ISYS438 Project Management and Practice Chapter 9 Terms

Autonomy

People like to be self-directed and have freedom in their work.

Mastery

People like to improve their skills like playing an instrument, participating in a sport, writing software and mastering work-related activities.

Purpose

People want to work for a good purpose.

Acheivement

People who have a high need for achievement (nAch) seek to excel, and tend to avoid both low-risk and high-risk situations to improve their chances for achieving something worthwhile. Achievers need regular feedback and often prefer to work alone or with other high achievers. Managers should give high achievers challenging projects with achievable goals. Achievers should receive frequent performance feedback, and although money is not an important motivator to them, it is an effective form of feedback.

Affiliation

People with a high need for affiliation (nAff) desire harmonious relationships with other people and need to feel accepted by others. They tend to conform to the norms of their work group and prefer work that involves significant personal interaction. Managers should try to create a cooperative work environment to meet the needs of people with a high need for affiliation.

Power

People with a need for power (nPow) desire either personal power or institutional power. People who need personal power want to direct others and can be seen as bossy. People who need institutional power or social power want to organize others to further the goals of the organization. Management should provide such employees with the opportunity to manage others, emphasizing the importance of meeting organizational goals.

Authority

The legitimate hierarchical right to issue orders

Budget

The project manager's perceived ability to authorise others use of discretionary funds.

Resource Histogram

a column chart that shows the number of resources assigned to a project over time. Notice that the columns represent the number of people needed in each area—managers, business analysts, programmers, and technical writers. By stacking the columns, you can see the total number of people needed each month. After determining the project staffing needs, the next steps in project human resource management are to acquire the necessary staff and then develop the project team.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

a tool to measure the individual needs of different people using McClelland's categories. The TAT presents subjects with a series of ambiguous pictures and asks them to develop a spontaneous story for each picture, assuming they will project their own needs into the story.

Subproject managers

are responsible for managing the subprojects into which a large project might be divided.

Forcing Mode 377

can be viewed as the win/lose approach to conflict resolution. Project managers exert their viewpoint at the potential expense of another viewpoint. If the task is of high importance and the relationship is of low importance, this mode can be very effective.

Extrinsic Motivation

causes people to do something for a reward or to avoid a penalty.

Intrinsic Motivation

causes people to participate in an activity for their own enjoyment

Groupthink p. 377

conformance to the values or ethical standards of a group—if there are no conflicting viewpoints on various aspects of a project. Research by Karen Jehn, Professor of Management at the University of Melbourne, suggests that task-related conflict, which is derived from differences over team objectives and how to achieve them, often improves team performance. Emotional conflict, however, stems from personality clashes and misunderstandings, and often depresses team performance. Project managers should create an environment that encourages and maintains the positive and productive aspects of conflict

Collaborating Mode

decision makers incorporate different viewpoints and insights to develop consensus and commitment. Even though managers might not agree on a decision, they commit to following it in the best interests of the organization.

Tuckman Model p. 370

describes five stages of team development: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning.

Staffing Management Plan

describes when and how people will be added to the project team and taken off it. The level of detail may vary based on the type of project.

Deputy Project Managers

fill in for project managers in their absence and assist them as needed.

Acquiring The Project Team

involves assigning the needed personnel to work on the project. Key outputs of this process are project staff assignments, resource calendars, and project management plan updates.

Developing the Project Team

involves building individual and group skills to enhance project performance. Team building skills are often a challenge for many project managers. The main outputs of this process are team performance assessments and enterprise environmental factors updates.

Planning Human Resource Management

involves identifying and documenting project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships. The main output of this process is a human resource plan.

Reward Power

involves using incentives to induce people to do things. Rewards can include money, status, recognition, promotions, and special work assignments. Many motivation theorists suggest that only certain types of rewards, such as work challenge, achievement, and recognition, truly induce people to change their behavior or work hard.

Expert Power

involves using personal knowledge and expertise to get people to change their behavior. People who perceive that project managers are experts in certain situations will follow their suggestions.

Coercive Power

involves using punishment, threats, or other negative approaches to get people to do things they do not want to do.

Managing the project team

involving tracking team member performance, motivating team members, providing timely feedback, resolving issues and conflicts and coordinating changes to help enhance project performance. Outputs of this process include change requests, project management plan updates, project documents updates, enterprise environmental factors updates, and organizational process assets updates.

