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International Journal of Project Management Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 83-88, 1995
Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain.
The paper presents some preliminary thoughts about leadership and the project-management body of knowledge, and how that body of knowledge provides insight into the role of leadership in the management of projects, and other forms of teams used in contemporary manufacturing organizations. A summary review of leadership is offered, including insight into how the opportunities for leadership in the use of teams has expanded to the point where all members of the teams can become leaders. The limited description of leaders and leadership in the project-management body of knowledge is noted with the suggestion that a more expansive discussion of leadership is needed for the body of knowledge, particularly as it continues to provide guidance in the management of crossfunctional and crossorganizational initiatives.
Keywords: body of knowledge, leadership, teams
In this paper, some preliminary thoughts about leadership in project management are presented. A limited review of the contributions of the project-management body of knowledge (PMBOK)to leadership is also given. This body of knowledge has reached a level of maturity that requires a continuing assessment of its contribution to the evolving field of project management. The use of alternative teams in today's enterprises provides added challenges to the PMBOKin its continuing role as a model for the management of crossfunctional and crossorganizational initiatives. The manufacturing community is used in this paper as an example of a setting in which alternative team-driven strategies are emerging which promise to have a significant impact on the ability of manufacturers to compete in the global marketplace. Examples could have been given from other industries. The manufacturing industry has been selected because many different industries are involved in supporting the manufacture and delivery of products and services. Also, the use of project/team-driven strategies in manufacturing is gaining momentum, and should have a significant impact on how organizations in such a community are being 'strategically managed' to survive and grow in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Until a few years ago, most global companies were using manufacturing techniques that were little changed from those of mass-production systems. These techniques are no longer state of the art in relation to the new paradigm of manufacturing pioneered and used by some global companies. However, manufacturers, aware of their historical success in using traditional strategies, still tended to emphasize them. Many manufacturers delayed dealing with the real
issue: the emergence of a new paradigm of manufacturing systems technology encompassing 'lean production' or 'agile manufacturing' which embodied a distinctive approach to the use of manufacturing systems technology. This new paradigm contains a prescription for new and innovative ways of dealing with manufacturing changes in the growing global marketplace in terms of the design, development, production, marketing, and after-customer support of products and services.
Leadership and the project-management body of knowledge: D I Cleland Traditionalproject teams are utilized to design, develop, and construct facilities and equipment. Concurrent-engineering teams are sometimes called product-process development teams. Their function is to simultaneously design products/services and organizational processes. Self-managed production teams are formed for the purpose of upgrading the quality of products/services and processes. Reengineering teams are organized to rethink and radically redesign organizational processes in order to achieve dramatic improvements in contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed. Benchmarking teams are established to determine the best practices and competitive points of reference so that efficiency and effectiveness measurements can be made. Such measurements can then be used to determine the efficacy of the operational and strategic initiatives under way in the enterprise. Crisis-management teams are used to organize resources in response to emergencies facing the enterprise. New-business development teams are typically made up of functional representatives who have as their purpose the conceptualization, definition, and development of new business ventures for the enterprise. Task force~problem solving teams are usually formed for a limited period of time to investigate or undertake the evaluation of an organizational problem or opportunity. Audit teams evaluate organizational efficiency/effectiveness. Plural executive teams are made up of managers who work together in a team mode to deal with key operational and strategic initiatives.
Table 1 Preliminary taxonomy: various types of teams Type Output/contribution Timeframe
Design/develop/construct facilities/equipment Concurrent product-process development Management and execution of production work Development implementation of total quality initiatives Reengineering teams Business-process changes Benchmarking teams Evaluation of competitors/best in the industry performance Crisis-management Management of organizational teams crisis New-business Developmentof new business development teams ventures Task forces/ Evaluation/resolution of problem-solvingteams organizational problems/ opportunities Audit teams Evaluation of organizational efficiency and effectiveness Plural executive teams Integration of senior-level management decisions
Traditional project teams Product-process development teams Self-directed production teams Quality teams
Ad hoc Ad hoc
Ongoing Ongoing
Ad hoc
Ongoing
Ad hoc Ad hoc Ad hoc
Ad hoc
Ongoing
attitudes related to working in the organization. Some of the key characteristics of these changes are as follows: recognition that, in general, the properly trained person doing the work knows best about how that work should be done; changes in the traditional manager/supervisor roles that lead much more to teaching, counselling, coaching, and facilitating than to a traditional ' I ' m in charge' approach; assumption by team members of many of the traditional management functions of planning, organizing, motivation, direction and control as these members take an active role in both the strategic and operational activities of these teams; social and managerial acceptance of the fact that, as organizational members participate more in the affairs of the company, they may assume adversarial roles when they sense inconsistencies, inadequacies, or the carrying out of wrong or imprudent actions by other people in the enterprise; 'whistle blowing' becomes acceptable in the organization; the use of power by more people as they recognize that, in their increasingly proactive role, they can influence their work and the conditions under which they work; closer cooperation with unions, leading to a decline of the role of unions as adversaries and an increase in the role of unions as strategic partners; increased flow and dissemination of information about organizational performance resulting in a greater appreciation of how individual performance impacts cost and resulting profits; the assumption of leadership initiatives by more people in the enterprise. The emergence of more leaders has opened tunities for creativity and innovation extending the 'warp and woof' of enterprises. This has helped to test traditional notions about up opporthroughout
emergence
The growing recognition of alternative types of teams in contemporary enterprises raises the question of what the differences in the types and uses of such teams today are. A very preliminary attempt at providing a summary distinction is reflected in Table 1, in which alternative teams are identified, their outputs/contributions are noted, and the timeframes in which they operate are indicated. More research is needed to verify whether the taxonomy in Table 1 is adequate.
