Supporting team performance

Support team performance.

To perform the support team task, you need to know five enablers which are
1. appraise team performance against key performance indicators.
2. Support and recognize team growth and development,
3. determine appropriate feedback approach,
4. verify team member performance improvements and
5. support team task Accountability.

These enablers have some relevant deliverables which are

1. RACI matrix.
2. Management by objectives.
3. Benchmarking and
4. performance reports.

The tools associated with these enablers are.

1. RACI matrix.
2. Task boards.
3. Performance tracking tools
4. information radiators,
5. burn up charts,
6. earn value
7. throughput metrics.
8. Cycle time and value stream map.

Let us learn about appraising team performance against KPIs .In this case, the
project manager has to set key performance indicators or KPIs to match team
performance with the Project Vision and objectives.These KPI metrics can help give
the team assurance that they are progressing towards project goals.
The smart acronym is followed while setting key performance indicators. The acronym
stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bound.
The performance of the team is measured against a set parameters.Then projects. The
team is the most important part and must be unified.
1. Empowering the team to make decisions in a timely manner helps
2. increase the team's responsibility and deliver a product with complete
ownership.
3. Remember that interfering with the team is disruptive and reduces motivation.
4. You must encourage the team to foster team collaboration and decision making.
The team must be included ( PM must include the team) in
1. clarifying and prioritizing requirements,
2. splitting requirements into tasks, and
3. estimating the effort.

Establishing a culture of fluid communication and engagement at workplace promotes

1.positive interactions and
2. makes team management easier.
3. Teams are typically more productive and self driven
4. when they have clear objectives to meet.

Project managers can support the team by setting objectives collaboratively with
the team.
To support the team growth, the project manager must know the stage at which the
team is in currently. Teams might occasionally get stuck in a particular stage, or
even revert to an earlier one.Project manager can use these stages to lead the team
as it develops.
According to Dr. Bruce Tuckman, the stages of team formation are
forming: where the team formerly comes together.
Storming: here, the team may have disagreements.
Norming: in this stage, trust develops within the team.
Performing: in this stage, the team starts delivering results and finally
adjourning : wherein the team is disbanded after the The project is completed.

Now let us see how to determine appropriate feedback approach.

Continuous feedback is crucial for the team and all project management
methodologies and team environments.That is essential for agility and
responsiveness.Discovering the most appropriate and timely feedback is a
responsibility of a project manager.For example, agile methods follow iterative and
incremental development and within each iteration the product improves.

With every iteration,

the team members provide feedback and assistance to each other,
and a working product is demonstrated to the customer for feedback and direction.
That feedback feeds the subsequent iterations and the product backlog.
Regular customer input gives the team the opportunity to improve on the product
before the final deliverable is sent to the customer.

Let us learn to verify team member performance improvements.Tracking team members

performance based on KPI set for each team member is the project manager's
responsibility. There are many tools used towards measuring the performance of
members.
1. The first tool is Scrum, Agile and Kanban boards. These are physical or
electronic boards that contract work as it progresses across various stages or
categories. 2. Throughput metrics. These are measurement of the teams work that has
moved from one stage to another over time. 3. Cycle time this is.The measurement of
work that is progressed all the way from planning to completion or delivery.
4. Quality metrics are the various measurements to track quality deliverables,
defects, and acceptable output.
5. Earn value is the tracking cost and effort performance against a planned value.
6. Gantt charts use the project schedule to track performance over time and
7.velocity. This is the measurement of total output from an iteration to attempt to
predict future iteration outputs.
HowKanban board looks like.
It has a flow which can be customized according to the project. This is the basic
flow which includes backlog, to do, in progress, testing and finally done.

Gannt chart. It is a sort of bar chart which illustrates the project schedule.
Modern Gan charts also show the dependency relationships between activities in the
current schedule status.

This is a velocity chart, the purpose of a velocity.Guard is to depict how much

work has been delivered in each Sprint.

Here you can see a cumulative flow diagram which is used in the queuing theory.
This diagram is an area graph used to depict the quantity of work, arrivals, time
and queue quantity and queue and departure.

Earned Value report is a report developed based on earned value analysis EVA, which
is an industry standard method of measuring a projects progress at any given point
in time. It helps forecast completion date, final cost and analyze variances in
the schedule and budget as the project proceeds.

Variance reports are often used to analyze the differences between budgets and the
actual performance. This is a document that compares planned financial outcomes
against the actual financial outcome.

Let us look at performance assessment. A project manager must have regular

performance assessment for team members to assess and identify the potential of
each team member on a continual basis.
1. It can be formal or informal.
2. The project manager must have a transparent assessment policy with every team
member and
3. provide honest feedback and
4. also help them identify areas for improvement.

