By
Christopher Scordo (PMP®, ITIL®) of www.PMPerfect.com
Christopher
Scordo (PMP, ITIL) is a published author and Managing Director of SSI Logic (www.ssilogic.com), owners of the popular PMP training
website, PMPerfect. Visit
PMPerfect for
the latest on PMP exam prep, live online classes, and self-paced PMP
courseware.
When you are working together as a team,
conflict will happen. It’s one of the biggest challenges for project executives,
directors, and managers; but it does not have to be a bad thing. Thinking of
conflict as a route to new ideas and approaches is one of the best ways to
combat it. It’s also vital to bring issues between members to the surface; you
just need to ensure that it’s managed well.
Studies on team conflict from the British Journal of Educational Technology
and Wiley InterScience show that
major sources of conflict amongst project teams usually revolve around:
disagreement regarding overall project goals, disagreements on project priorities,
and conflicts regarding project schedules. This happens because so many
companies often run multiple projects at the same time and team members can get
lost and confused if their schedules are not managed properly.
On top of all of these issues, personality
clashes and interpersonal issues also lead to conflicts, particularly when it
comes to organizations with complex technical responsibilities where
cross-functional and self-directed teams with a technical background have to
rely on others to get their work done.
What
can we learn from these research studies, then? It is absolutely vital for cross-functional
team members to receive training in communication and interpersonal skills, but
it’s equally important for project managers to limit the eruption of conflict
when they are avoidable.
As an effective project manager, here are some
tips to help prevent unnecessary conflict.
Hold regular,
scheduled status meetings
Meet with your team at least weekly to receive
formal updates on project statuses; and maintain daily communication with team
members to ensure they have an open communication channel to you. Make sure
communication channels stay open and communicate clearly and openly about the
goals and priorities in order to reduce misperceptions.
Soft train
your team in human relations
Those from technical backgrounds often
struggle to communicate properly with people who do not come from a technical
background. Explaining basic
communications principles to your technical team, and including those team
members on customer emails to lead by example, will make a massive difference. Also try to arrange team-building exercises
across channels if at all possible. This
is especially important as technical team members interact with clients who may
not have expert knowledge on the effort involved with technical goals.
De-emphasize
project hierarchy
Team members in strict project hierarchies
with little access to project and organizational leaders will often feel
condescended to, resulting in conflict with their peers. There is no reason why project executives, directors,
and managers shouldn’t value the opinions and perspectives of all team
members. Communicating to upper
management in one manner, while ignoring or de-prioritizing the needs of team
members, is a sure way to develop contempt within an organization. This type of approach also results in a
trickle-down effect, whereby functional leaders within an organization “manage
up”, and disregard the needs of the team they manage. Ultimately, it is very simple to maintain
organizational authority while treating others with respect.
Encourage mutual
respect
No matter how good you are at managing
conflict, it will not work if your team does not respect one other, and if they
do not respect the people they are working with. Fostering an environment which
nurtures respect will help with the willingness to agree and disagree and to
reach compromises without contempt.