Introduction
The creation of an effective team within an organization requires considerations of the mission, vision, and strategies of growth within a particular setting. The goal of the plan is to create a team that would work together over a period of nine months and reach the objectives of the organization. The considerations for selecting a team for the project will be presented, such as the inclusion of functional area team members, the characteristics of effective teams, conflict management strategies, success measures, and more.
Functional Area Team Member Selection
The selected Marketing and Sales functional area team is chosen in order to facilitate the marketing of products, sales forecasting, customer support, advertising, taking sales orders, as well as developing strategies for customer support management. For this team, it is necessary to have a Head of Sales, an SEO strategist, a PR specialist, Data Scientists and Analysts, a Content Maker, and Customer Support Personnel.
Information Technology Functional Team is responsible for providing the infrastructure for the automation of processes at the organization to ensure effective communication, collaboration, and digitalization of routine tasks to provide other teams with high levels of functionality (Cascio & Montealegre, 2016). For the current team, it was chosen to include a Project Manager, a Business and IT analyst, a Data Scientist, an Information Security Expert, and a Vendor Manager. The Finance and Accounting team is responsible for analyzing and protecting the assets of the organization. For this team, it is expected to hire a Financial Planner, a Financial Analyst, an Accountant, and a Budget Analyst.
Reasons for Functional Area Team Member Selections
The chosen project team with key players is expected to create a multi-dimensional team that includes professionals that cover crucial areas of business. The diversity of specialists in their fields will facilitate increased creativity, innovation, and flexibility within the project team (Edmondson & Harvey, 2018). In addition, the difference is the teams’ specializations and areas of focus explain the need for selecting different team members. For instance, the marketing department differs from the finance functional area due to its main focus on advertising, forecasting, and customer relationship management.
Characteristics of Effective Team Members
In the current team, it is expected that members will have positive characteristics that would contribute to the project. When it comes to personal qualities, they should be honest and straightforward, reliable, fair, have good communication skills as well as an overall positive attitude. In terms of skills and abilities, they should have previous experience working within their specialties and have formal education in that field. All team members should be proficient in basic computer skills, while the IT team should show the highest level of proficiency. The combination of the mentioned characteristics will make up a team with a multi-dimensional set of competencies to guarantee project success from multiple perspectives.
Communicating Team Objectives
The communication of team objectives is possible by establishing an environment of transparency within which interactions have structure. A project manager will provide a structure through creating a framework of set priorities and expectations and assign roles carefully (Watt, 2016). In addition, ongoing dialogue is necessary to ensure that communication is a “two-way street” and that team members can also give feedback. Failure to communicate team objectives can result in a lack of focus on essential processes as well as the overall absence of motivation.
Strategies for Delegating Responsibilities
To delegate responsibilities, the project manager will establish a robust system of priorities, which leaves no option for volunteering. The highest-skilled categories are delegated to the highest-expertise team members, while lower-skilled categories can be assigned to others. In addition, the project manager should understand the strengths and weaknesses of each worker and assign tasks accordingly.
Strategies for Managing Conflict
To identify and manage conflict situations, it is important that the project manager understands the nature of the conflict, acknowledges the problem, avoids using coercion and intimidation to resolve the issue, as well as focuses on the problem specifically and not the individuals. Open communication and a clear set of guidelines are necessary to ensure that the parties within a conflict can express themselves and attempts to understand the perspectives of each other.
Success Measurement, Tools, and Process
To measure the success of the project team, the manager will establish metrics for each team to have a way of measuring whether the expected goals have been reached. Besides, it is necessary for the project leader to meet often with each team. This is necessary to identify any roadblocks that halter the progress of teams and negotiate the measures of overcoming them.
Conclusion
An effective team chosen for the project is expected to work through collaboration and transparency as core principles of teamwork. By delegating responsibilities to workers based on their level of expertise and specialization, the project manager will ensure the fair distribution of the workload. Any halts in progress will be discussed openly at team meetings to develop collaborative strategies to mitigate the impact of the barriers to organizational success.
References
Cascio, W., & Montealegre, R. (2016). How technology is changing work and organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3(1), 349-375.
Edmondson, A., & Harvey, J-F. (2018). Cross-boundary teaming for innovation: Integrating research on teams and knowledge in organizations. Human Resource Management Review, 28(4), 347-360.
Watt, A. (2016). Project management. Blackwell Science.