Reverberations
The use of MSTs has brought about significant changes in relation to two major areas: the management of team members, and the carrying out of leadership initiatives in the enterprise. When people are assigned to these teams, they become aware of management and leadership issues and opportunities that have previously been hidden from them when traditional manufacturing methods were used, when they were managed with the more hierarchical 'command and control' management philosophy. In particular, under the traditional philosophies, workers were hired for their brawn and told to go to work and do a specific job. Under modern management strategies, the workers are not only hired for both their brawn and their brains, but also asked to help plan, organize, and execute the work, and to take a proactive role in the improvement of products/services and processes. The results of such proactive roles have been changes in philosophies and 84
leadership,
McGregor's seminal work on people in organizations ~ summarizes some of the key generalizations from research on leadership in 1960, which portrayed 'leadership as a relationship'. He identifies four major variables in leadership: characteristics of the leader; the attitudes, needs, and other personal characteristics of the followers; characteristics of the organization, such as its purpose, its structure, and the nature of the tasks to be performed;
and elevating vision. Second, a project leader working with the team identifies the resources that will be needed to realize the vision. Having done this, the project leader designs and maintains oversight of the implementation of the initiatives needed to acquire the resources, and the way in which they will be aligned to support the project and the organization. The third issue is the conceptualization and designation of the project's organizational design to align the people and the resources to facilitate the accomplishment of the vision. TheJburth issue is that of gaining the commitment of the stakeholders to support the project leader's initiatives in the attainment of the vision. Gaining a commitment to the project vision requires that the leader find the means and processes to foster an environment in which team members will be motivated to work towards the vision. This commitment is not a destination, but an ongoing journey in terms of keeping the people loyal to the vision, and constantly striving for its attainment even during periods of adversity. The communication skills of the leader, and the followers, are important in gaining and retaining this commitment.
Leadership essentials
Like leaders, visions come in all sizes, shapes, and configurations. For example, a manufacturing manager may have an image of how the design and installation of a flexible manufacturing system could reduce costs, improve flexibility, and increase profit. Such a vision has an impact throughout the entire establishment, and it affects most of the people working in manufacturing. On a much smaller scale, but still important, is the vision that a production worker may have about how better to position the tools being used at a workstation. A member of a self-managed manufacturing team may have a vision about how better to schedule production work, potentially leading to improved efficiency at that workstation. A member of a current engineering product-process design team may have an idea for a small design change that will lead to easier maintenance or some other advantage for a user. For example, during the design of the Ford Taurus automobile, a production worker on the concurrent-engineering team provided an idea to make the dipstick for checking the oil level in the engine's crankcase easier to identify. 'Paint the dip stick a distinctive color apart from the color of the rest of the car's engine'. This idea, or vision, was accepted by the design team, thus making it easier to check the oil in the Taurus. A small vision, but yet one that, when implemented, made the automobile more 'user friendly'. Project leaders are able to influence those project stakeholders who are involved in the particular activity that is under way. This influence comes about through charisma, knowledge, skills, political savvy, networks, interpersonal skills, the ability to communicate, empathy, and coaching
Leadership and the project-management body of knowledge: D I Cleland Acknowledgements Parts of this paper have been paraphrased from References 15 and 16. References
1 Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Project Management Institute, USA (1987) 2 Feilder, F E A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness McGraw-Hill, USA (1967) 3 Jago, A 'Leadership: perspectives in theory and research' Management Science 1982 28 4 Burns, J M Leadership Harper & Row (1978) 5 Bass, B B Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of the Theory and Research Free Press, USA (1981) 6 McGregor, D The Human Side of Enterprise McGraw-Hill, USA (1960) 179-189 7 Senge, P M The Fifth Discipline Doubleday Currency, USA (1990) 8 Davis, K Human Relations at Work (3rd Ed.) McGraw-Hill, USA (1967) 96-97 9 Bennis, W 'Good managers and good leaders' Across the Board 1984 10 Cleland, D l 'Project stakeholder management" Project Management J Sep 1986 36-43 11 'Annual meeting of shareholders' Post-Meeting Report Engelhard Corporation (7 May) 1992 12 Larson, C and Lafasto, F What Must Go Right~What Can Go Wrong Sage. USA (1989) 13 Business Week 1 Nov 1992 162 14 Byrne, J A 'The horizontal hierarchy' Business Week 20 Dec 1993 76-81 15 Cleland, D I 'The changing dimensions of leadership' PM 25th Annual Seminar~Symposium Vancouver. Canada (Oct 1994) 16 Cleland, D I 'Patterns of leadership in modern manufacturing' Proc Internet '94 Oslo, Norway (Jun 1994)
"Dr David 1 Cleland is the Ernest E Roth Professor and professor of engineering management in the School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He is the author/ editor of 24 books in the fields of project management, engineering management, and manufacturing management, and has written many papers. He has received funding for 18 major research projects, and has given many lectures and seminars outside his university. He has acted as a consultant for US and foreign companies, and is a leading member and a fellow of the Project Management Institute, USA. He received a Distinguished Contribution to Project Management Award from the PMI in 1983 and 1993. He is a cofounder and codirector of the University of Pittsburgh Manufacturing Assistance Center, which provides manufacturingsystems technology assistance to small and midsized manufacturers.
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