In Week 6, your project sponsor informed you that you have to deliver your project much sooner than anticipated. When you break the news to your team, they are not happy with the decision; they are concerned that the project will now fail.
Using the information from the readings, what can you do as a leader to reassure your project team that this is the right thing to do?
What will you do to motivate them? Remember that they are professionals, and that threats or traditional carrots may not work.
Your stakeholders have asked the project team to recommend a solution to an unanticipated issue in the project.
- Describe how you plan to lead your group to make the best decision; address the four major steps. Step 1 - Setting a baseline plan Step 2- Measuring process and performance. Step 3 Comparing plans against actuals Step 4- Taking Action
- What tools or techniques would you use to prevent group think?
- Describe how you would respond if a team member makes the following suggestion: "We should brainstorm and then critique each other's ideas."
Full Answer Section
Once I have a better understanding of what the team member is looking for, I would then agree to brainstorm and critique each other's ideas. I would start by sharing my own ideas and then ask the other team members to share theirs. As we are brainstorming, I would encourage everyone to be open-minded and to share even the most wild ideas. I would also remind everyone to be respectful of each other's ideas, even if we don't agree with them.
Once we have brainstormed a list of ideas, we can start to critique them. I would encourage the team members to be specific in their feedback and to offer suggestions for how to improve each idea. I would also remind everyone to be constructive in their feedback and to avoid personal attacks.
I believe that brainstorming and critiquing each other's ideas is a valuable way to improve our team's work. It allows us to come up with new and creative ideas, and it helps us to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our work. It is also a great way to learn from each other and to grow as professionals.
Here are some specific steps I would take to respond to the team member's suggestion:
- Ask for clarification: I would ask the team member to clarify what they mean by "critique." Do they want to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of each idea, or do they want to be more critical and challenge each other to come up with even better ideas?
- Set ground rules: Once I have a better understanding of what the team member is looking for, I would set some ground rules for the brainstorming and critiquing session. These ground rules would include things like being respectful of each other's ideas, avoiding personal attacks, and being specific in our feedback.
- Brainstorm: We would then start the brainstorming session. I would encourage everyone to share their ideas, even if they seem crazy. I would also remind everyone to be open-minded and to build on each other's ideas.
- Critique: Once we have a list of ideas, we would start to critique them. I would encourage the team members to be specific in their feedback and to offer suggestions for how to improve each idea. I would also remind everyone to be constructive in their feedback and to avoid personal attacks.
- Summarize and agree on next steps: At the end of the session, we would summarize what we had accomplished and agree on next steps. We might decide to continue brainstorming, to refine our ideas, or to move on to another task.
I believe that by following these steps, we can have a productive brainstorming and critiquing session that will help us to improve our team's work.