On a Project with no Ground Rules

In order to impose anything to a group of people you need formal authority over them. If you don't have such authority (you are not their line manager) better forget about ground rules as you are not the boss.

You could try to impose the ground rules by influencing the line managers but if they don't like the idea it can make things worse.

I am not sure what you mean by unacceptable behavior but if it is HR related then this is not for the PM to resolve but by the line managers and the HR department.

As Kiron and Sergio point out, the rightness of behaviours is in the eye of the beholder. At what point does confidence become arrogance? At what point does analysis become paralysis?

Not only would I let the team set the ground rules, I would also let the team enforce them.

Lynn,

often unacceptable behaviors can be tracked down to violations of human values that are detailed in Codes of Ethics / Conduct. If your company does not have these, you can use PMI's Code of Ethics.

Human values have been proven by research to be ubiquitous, they are respect, responsibility, fairness and honesty as to PMI's code. On top of that, research has shown that community, compassion, autonomy and humility are further values most humans can agree to.

For groundrules, it is important to formulate specific expected behaviors that have been identified to be shaping the team culture (e.g. punctuality for a meeting, listening to others, raising concerns, ..). As a rule of thumb, these should be 10 or less, otherwise they are easily ignored. In diverse teams, I found it worthwhile to conduct a cultural workshop and let the team identify potential gaps in expectations, which then can be closed by a ground rule.

As a project manager, you might not be able to impose rules to the team (and this is a questionable approach anyway), but since you are in charge of success and it only can be achieved with a performing team, it is your responsibility to shape the teams behavior.

Hello Thomas,

Words of wisdom, Thank you kindly. I am hearing complaints From one team member after another. The goal is to present the idea

Hi Adrian, It's not HR related. It's all the behavior PMBOK and all of PMI best practice suggest we shouldn't do. Like speaking badly about other team members. Undermining the PM and team decisions in front of clients.

"Ground rules" should not be project specific, but driven by the organizations policies on such matters. Expected behaviours in the workplace are fundamental to an organizations success and well-being. An example, the Canadian Armed Forces initiative to address sexual misconduct.

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-nation...ion-honour.html

Let's differentiate organization standards & policies from working agreements which are made at the team level. The term "ground rules" might be equally applied to both. The former is non-negotiable and is imposed from above whereas the latter are developed by the team but their definition may be facilitated by a PM or agile lead.