As a project manager you will be working with the project staff in many parts of the project. Since these people most likely do not report to you, it is very important that you know how to have good relationships with your project team to ensure that the project runs as smoothly as possible. H.J. Thamhain and D.L. Wilemon investigated and saw nine influence bases available to project managers. The first out of these is authority or the right to issue orders due to position on a hierarchy. Assignment is the ability to affect a particular worker’s job assignments. Budget is the project manager’s ability to control the use of funds by the workers. Promotion is their ability to change a worker’s position into a higher up position. Money would be the ability of project managers to increase compensation for a worker. Penalty is the opposite or the ability to take away compensation or give punishment. Work challenge is classified as the ability to give a certain type of work to a worker that enjoys doing it, in order to capitalize on it. Expertise is a project manager’s on a certain level that is important. And lastly, friendship is the ability to make friends between the project managers and others on the project. It is important to note that not all of these influences are available to all project managers. For example, it takes a certain level of management to be able to gain authority for project managers. This goes the same for assignment, budget, promotion, money, and penalty bases of influence. Additionally, project managers may need to earn some of the above state influences by using other ones. For example, a project manager may need to make relationships with project members and show expertise in a certain area to be able to gain the ability to assign work on the project. Thus, by using expertise and friendship influences, they can gain the influence of assignment. Nonetheless, although Thamhain and Wilemon investigated these various types of influences available to project managers, they were also interested in which of these influences were more effective in actually reaching project success. They saw that project managers who relied increasingly on money penalty and authority did not gain project success. On the other hand, they saw project success when project managers used work challenges and expertise to influence team members. Moreso, in a study published by Thamhain of 72 project teams, the results showed that project performance is highly influenced by people working on the project and their behaviors and relationships. It concluded that it is not effective to succeed in a project by giving work orders, creating plans and giving out guidelines. Instead, they saw that it is very important to take into account common values and goals to unite the project team. In order to create that unity in a team, a particular study showed that by looking more closely at personal interests of the team members, satisfaction of their work, work challenges, recognition and accomplishments showed to lead a team to unify their group culture and in turn, their work processes. Furthermore, it is very important to have certain conditions for a project to succeed in a complex organization such as a bridge connecting central control and local management norms and following the project plan as it is and adaptive problem solving and overall organizational goals and personal interests. Therefore, in order for a project to be successful, as a project manager, you have certain influences available to you to use in order to ensure that the team members who are working on the project have the best chance of bringing quality to the project.
Another important concept that is brought forth by the Project Management textbook, is essentially the idea that without the ability to influence others, it is not likely you have any power over them or the ability to lead them. Therefore, as a project manager you need to understand not only what kind of influence but also what kind of power to use in different situations to steer the project to the best possible success. According to French and Raven who produced a study called, “The Bases of Social Power”, they investigated five different kinds of power. The first one is coercive power, which is similar to the penalty influence identified by Thamhain and Wilemon in their study. This is the kind of power that uses negative approaches such as punishments to control people and get them to do things they do not want to. This approach does have a tendency to lead to unsuccessful projects, however, there is a way to use this beneficially. This means, coercive power can be used to stop a worker's negative behavior in a project. If a worker is arriving late, they can be given a pay penalty for the days they arrive late. The second is legitimate power, which is using a position of authority that you have to get others to do things. This is similar to the authority influence mentioned above and it can in certain situations cause project failures if project managers who have been given this responsibility do not use it effectively and to benefit the project. The third kind of power is expert power, similar to the expertise influence, or in other words, using expertise you have in a certain area to change people’s behavior. People are more likely to take suggestions from project managers who show that they are experts in certain situations. The fourth power is reward power, which is similar to promotion and the money influences. This power involves using incentives to get people to do work, such as higher pay, recognition, promotion and status. However, it is important to know that only certain rewards help workers work hard. Lastly, referent power is dependent on one’s charisma and whoever holds this power is held at the utmost respect and regard. This kind of power is very rare to possess as it depends on the kind of person you are.
In conclusion, as a project manager working on an agile based team, it is important to know all of the kinds of influences and powers that are available to you to use on team members to ensure a project is successful. However, it is important that you know when and to what extent to use these approaches for your team to be successful.
Work Cited
Schwalbe, Kathy. (2007). Information technology project management. Boston, MA: Thomson Course Technology.
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