Meyers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) 371

is a popular tool for determining personality preferences. During World War II, Isabel B. Myers and Katherine C. Briggs developed the first version of the MBTI based on psychologist Carl Jung's theory of psychological type.

Rapport

is a relation of harmony, conformity, accord or affinity.

Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS)

is a specific type of organizational chart that shows which organizational units are responsible for which work items. The OBS can be based on a general organizational chart and then broken down into more detail, based on specific units within departments in the company or units in any subcontracted companies.

Resource Leveling 367

is a technique for resolving resource conflicts by delaying tasks. It is a form of network analysis in which resource management concerns drive scheduling decisions (start and finish dates). The main purpose of resource leveling is to create a smoother distribution of resource usage. Project managers examine the network diagram for areas of slack or float, and to identify resource conflicts.

Referent Power

is based on a person's own charisma. People who have referent power are held in very high regard; others will do what they say based on that regard. Very few people possess the natural charisma that underlies referent power.

Legitimate power

is getting people to do things based on a position of authority. This type of power is similar to the authority basis of influence. If top management gives project managers organizational authority, they can use legitimate power in several situations. They can make key decisions without involving the project team, for example. Overemphasis on legitimate power or authority also correlates with project failure.

Mirroring

is matching certain behaviors of the other person. People tend to like others who are like themselves, and mirroring helps you take on some of the other person's characteristics. It also helps them realize if they are behaving unreasonably, as in the chapter's opening case

Synergy

is the concept that the whole is equal to more than the sum of its parts.) Finally, everyone can work on Covey's seventh habit—sharpen the saw—to develop and renew their physical, spiritual, mental, social, and emotional selves.

Team Development p. 369

is to help people work together more effectively to improve project performance.

Emotional Intelligence

knowing and managing one's own emotions and understanding the emotions of others for improved performance.

Empathic listening

listening with the intent to understand

Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM)

maps the work of the project as described in the WBS to the people responsible for performing the work as described in the organizational breakdown structure.

Overallocation p. 366

means that not enough resources are available to perform the assigned work during a given time period.

Confrontation Mode 376

project managers face a conflict directly using a problem solving approach that allows affected parties to work through their disagreements. This approach is also called the problem-solving mode or win/win using Covey's terminology. When the task and relationship are both of high importance, this mode is usually the most effective.

withdrawl mode

project managers retreat or withdraw from an actual or potential disagreement. This approach is also called avoiding, and is normally the least desirable conflict-handling mode, unless the task and relationship are both of low importance.

Compromise Mode 376

project managers use a giveand-take approach to resolving conflicts. They bargain and search for solutions that bring some degree of satisfaction to all the parties in a dispute. This mode works best when both the task and relationship are of medium importance.

RACI Charts

show four key roles for project stakeholders: * Responsibility: Who does the task? * Accountability: Who signs off on the task or has authority for it? * Consultation: Who has information necessary to complete the task? * Informed: Who needs to be notified of task status and results?

Hierarchy of Needs

states that people's behavior are guided or motivated by a sequence of needs. At the bottom of the hierarchy are physiological needs. Once physiological needs are satisfied, safety needs guide behavior. Once safety needs are satisfied, social needs come to the forefront, and so on up the hierarchy. The order of these needs and their relative sizes in the pyramid are significant. Maslow suggests that each level of the hierarchy is a prerequisite for the levels above. A person cannot consider self-actualization without first addressing basic needs of security and safety.

Work challenge

the ability to assign work that capitalizes on a worker's enjoyment of doing a particular task, which taps an intrinsic motivational factor

Friendship

the ability to establish personal relationships between the project manager and others

Promotion

the ability to improve a worker's position.

Money

the ability to increase a worker's pay and benefits.

Power

the ability to influence behavior to get people to do things they would not otherwise do.

Smoothing Mode 377

the project manager deemphasizes or avoids areas of differences and emphasizes areas of agreement. This approach is also called accommodating, and it is best used when the relationship is of high importance and the task is of low importance.

Penalty

the project manager's perceived ability to dispense or cause punishment

Assignment

the project managers perceived ability to influence a worker's later work assignments

Expertise

the project managers perceived special knowledge that others deem important