Monthly Archives: April 2013

Updates

The Buck Stops – Where?

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By Cindy Vallance @cdvallance

In my last blog, I discussed the importance of understanding different roles within a project. This blog takes that thinking to the next level of detail. Those who use formal project methodologies such as PRINCE 2 undoubtedly understand the value of responsibility charting. It should be stated that this blog will not provide that level of formality or detail. Rather, it simply serves as a broad introduction for getting further clarity on how roles and responsibilities fit together to accomplish tasks.

In the RACI process, generally four responsibilities are defined for each task and incorporated into a matrix framework. Common terms used in this process are: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed, although many variations of this model exist and many more initials can be added to the acronym depending what Guide to… you choose to read. We will keep it simple.

Responsible
Those who do the work to achieve the task. At least one role must be responsible for each task.

Accountable
This is the role that is ultimately answerable for the appropriate completion of the task, and is the one who delegates the work to those responsible. There must be only one accountable role specified for each task or deliverable.

Consulted
Those whose opinions are sought, typically subject matter experts; and with whom there must be two-way communication.

Informed
Those who are kept up-to-date on progress, often only on completion of the task or deliverable; and with whom there is generally one-way communication.

Often the role that is accountable for a task or deliverable may also be responsible for completing it. Outside of this exception, it is generally recommended that each role take on, at most, just one of the participation types for each task. Where more than one participation type is shown, this may mean that further clarification is needed.

There is also a distinction between roles and people: a role is a descriptor for a set of tasks and may be performed by many people; similarly, one person can also perform many roles.

As mentioned previously, all too often we gather together and simply begin the work at hand. While not getting caught up in formalisation and documentation for their own sake, using some techniques for clarifying roles can provide a useful framework for any type of group working.

The benefits are many in using the role clarifying techniques discussed in this and last week’s blog, including:

Helping group members understand their roles and responsibilities

Clarifying interdependencies between roles

Raising awareness of the significance of contributions

Helping to balance workloads

Promoting acceptance of the structure and systems needed for the project’s success

Serving as a way in to engage in constructive conflict management if this should occur.

Clarification of roles and responsibilities will benefit the entire project and its group members since everyone will be clear on where they fit within the whole and can work together towards the vision, purpose and objectives that have been established.

Change Principles

‘Design team work carefully’ – but how?

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By Cindy Vallance @cdvallance

Simon Black’s latest blog highlighted key principles for how groups might work better. His first principle – ‘design team work carefully’ will provide a strong foundation for success in maintaining and improving team effectiveness. But how? There are a range of techniques that can be used to assist in designing team work.

A useful starting point is role analysis. Role analysis? Isn’t this the job of Human Resources? Yes, often job descriptions are created as part of a central HR function. But work, and especially work with others, is never as simple as following a printed job description that more often than not is created at a single point of time and then simply filed away.

It is all too often the case that mutual demands, expectations and obligations of interdependent team members are never openly discussed. Each individual may wonder why others do not seem to be doing what they are ‘supposed’ to be doing even though all individuals are performing as they think they should.

The technique of role analysis can be effectively used to help teams and groups work together. How does it work? Individuals first each analyse their own role in the group. A few questions to ask:

What is the rationale for the role – why does it exist?
What is the role there to achieve?
What are the specific duties of the role?
What are the expected behaviours of the role?
How does the role contribute to the achievement of the group’s goals?
How is the role related to other roles in the group?

The next step is for individuals to explain their understanding of their role within the group. Other group members can then share their expectations of the role. Expectations and obligations can be modified and agreed through discussion so that all reach a common understanding.

At the conclusion of this process, the individual holding the role assumes responsibility for preparing a brief written summary (a role profile) consisting of the activities of the role, the obligations of the role to the other roles and the expectations of the role from the other roles. Sharing this summary back with the group is the final step.

Each individual then ends up with a better understanding of what their own role is, what the perceptions and expectations of others are, and how all roles fit together. Role profiles are not static but can be modified as needs change over time.

Effective use of the technique of role analysis can reduce role ambiguity (am I supposed to be doing that or is it your job?), role conflicts and misunderstandings. The technique can also help ensure commitment to the individual roles that have been collectively and collaboratively defined.

Next time, another technique for group working…

Myths

Teamwork is best – or IS IT?

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Group working is one of those topics that is awkwardly both straightforward and complex depending upon how you look at it.

Conventional wisdom sets us to assume that more heads are better than one and this maxim is often used as a justification for working in teams. But is it always a helpful perspective? In the spirit of Change Academy, we need to consider alternative views in order to get a more complete picture.

Cindy Vallance recently posted the question “When are many heads better than one?” This is a sensible question to ask when considering group working. As Cindy points out, sometimes teams are created to simply fulfill a structural need; to fill an office space or to organise a number of individuals under the supervision of a manager. These, as Cindy implies, are not good reasons for organising group working.

Tug of war
A set of clones with the same job is not a recipe for a successful team

What do we really know about team performance? And, if we are honest with ourselves, do groups always work better than individuals?

The answer, surely , is no. Have you ever sat on a committee and wondered ‘why are we all here?’?

Let’s take a sporting analogy. Put five excellent runners into a relay team. How well do they perform? In many cases, really well.

However if I think of the British men’s sprint relay team, in four of the last five Olympics they have been disqualified (1996, 2000, 2008, 2012). In 2004 they won the gold. In each Olympic competition the job is the same and, for the British team over this period, several individuals participated in the team more than once . So why is there such a wide difference between good and poor performances? It is sometimes easy to put it down to a mistake; incompetence or lack of attention, but sometimes the truth lies deeper.

The Ringlemann effect suggests that something different can happen in teams. If people’s personal roles are similar they can be disinclined to put everything into their work (this is a subconscious effect causing ‘free-riding’ rather than deliberate loafing). This effect has been shown in cases where a single worker has been put in a team with ‘non workers’ (i.e. people deliberately faking effort, but not actually doing real work). Even in these instances, the ‘real’ worker is often measured as putting in LESS effort than if they were doing the task on their own. In the classic experiment, assuming that men pulling a rope individually perform at 100% of their ability, apparently two-man groups perform at 93% of the average member’s pull, three-man groups at 85%, with eight-man groups pulling with only 49% of the average individual member’s ability.

So what is the solution? Never work in teams? No this would be a bit foolish, there are better questions…

1. Design team work carefully? Yes

2. Ensure a clear sense of purpose? Yes

3. Establish some reasonable measure of performance or achievement? Yes

4. Agree ways of working together, along with a readiness and willingness to improve ? Of course

5. Encourage trust and mutual respect amongst team members? Yes, but make sure that at its foundation is an understanding of 1-4  above.

So, reverting to my previous blog on teamwork, we must focus on our purpose, our goals, understand our differing roles, agree how we work together at a practical level and look to build positive working relationships based on mutuality and trust.

Like anything in life, if we have a team of people, we need to regularly re-consider the purpose of the team. Do we have a team because it adds to achieving the purpose, or is it just because we have always had a team?

Next time you are in a turgid committee meeting, or your project team has ground to a halt, – have a think about how the group could work better…

 

Further reading:

Beckhard, R. (1972) Optimizing Team Building Effort, J. Contemporary Business.  1:3,  pp.23-32

Ingham, A.G., Levinger, G., Graves, J., & Peckham, V. (1974). The Ringelmann effect: Studies of group size and group performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 371–384.

MacDonald, J. (1998) Calling a Halt to Mindless Change, Amacom, UK