Keeping the Team on Track

Guidelines to Manage a Team

Using good management skills to manage your project team results in a solid staffing management plan,
updated and submitted change requests, resolution of issues, and good lessons-learned documentation,
as well as productive team members. To effectively manage a project team, follow these guidelines:

• Use emotional intelligence and other style-typing methods to enable you to flex your behavior
to a style that works best for each stakeholder.
• Establish good communication among team members, internally and externally.
• Monitor performance of team members on an ongoing basis.
I. Monitor progress of team members by speaking with them one-on-one. Don't wait for
the emails or monthly reports. Get out there and see for yourself what progress is being
made by the team, and what intangibles (such as morale, engagement, or cynicism) are
at play.
II. Develop a set of metrics for each project to measure team performance. Establish
tolerances for each so that corrective actions can be taken when needed. Use a
management-by-exception approach to avoid micromanaging the team.
III. Provide constructive feedback to team members on a frequent basis. Team members
need to know they are either on track or need to take steps to get back on track.
Performance reviews can be formal or informal. If disciplinary actions are taken, these
must be in writing to avoid any misunderstanding.
IV. Consider additional training for those team members who need to improve their
performance.
• Manage conflict by using the appropriate approach based on the circumstances and the
individuals involved. Regardless of the approach, apply the following principles:
I. Allow people to have their say. Make sure you give both sides a chance to state their
case. Demonstrating respect and acknowledging people's different positions is
necessary to address conflicts effectively.
 II. Listen hard to what people are telling you. Paraphrase or ask questions to be sure
everyone understands what is being said.
III. Find those areas at issue where both sides are in agreement.
IV. Encourage both sides to find a win-win resolution to the problem. Restate the resolution
and get agreement from both parties.
V. Focus on the reasons that the group has come together: to find a resolution to the
problem.
VI. To help avoid unnecessary conflict, set expected ground rules in the beginning. The
team must operate with these based on the communications management plan.
VII. During the project life cycle, follow established project management practices. Refer to
your communications management plan for guidance.
VIII. When conflict occurs among team members or between the team and other
organizational entities, it may be effective to implement the conflict management
approach of confrontation—focusing on the problem. It may be advantageous to try to
defuse conflicts early to avoid escalation.
• As results are being obtained during the implementation phase, establish an issues log to track
and assign project issues. This log is useful for regular follow-up with the project team. Hold
specific team members accountable for resolution of issues.

Guidelines for Conducting a Retrospective

Here are some suggested steps to conduct a retrospective and address improvements and changes:

• Prepare mentally or prepare some notes with some ideas or areas of focus in case the team
needs some inspiration or ideas.
• Place two large sheets marked “What Went Well” and “What Could Be Improved” on a board.
• Ask the attendees to identify items that went well in the iteration and add them to the first
sheet.
• Ask them to identify items that could be improved and add them to the second list.
• Allow each participant to identify the reason for the improvement.
• Ask the moderator to look for common items that need improvement and mark them.
• Narrow the list down to one or two areas to improve upon and bring value in the next Sprint.
 • Get team consensus on the plan improvement.
• Update these tasks to the Product Backlog after a discussion with the Product Owner.
• Implement changes.

Guidelines for Working with External Stakeholders, Other Projects, and Work Demands

Impediments emerge from the internal project team, but also from external sources. Here are
guidelines to work with external stakeholders.

• Discuss with the team to assess and evaluate the impediment.

• Review efforts previously attempted or considered.
• Discuss impact and solutions.
• Relay the impediment to the external source.
• Establish a single point of contact (SPOC) with the team, typically the project manager or person
with the most subject matter knowledge. Shield the rest of the team as appropriate so they
may focus on other work.
• Create action plan and schedule.
• Follow up and communicate per agreements.
• Document resolution and lessons learned for future reference.

Guidelines to Prioritize Critical Impediments, Obstacles, and Blockers

Guidelines to prioritize impediments, obstacles, and blockers are as follows:

• Define the categories or levels of prioritization appropriate for your team, project, and/or
organization. Redefine levels as needed.
• Anchor the priority levels with real examples.
• Clarify the new and still open impediments.
• Review the impact or potential impact to the team and to the project objectives.
• Assign a priority to each impediment as a team or a selected sub group based on connection to
the impediment. Use any technique suitable for the team and the allotted time, such as, but not
limited to:
 I. Fist to five—Participants give a priority level from 0 (fist) to 5 (full hand).
II. T-Shirt sizes—Participants repurpose the t-shirt sizing estimation to the priorities.
III. Unique naming—Team designs their own unique naming conventions for scale that
works for their needs and associations.
IV. Planning Poker—Participants repurpose the estimating technique for priorities.
• Communicate the priorities level in an easily accessible area, such as a software tool,
information radiator posted on a wall, or communal message board.
• Begin creating action plans for the highest priority impediments.
• Reassess continually to ensure impediments, obstacles, and blockers for the team are being
addressed.

Guidelines for Facilitating a Meeting

Meetings are quintessential to almost every project. Guidelines for facilitating a meeting are as follows:

• Making certain that the meetings are appropriate to the stakeholder’s engagement in the
project. Appropriateness is determined by an array of variables, such as, but not limited to:
I. timing
II. context
III. stakeholders' experiences, knowledge, input
IV. location
V. technology
VI. urgency
• Set and distribute an agenda prior to the meeting start.
• Projects are managed with a sense of urgency. Meetings should support that sense of urgency
by starting promptly.
• Review the agenda set prior to the meeting and make amends as stakeholders deem necessary.
• Allow others to speak and share as appropriate.
• Take notes or record the meeting, with permission.
• Keep the meeting discussions on topic. Save outside discussions for after the meeting or for
another scheduled meeting with appropriate stakeholders.
• Recap the meeting and any action items to follow the meeting.
 • Thank everyone for attending.
• Adjourn the meeting per the schedule time or earlier.
• Distribute the meeting notes or recording as agreed.

Guidelines to Develop a Stakeholder Engagement Plan

Guidelines to developing, executing, and validating a strategy for stakeholder engagement are as
follows:

• Review the project management plan for information such as life cycle selected for the project,
description of how work will be executed, description of how resource requirements will be
met, how changes will be monitored and controlled, and the need and techniques for
communication among stakeholders.
• Review the stakeholder register for information needed to plan appropriate ways to engage
project stakeholders.
• Review the organizational culture, structure, and political, climate to help in determining the
best options to support a better adaptive process for engaging stakeholders.
• Review the lessons-learned database and historical information, as they provide insight on
previous stakeholder engagement plans and their effectiveness.
• Use expert judgement to decide upon the level of engagement required at each stage of the
project from each stakeholder.
• Hold meetings with experts and the project team to define the required engagement levels of all
stakeholders.
• Use analytical techniques to classify the level of engagement for stakeholders.
• Document the stakeholder engagement plan.

Guidelines for Building Emotional Intelligence with Key Stakeholders

Here is the guideline to build your emotional intelligence with key stakeholders:

• Recognize your emotions and behaviors.

• Assess how your emotions, attitudes, actions, behaviors control you.
• Observe how your emotions affect those around you.
• Take note of physical nonverbal cues of others, such as a shrug or smile.
• Interpret those cues against the context, situation, and your emotions.
• Remain mindful of the emotions of others.
• Mirror the behaviors of others when suitable to become better connected.
• Practice controlling or changing your emotions to better suit the situation.