Structuring A Project Management Course To Develop Team Skills

There’s no escaping it. Working in industry requires working in teams. The industries hiring our graduates recognize this. TAC of ABET Criterion 2e requires it, stating graduates need “an ability to function effectively on teams.” How do we, as teachers, go about ensuring that our students learn how to work effectively on teams? How do we go about teaching them team work and team management skills? The traditional approach to developing team work and team management skills involves assigning students randomly to teams, giving them a project to work on, and expecting them to somehow magically learn to work effectively on teams. This ‘they’ll learn about teamwork if they work on teams’ approach fails to give students adequate preparation and insight into team work and team management skills. It doesn’t work. Surveys of students reveal that they do not feel they knew how to effectively work on teams or how to be a team leader. This sentiment was echoed by respondents to last year’s project management survey. To effectively prepare students to work on teams, coordinated teambuilding and leadership skills training is needed. Beginning with a discussion of necessary project management and team skills, this paper will describe how to structure a project course to include techniques and exercises specifically designed to develop teamwork and team management skills and the benefits they provide. Project Management Skills Taught The Project Management course is required for all Engineering Technology majors. The course is normally taken in either the Sophomore or Junior year and students are expected to use these Project Management skills to manage projects in subsequent courses. The skills taught in the project management course are described by the course outcomes which state that upon successful completion of the course students should know the specific characteristics, techniques, and insights that are necessary to be an effective project manager: • Know how to write a project proposal. • Know how to prepare a project plan. P ge 10148.1 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2005, American Society for Engineering Education • Know how to prepare a project schedule • Know how to establish a project budget. • Know what it takes to be an effective team leader and/or member. • Be able to solve PERT/CPM network problems and determine the critical path, early start, late start, slack times, etc., using Microsoft Project software. • Be able to make oral presentations about their proposals, plans, and project activities. Various methods are used to assess how well students are able to achieve the course outcomes, including: • Projects (either with industry or a simulated project) • Written technical reports (proposals, plans, budgets) • Oral Presentations (proposals, plans, project update summaries) • Homework • Quizzes/exams Team Management Skills Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, once said: Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. A wide variety of skills are needed to work together effectively. Four, in particular, stand out: understanding others, negotiating, time management, and conducting effective meetings. These four skills, as identified by the people who hire our graduates, need to be taught in such a way as to help the student internalize the information for later use. In order to structure techniques and exercises within the context of a course, it is important to understand these skills. Understanding people Teams are composed of individuals and their individual personalities will affect team performance. Team leaders and members need to recognize each individual’s knowledge and skill base so that the individuals can be assigned tasks that utilize these skills effectively. Another key to helping teams function more effectively is knowledge of team members’ personalities. Many people are familiar with the concept of left-brain versus right brain functions. Typically, left-brain-dominant individuals are more analytical and logical. Right-brain-dominant people are more emotionally and visually oriented. A left-brained team member may focus on categorizing activities, analyzing processes, and estimating costs or times. They like to arrange and coordinate schedules. Right-brained team P ge 10148.2 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2005, American Society for Engineering Education members are good at evaluating customer needs and assessing other team members’ attitudes and feelings. They like to visualize the entire system. Sometimes the left/right brain concept doesn’t provide enough latitude when understanding people’s personalities. Ned Herrmann’s Four-Quadrant Personalities, presents four personality types: Analytical, Leader, Planner, and Communicator. Analytical types focus on ‘what?’, as in ‘what are the facts here? What are the expectations? What needs to be done? Leaders focus on ‘why?’ asking ‘why can’t we do this?’ What does this need to happen? Planner types focus on getting things done. They want to answer the question ‘how?, as in ‘how are we going to get the work done? The Communicators try to answer the question ‘who?’ as in ‘who are the people affected by this project, decision, or problem?’ When team members understand that different personality types will approach the same problem in different ways, they can work together more effectively in a team. Teaching students about these personality types can help them become better team members. Teams comprised of many different personality types are better able to grasp the entire problem or project.