Things That Have Worked Leading Project Teams @ NASA

 

This is the fifth blog in a series dealing with the challenges and excitement managing “informationally diverse teams” of experts.   My goal is to communicate the challenges, fun and “things that have worked” in managing projects team that has widely different backgrounds, experiences, education, and understandings.  Informational diversity is based on different functional, educational and industry backgrounds that constitute information and knowledge resources upon which the team draws

THE FIRST FOUR CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAM BLOGS:

1. Herding a group of cats, cows, sheep, goats, dogs and llamas…. http://bit.ly/2cr0ddH

2. How hard is it to herd a group of cats, cows, sheep, goats, dogs and llamas?  http://bit.ly/2c6n3Gv

3. Cats, cows, sheep, goats, dogs and llamas *CAN* be herded.   -  http://bit.ly/2cLpS2w

4. Things that have worked leading Informationally Diverse Teams - http://bit.ly/2cfkKka

NASA PROJECTS

“Projects are the means by which NASA explores space, expands scientific knowledge, and performs research on behalf of the nation” - from the NASA Project and Program Management handbook.  NASA/SP-2014-3405 which can be downloaded (free) http://go.nasa.gov/2chNXuO 

While the NASA project management handbook is very closely aligned with the PMBOK guide, there are some important exceptions.  One being the absolute requirement for monthly status reviews (more on this in a later blog)

PROBLEMS WITH CROSS FUNCTIONAL TEAMS

Managing a cross-functional team can be very difficult.  People are certain they are right, they KNOW they are right and everyone else just can’t see the truth.  There are many well-documented studies showing some of these frustrations.  When I give a talk on this topic, I ask people to raise their hands if they’ve experienced any of these issues.  A lot of hands get raised!

• Cross-functional new product teams had difficulty getting their products to market (Steiner, 1972; Hackman, 1990, Dougherty 1992)
• Innovativeness is actually lower with cross-functional teams (Ancona and Caldwell, 1992)
• Managers express frustration with the time and resource demands of functionally diverse teams
• Cross-functional teams often prove ineffective at capitalizing on the benefits of their informational diversity (Stasser and Titus, 1985, 1987)
• Difficulty motivating members to work together effectively (Dumaine, 1994)
• When groups benefit from informational diversity –  members report the experience frustrating and dissatisfying (Baron, 1990); Amason and Schweiger (1994)
• Workgroups disagree about task content or how to do the task (Jehn, 1997)
• Groups with members of diverse educational majors experience difficulty defining how to proceed (Jehn, Chadwick,and Thatcher, 1997)

THINGS I’VE TRIED THAT HAVE WORKED

Again, I didn’t start off knowing these things – I had a lot of mentoring (formalized), plus I failed a lot.  So these tips come from years of “falling forward.”

Number 1: Establish a sense of Mission (blog 4)

Number 2: Establish a Communications Framework That Works 

Neville Chamberlain famously established a set of war rooms in 1939.  Churchill visited the Cabinet Room in May 1940 and declared: 'This is the room from which I will direct the war'. In total 115 Cabinet meetings were held at the Cabinet War Rooms.  What were the advantages of a war room?  COMMUNICATION.  Everyone saw the same maps, the same schedules, the same plans and could talk about them.  It was “total emersion” into the project problem. 

Today there are many electronic, internet-based versions of war rooms, and they can work well.  But the physical war rooms still exist.  Google has used its war rooms for over 80 startups! 

Not matter what technology you use - do it – CREATE A WAR ROOM.  A central repository of information where everyone can see the same material at the same time.

Here’s a corner of one of my own war rooms from a $46-million-dollar project.  What you are seeing is actually the network diagram of the project – along with a LOT of notes, photographs of the progress to date, completed “nodes” of our network.  

MEET ME IN SAN DIEGO NEAR THE PROJECTMANAGEMENT.COM BOOTH.

MAKE AN ONLINE / EARLY RESERVATION TO TALK TO ONE OF OUR EXPERTS HERE!