Developing Strengths-Based Project Teams

Martha Buelt, Connie Plowman

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781947843417
• eBook ISBN: 9781947083424
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Mentoring & Coaching
• Index: Business

Developing Strengths-Based Project Teams integrates common project management and strengths-based talent development language to help you and your project team learn about and become a strengths-based project team.

Everyone has talents and strengths. Everyone does projects. This book is designed for project managers, team members, and stakeholders who have an interest in talent development—not only their own talents and strengths, but also the combined talents and strengths of their project teams. Learn about the characteristics of a strengths-based project team. Apply a series of building blocks for individual and team strengths-based development.

Through exercises, templates, action plans, and reflective questions, learn how to cultivate the collective strengths of project team members to become a strengths-based project team. Explore the various project management roles for sustaining a strengths-based project team culture. Create an environment in which team members can use their talent development tools long-term to develop and apply what they naturally do best—resulting in higher project team performance.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The How and the Why

Welcome to Developing Strengths-Based Project Teams!

We do our best work when we love what we do!

Think about your project team. Each of your team members brings their talents and their project management (PM) tool kit to your project team. Their “kit” contains their own project management knowledge, concepts, skills, experiences, competencies, and expertise. Although each team member’s PM tool kit may contain common tools, each team member has a unique combination of tools.

Your team members also have unique talents, which they have developed and have the potential to further develop. Your collective project team’s unique talents combined with their collective PM tool kits are what equip your team to be successful—to complete the project on time, within budget, and according to the project objectives and specifications.

The purpose of this book is to help you and your project team members add talent development tools to your existing PM tool kits to maximize the use of your team’s collective talents and project management tools. As your project team members invest talent development into their PM tool kits and combine talent development with their other project management tools, your project team will be better equipped to maximize and leverage each team member’s talents toward your project’s objectives, deliverables, tasks, and challenges.

The purpose of this chapter is to help you:

1. Look ahead to the strengths-based talent development content in the book

2. Explore the short-term and long-term benefits of strengths-based project teams

3. Get an overview of foundational strengths development building blocks

4. Understand that the book’s content can be adapted to fit your unique project team

Who Is This Book for?

This book is written for those engaged in project management from a variety of organizations:

• For-profit corporations

• Non-profit service organizations

• Government agencies

• Education institutions

This book is written for project managers, project teams, and those who want to learn about how to engage in and/or support project team strengths-based talent development; therefore, the book’s intended audience includes:

• Project managers and project team members

Experienced project managers/team members

Individuals who are relatively new to project management and have a basic project management knowledge base

• Project sponsors

• Individuals and consultants who facilitate project team development and team meetings

• Educators and students studying project management and team development strategies

• Anyone working in a project team environment (virtual or in-person)

If you are currently in a project management role, you may wear different “hats” on different project teams. On one team, you might be the project manager. On other teams, you might be a team member or a subject matter expert. Or if you are in a leadership or executive role, you might be the project sponsor. Or you may have a completely different project management role. The context of your project team may also vary. You may be working on a co-located team, where everyone is in the same place, or be working on a virtual team, where everyone is remote. Regardless of your organization type, specific project management role, or project team context, you will be able to directly apply this book’s “why” and “how” of strengths-based project team development in your project management role.

This book is intended for long-term project teams rather than for general teams. A “general” team is a team where all team members directly report to the team’s manager as compared to a project team member who may directly report to their functional manager instead of the project manager. The project team works as a team until the completion of their project. (Read more about the definition of project teams and related project team terminology in Chapter 2.)

While the book’s content and processes are written for long-term project teams, project teams working on short-term projects can also benefit from using some of the exercises in the book if each project team member has had prior experience with individual strengths-based talent development (Chapters 3 and 4). The greatest benefit for short-term project teams using strengths-based talent development is to help the team members get to know each other fast—for building relationships quickly.

Finally, this book assumes its readers have at least a basic understanding of project management; however, readers do not need to have a background in strengths-based talent development.

What Is Strengths-Based Talent Development for Project Teams?

There are different talent development models and approaches available to you and your project team. Because of our experiences and successes using the strengths-based talent development approach with teams, we have chosen to use the strengths-based talent development model in this book for explaining:

• Why talent development is important for project teams

• How to integrate a talent development model into your team members’ PM tool kits

• How to practice applying and sustaining the use of talent development practices on the project team

Through the lens of strengths-based talent development, talents are the ways a person naturally “thinks, feels, and behaves”¹—what a person naturally does best. Strengths-based project teams are highly effective, high-performing teams who invest in their talents to develop their strengths and maximize the strengths that each project team member brings to the team. Strengths-based project managers know, understand, and utilize their own strengths and the strengths of their project team members.

As your project team members integrate a strengths-based talent development approach into their PM tool kits, your project team can become a strengths-based project team and create a strengths-based project team culture. A strengths-based project team culture nurtures an environment in which team members can use their talent development tools for the long-term, developing and applying what they naturally do best, resulting in higher project team performance.

What Key Talent Development Tools Will You Add to Your PM Tool Kit?

As you read and engage in the exercises in this book, you will learn about foundational talent development principles, building blocks, processes, and practices, which will equip you to begin to engage in individual and project team strengths-based talent development. The key strengths-based talent development understandings, knowledge, and skills that you will gain from this book and be able to add to your PM tool kit include:

• Understanding why strengths development and application are important for project teams

• Exploring core strengths development concepts as they relate to project teams

• Integrating project management techniques with strengths-based talent development

• Incorporating individual and project team strengths-based talent development exercises

• Creating and sustaining a strengths-based project team culture

• Locating additional resources and templates for strengths-based talent development

The beginning of each chapter includes the chapter’s purpose—to provide you with the chapter’s focus and direction. At the end of each chapter, there are key questions—to help you reflect on and apply the chapter’s content to your project team. Many of the chapters also refer you to resources to further explore and learn about strengths-based talent development for your project team.

The following descriptions briefly describe each chapter and appendix:

Chapter 1 is Introduction: The Why and the How. This chapter introduces strengths-based talent development for project teams, explains the benefits of becoming a high-performance, strengths-based project team, and emphasizes the adaptability of this book’s content for project teams (including virtual teams). It sets the stage.

Chapter 2 is Definitions: Staying Aligned. This chapter identifies the key project management terms used throughout the book to provide clarity and briefly introduces various PM terms connected to strengths-based project team talent development. The chapter also includes ways to align expectations on a strengths-based project team.

Chapter 3 is History: An Overview of Strengths Philosophy and Strengths-Based Project Teams. This chapter provides an overview of the history and philosophy behind high-performance strengths-based teams. Chapter 3 also introduces key strengths-based talent development building blocks and elements to give you a solid strengths foundation for engaging in individual strengths-based talent development presented in Chapter 4.

Chapter 4 is Starting Point: Developing your Strengths as a Project Manager. This chapter gives you a framework in identifying th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Disclaimers
• Abstract
• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introduction: The How and the Why
• Chapter 2 Definitions: Staying Aligned
• Chapter 3 History: An Overview of Strengths Philosophy and Strengths-Based Project Teams
• Chapter 4 Starting Point: Developing Your Strengths as a Project Manager
• Chapter 5 Mapping: Connecting Strengths and Project Management
• Chapter 6 Process: Cultivating a Strengths-Based Project Team
• Chapter 7 Sustaining: Keeping a Strengths-Based Project Team Culture Going
• Chapter 8 Action Plan: Make an Investment
• Appendix A: Resources
• Appendix B: Templates and Examples
• Appendix C: Connecting Strengths and Project Management
• Appendix D: Strengths Conversational Prompts for Project Teams
• Index
• Backcover