Premium
Therapy for projects
Author(s) -
Pickard Andrew C,
Nolan Andy J,
Russell Jennifer L,
Beasley Richard
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2016.00233.x
Subject(s) - set (abstract data type) , mental health , psychology , project team , computer science , knowledge management , psychotherapist , programming language
Have you ever worked on a project where you know things aren't going well, but you don't know why or what to do about it? Many managers may admit that team culture and behavior can be the source of significant problems, or the reason for success. The team members of a low performing project may be aware that the project has “problems” but it can be hard to characterize the issues and therefore identify meaningful improvements. The Graves Model, developed in the 1950's showed that the ways of thinking and behaving, used to help understand individuals, could also be applied to projects, organizations and even nations. Groups of people exhibit the same “psychological” behaviors as an individual. This paper has made the assumption that a group of individuals working together, for instance in a project team, can exhibit the same ways of thinking as an individual, and therefore practices for helping individuals can equally be applied to the group's culture and behavior. The paper is not a proof of concept but a proposal of how common psychological conditions may be used to diagnose and treat the culture and behavior of projects or even organizations. The paper is to encourage further investigation into the possibility of benefiting from significant research that has been performed by the mental health industry. This paper describes the development and application of a Project Health Evaluator tool, based on 11 common psychological conditions. The tool consists of a set of 110 symptoms; the evaluation is based on observations the evaluator selects as being applicable to the project. Then at the click of a button, an assessment of the health of the project is provided, together with a set of recommended actions to help the project recover.