Here is a common performance assessment framework. Start with

1. comparing performance to goals, then
2. clarify roles and responsibilities. Next,
3. deliver positive as well as negative feedback. Then
4. discover unknown or unresolved issues. Then
5.:create and monitor individual training plans, and finally
6. establish future goals. Remember that non performing members may be reassigned
tasks.Learn about earn.Value management earned value management EVM is a method to
measure project performance against the project baselines. It results from an
earned value analysis and indicates potential deviation of the project from the
cost and or scheduled baselines. The various terms used in earned value are as
follows. PV or planned value is the authorized budget assigned to scheduled work,
Evie or earned value that is work performed in terms of budget.Authorized for that
work AC, which is actual cost that is actual cost incurred and work performed. BAC
stands for budget at completion which is the budgeted amount for the total work.
PAC is estimated completion, which is the expected total cost for the project. ET C
stands for estimate to complete, which is the expected cost to finish all the
remaining project work. VC or variance at completion is the projected budget
surplus or deficit.At the end of the project.Now let us look at the following table
that gives the formula used in EVM and their interpretations. The first is cost
variance CV formula for which is EV minus AC.

Now let us look at the various performance reports that are produced.
Information radiators are big visual boards which are used to display in high
traffic public locations about the project and the advancement of the project.The
aim is to radiate information to everyone about the project work.
burndown chart. It is a graph that shows the progress by plotting the burning down
of work during an iteration or other time period.
Burn upchart is a graph that shows the progress and gains made by the project team
overtime.
Earned Value management reports are graphs and values based on the earned value
management EVM equations.
Variance analysis reports are graphs and their analysis comparing actual results to
planned or expected results.
Work performance reports are physical or electronic representation of work
performance information compiled in project documents intended to generate
decisions, actions, or awareness.
quality reports, charts and reports based on the quality metrics collected.
Dashboards are physical or electronic summaries of progress, usually with visuals
or graphics to represent the larger data set.
task boards are physical or electronic depictions of the work that must be done in
their current state.

Let us now look at support team task accountability.

in Agile teams are self organizing, effective project managers generally

1. encourage the team members to be self organized and
2. determine the work that must be done in order to meet an objective to
3. identify how to perform that work and who should perform it.

Each of the committed user stories for that iteration are decomposed into the
required tasks, which then are tracked and managed by the team. However, it is
critical for the project manager to have visibility on who is performing which
tasks and went to ensure effective collaboration and use of team resources. For
this purpose, information radiators like a cambon or task board is used. By this,
the team members not only take accountability for tasks, but also visibility of the
status of tasks for their team improvement.

Let us look at the tools relevant to support team performance.

1. Responsibility assignment matrix RAM is used to define project responsibilities
among the project team. Here you can see a RACI matrix which is a type of
responsibility assignment matrix and racy R stands for responsible, A stands for
accountable, C stands for consultant and I stands for informed.
2. Task boards. These are used to have visibility on who is performing which tasks
and when to ensure effective collaboration and use of team resources. They can be
in the form of Gantt chart.There are several performance tracking tools. They
include scrum, agile or Kanban boards, throughput metrics, cycle time, quality
metrics, earn value.Gantt charts and velocity charts.
3. the throughput metrics which refer to measuring how much how good how fast and
how happy the team is in agile sprints to do this the metrics used are lead Time,
cycle time, release, burndown, and velocity of sprints
4. cycle time, which is the measurement that describes how work flows into and
through a system.
5. value stream map. PMI Agile Practice Guide defines value stream as an
organizational construct that focuses on the flow of value to the customers through
the delivery of specific products or services.Value stream mapping is a lean
enterprise technique used to document, analyze, and improve the flow of information
or materials required to produce a product or service for a customer.
6.information radiators. These are tools used for visibility on the status of
completion of work packages or sprints and projects. Kanban Board is an example of
an information radiator.
7. burn up chart which is a graph that shows the progress and gains made by the
project team.
8.earned value which is depicted through graphs and values based on the EVM of
earned value management equations.

deliverables relevant to the support team performance.

1. raci matrix, which is a type of responsibility assignment matrix RAM. This

deliverable is used to define project responsibilities among the project team.
2. management by objectives, which is a methodology defined by project manager,
where teams manage work by setting specific objectives within a given time and
achieving them.
3. benchmarking. It is the comparison of actual or planned products, processes and
practices to those of comparable organizations to identify best practices, generate
ideas for improvement, and provide a basis for measuring performance.
4. performance reports, which are the work performance reports generated in the
project showing the status and progress of the project. These usually include
information radiators burn down.Parts burn up charts, earn value management
reports, variance analysis reports, work performance reports, and quality reports.