Introduction
Wesfarmers is one of the most successful conglomerate associations, that has headquarters in Perth and the revenue generated by the company is based on the sales of chemicals, safety products and fertilisers. Wesfarmers reflect on the necessity of stakeholder engagement and look forward to alleviate the cohesiveness of the entire unit. Through this assessment, the leadership style and practices of exercising power in an organisation, that is best suited for the optimal operation of the organisation is realised and assessment performed by addressing the important factors that are necessary to understand the effects of the leadership style to incorporate the changes.
1) “One of the leadership styles discussed in this module’s learning resources over another style when managing the highlighted project team.”
The Democratic leadership style could turn out to be quite effective in alleviating the roles prescribed by the different individuals involved in the project team .Keeping in accordance to the organisational setup reflected by the company, Wesfarmers could really enhance on their views of engaging stakeholders and encourage its employees to be an integral part of the decision making team . This style of leadership helps in developing the interactive ambience in the workplace and help to promote creativity among the members of the project team. The different types of leadership styles such as autocratic and bureaucratic leadership style is based on the rationale of power retention and setting up rules based on the orthodox provisions of a prescribed rule book, These forms of leadership are quite hesitant to change and does not incline to inflect on the flexibility that the leadership roles demands. Hence, the policies that are associated with these leadership styles could undermine the rationale that are described by the foundation policies of Wesfarmers .The activities performed by the project team are quite challenging and they require constant motivation. Hence, implementation of Democratic Leadership style will identify the advents of motivation the team needs and address to them accordingly.
2)” Tools and techniques discussed in the resources you might use as a PM to influence this project team.”
There are different tools that are devised to manage the project team effectively and understand the factors that help in promoting the mindset and work ethics of the project team. The combined utilisation of critical path analysis and Project Evaluation and Review Techniques can identify the fields in which work needs to be done and influence the team in the right prospects. Critical path analysis incorporates transparent communication aspect and leads to effective management of the project team. It will further improve the transparency reflected by the communication made by the stakeholders through the means of employee surveys, recording data provided by the whistleblower and evaluation of mails. As Wesfarmers maintains a reputation in their line of business and comes good on delivering products to the customers, time management is one of the key aspects that need to be highlighted to maintain their current reputation in the market. These tools help in addressing this particular issue and implement this in the project management policy to motivate the project team. As Wesfarmers identifies as one of the companies that produce in bulk numbers, CPA tools help in identifying the correlations between the operations occurring within the project team and improve the rate at which final products takes shape.
3) “As a project manager, what tools and techniques discussed in the resources are appropriate for managing communication outside of the project group? “
The aspect of managing communication necessarily does not incline to the members within the project team. In the event of launching a product, communication planning involves people belonging to different communities, individuals within an impact group and influential leaders outside the enterprise enclave. When the enterprise delves in the operation while launching a product that revolves around the submission of approval from the local people, communication plays a major role in making the local people realise the scopes that this product would cater to the local people. After the project is finished, communication outside the project group still continues and relays the information to the local leaders about the benefits that would be associated with the establishment of such organisation. The techniques of using formal communication plan will help the progression of Wesfarmers as they look forward to expand their enterprise. The plan incorporates the measures of targeting the right audience and identifying the appropriate leaders that relays the message appropriately to the local people and negates the chances of any uprising and undesirable circumstances. The plan also accommodates the strategy to bolster the realisation of the benefits showcased by the project and rendering it understandable to every individual representing the stakeholders.
4)” 5 types of power (as described in Shenoy Web Article) you would employ to motivate the team members to work collaboratively, and impact the project’s success”.
5) “Developing self-managed teams for agile projects”.
Agile projects are type of a project, which meant to deal with software development and does not involve task related work; it includes mathematical iterations and coding (Kupiainen et al, 2015).
To develop a self-managed team for agile projects the team members should form a group of experts who are good in programming and coding, especially in developing softwares. Therefore, forming a self-managed team will include working individually on the projects but meet occasionally to discuss the projects status. Everyone should communicate well so that all can learn from each other.
Characteristics of the project plan to the way of development are mainly to depend and stay focused on a fix plan and work on it together, everyday updating the status of the project, trust among each other, and acknowledgement before delivering the work.
6) “ Reasons for selecting these approaches, referencing any insight you have gained from the module resources and research on your interaction with colleagues in the Module Discussions.”
In the agile projects, the way of team management is both single and integrated; as the employees will work on the project individually then together they will discuss and add more to the project. This type of projects needs experts on software development and even though they are distributed or scattered in different places they have to work together. This is the main motive of self-managed team (Cunningham, 2017).The other way where a manager adapts different ways to deviate challenges in a project is that there are different challenges faced before a project completes like miscommunication, lack of training, under provision of services and technology provided to the employees, which can create unnecessary shortcomings in the future. The ways the team should adapt are resolving issues and miscommunication, get desired training before doing the project (Heagney, 2013).
7)” As project manager, to alleviate challenges faced by your project team before those challenges grow so large that they damage the work environment or the final product. Explain why”
A company like Wesfarmers , which is located in Australia deals with coal and many industrial products ; which leads to a lot of organisational work . Without a skilled Project manager, they will not be able to handle projects and activities, which can hamper the production and management. Therefore, to reduce those, manager should
a) Make refined and organised goals
b) Take everyone’s opinion and then combine together to make a valid strategic plan.
c) Make charts of the customer needs make proper planning of the product launch.
d) Hire skilled employees and train them properly.
e) Providing proper information and technology to the employees so that they can work properly and solving disputes between them to reduce miscommunication.
Running a project successfully can be a tedious job because it includes many activities to process consecutively like running the whole projects and then following with the deadlines and targets, manage employees, fulfilling the requirements of the projects and many more. The challenges of the project that can cause future shortcomings are undefined targets, not understanding the details of the projects, miscommunication, lack of training to the employees, misleading of projects, unskilled employees, and dispute among employees, not keeping a risk management procedure for backups and not using appropriate technology to work on the project (Martinelli and Milosevic, 2016)
Conclusion
The assessment is being performed on the different aspects of the leadership style and management of power among the project team to better facilitate them as a cohesive unit to help alleviate the operations involved in a project. The effect of power management within the team helps in stabilising the communication between the different individuals of a project team and with the project managers. Coercive use of power would be neglected as this could bring down the motivational aspect within the group. The use of Democratic Leadership Style could really benefit the Wes Farmers project team.
Reference list
Cunningham, I., 2017. The wisdom of strategic learning: The self managed learning solution. Routledge.
Giltinane, C.L., 2013. Leadership styles and theories. Nursing Standard, 27(41).
Heagney, J., 2016. Fundamentals of project management. Amacom.
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Kupiainen, E., Mäntylä, M.V. and Itkonen, J., 2015. Using metrics in Agile and Lean Software Development–A systematic literature review of industrial studies. Information and Software Technology, 62, pp.143-163.
Martinelli, R.J. and Milosevic, D.Z., 2016. Project management toolbox: tools and techniques for the practicing project manager. John Wiley & Sons.
Nanjundeswaraswamy, T.S. and Swamy, D.R., 2014. Leadership styles. Advances in management, 7(2), p.57.