to build it under a deadline in the rain.

For classmates: which single practice on your projects did the most to turn separate groups into one team?

References

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Hoegl, M., & Gemuenden, H. G. (2001). Teamwork quality and the success of innovative projects: A theoretical concept and empirical evidence. Organization Science, 12(4), 435-449. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.12.4.435.10635

Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2006). Enhancing the effectiveness of work groups and teams. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7(3), 77-124. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2006.00030.x

Mathieu, J., Maynard, M. T., Rapp, T., & Gilson, L. (2008). Team effectiveness 1997-2007: A review of recent advancements and a glimpse into the future. Journal of Management, 34(3), 410-476. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206308316061

Starbird, D., & Cavanagh, R. (2011). Building engaged team performance: Align your processes and people to achieve game-changing business results. McGraw-Hill.