Brian Egan

Arizona State University

PMG 321 – Module 6 Paper

September 24th, 2023

 Part 1

Reading through the wealth of information after completing the scenarios this week left

me wanting more. The absorption rate is climbing, while the time to practically apply this

learning is lessening. There is so much information around how to keep teams on track that it

becomes overwhelming. This is what I have pulled out of the readings this week. First, decisions

must be made based of good intel. Each decision you make has a positive and negative impact on

the project. These tradeoffs can be beneficial or costly depending on how you leverage them.

Decisions build with a solid foundation will yield a better outcome. With the previous scenarios,

the team cohesion is based on many factors, including number and types of meetings held each

week, the skill and size of the teams and lastly the external support provided through

outsourcing. Each of these variables paint a different story depending on the combination. The

readings this week highlight the importance of slowing down while speeding up. To make

calculated decisions you must gather the right information. The consequences of making

decisions too quickly results in treating the symptoms of failure and not the illness.

Your team probably has a few hunches and best guesses, but those can lead to

knee-jerk reactions. Take care to invest adequate time and research into your

decision. This step is when you build your case, so to speak. Collect relevant

information — that could be data, customer stories, information about past

projects, feedback, or whatever else seems pertinent. You’ll use that to make

decisions that are informed, rather than impulsive. (Boogaard, 2023)

 Decisions that are timely and well-informed produce better plans. The scenarios this

week had me jumping from symptom to symptom trying to quell the masses. The lessons I

learned from multiple attempts and reading through what actions peers took is the importance of

staying the course. Teams will get stressed, sometimes this stress is due from the rigid

requirements of the project, other times the stress is manager induced.

Some managers do not recognize that there are differences in people’s capacity

for demanding work and stress. They may drive performance and create

unnecessary stress on performers who are valuable contributors but cannot live up

to unrealistic expectations. Setting irrational objectives and not providing

necessary resources is a management issue that causes unnecessary stress.

(Pitagorsky, 2023)

Accepting the fact that stress is guaranteed in a project reduces the reaction and increases

your ability to be proactive. The practical application of this learning came this week after

multiple attempts, knowing that the team was likely to be high strung as the deadline drew

nearer. In the beginning of the project, the team is highly motivated and insulated from the

demands of the project. This is where I was able to make the most headway in terms of task

completion, resource allocation and team process rating. By weeks five and six, the mid-way

points the team was feeling the burden of the work and began to burnout. My counterbalance

was to add team members and vary their skill set. The varying skills set also meant a tradeoff in

which and how many meetings were needed. The team responded best at medium-high skill and

a team of four. This was routinely switched to a five-set team with basic to medium skill and

some outsourcing to address the impact to resources. The back and forth each week kept the
team upbeat and productivity increased. The impact to the budget was negligible as completing

the project on time was most important.

Each week the assertions remained constant, keep your team happy and engaged and they

can persevere through even the most challenging circumstances. The reverse remains true too,

with even simple demands a poorly informed and low motivated team will struggle at the

slightest inconvenience. Building team cohesion begins with accepting the scope, schedule and

resource requirements and leading the team through the day-to-day operations. What I have

learned to be most helpful is the need to not overreact when a team shows signs of stress. In the

first few weeks, I felt as though the team’s wellbeing was the only relevant deliverable. This

steered me to people please and give in too much to what the team dictated. As with the previous

two scenarios, some weeks will be harder than others, and there is a clear ramp up time to get the

team to speed. Keeping that in mind means picking a course and sticking to it. “In an age of

faster, better, and cheaper, especially in the hi-tech arena, delays can be costly. Managers have to

be quick and accurate from technical, cost, and schedule perspectives. Any delay can have

negative impacts for the project and the company” (Kliem et al., 2012 p.22).

Part 2

The scenario this week continued to beat the drum on the critical need to keep your focus

on scope compliance while maintaining team cohesion. A team’s ability to work together and

manage through the stresses of the project will determine the effectiveness of your plans. Teams
get bored when the work is too easy, stressed when too difficult and when the work is engaging,

and the project manager engaged with the team you get harmony. Keeping your team efficient

means having them work hard but not so hard that burnout creeps in. A team that is working just

under full speed ahead is motivated by the process. A project managers ability to inspire a team

to achieve more brings the best out of people.

As a Starbucks store manager, you are regularly tasked with bringing the best out your

team. Sometimes you are given the chance to hand pick your team members, but many times you

are adopting a team that someone else picked. In these examples there is a clear link to project

management. As you are given a team to work with temporarily, to drive the best possible work

without being given the time to develop interpersonal relationships. When I came to my current

store four years ago, I was present with a team that by all accounts was meeting expectations set

by the organization. A team of motivated baristas and hourly supervisors that were skilled and

engaged, however the results they were bring in while better than previous years did not match

the potential they had. I sought to change that and to work quickly to unlock potential and set our

sights higher than previously dreamed. I worked quickly, sketching out a plan and determine

who my stakeholders were and what they needed. I brought the team together to contribute what

goals they wanted to achieve. I then set leadership roles for the hourly supervisors, pillars from

which they would drive the work and engagement. Giving them full autonomy to develop and

deliver results. By the end of the first month, we had a team of informed, motivated, and

enthusiastic team leaders. By the end of the first quarter, we were breaking goals and achieving

results beyond what everyone deemed possible, including me. From that point forward I no

longer settled for good enough, instead dreaming bigger and reimagining what was possible. It

was a total mindset shift for me and my team. We peaked six months after I took over at the
stores as the number 1 store in my area of over 100 stores in sales and top 3 in US business for

Reserve Bar revenue, profit, and controllable contribution. By the beginning of the third quarter

Covid struck, and our moment was swept out from beneath us.

Assessing a team’s capabilities and implementing plans quickly to achieve the impossible

captures the success I have found in the two most recent scenarios. The scope of the project

needs to remain consistent, the team is your biggest asset, but will become your biggest liability

if not managed properly. The last variable that while not noted in the scenarios but comes alive

in the real world is the ability to remain calm and collected when personally faced with stressful

and ambiguous moments. Remaining composed as a leader never stops being relevant and as

such remains a top focus of mine even after 18 years in a leadership role.
 References

BOOGAARD, K. (2023, August 15). This is how effective teams navigate the decision-making
process. atlassian. September 24, 2023, https://www.atlassian.com/

Kliem, R. L. (2012). Why Ethics Should Matter to Project Managers. In Ethics and Project
Management. essay, Auerbach Pub.

Pitagorsky, G. (2023, August 29). Burnout: What is it and how to avoid it. Project Times .
September 24, 2023, https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/burnout-what-it-is-and-how-to-
avoid-it/