Organizational change

Question 1

There are different specific practices that successful project managers adopt in their roles. Successful managers recognize that their beliefs and practices of all organizational members are influenced by outdated concepts that must first be abandoned.  Successful managers, therefore, use different practices in order to cope with the dynamic environment. These practices involve planning, control, collaboration, and communication.   Through these four activities, project managers I was able to better undertake their crucial role in project leadership. However, the most effective planning, controlling, and risk management systems do not eliminate the need for coping with regular unexpected events and numerous problems that characterize projects. Most of the issues encountered throughout project life tend to be technical. Hence, they can be solved with procedures and knowledge already at hand. Although solving problems such as replacing a contractor or how to accelerate project speed might require high responsiveness and great flexibility, the issues cannot be achieved by challenging conventional practices and habits.  Therefore, good managerial skills are necessary for project management.

Other problems appear to be adaptive and, therefore, difficult to define. These problems do not have a clear solution, and frequently require new learning and changes in behavior. Some adaptive may require the project manager to bypass organizational procedures. For example, a manager may bypass organizational procedures to ascertain that the best contractor will be selected in order to instruct the designer to think outside the box, or to cope with an infeasible design or and develop creative solutions to deal with excess cost constraints.  To address the adaptive problems, a project manager should be willing and able to create considerable changes in order to challenge the status quo. Such problems require leadership.

Another practice adopted by successful managers is the ability tailor practices, such as controlling, planning, communication, and collaboration to the unique context of their projects. All projects require both management and leadership that should be exercised according to the specific context of the project.  Today different assumptions need to be unlearned.  One of such assumptions is that there is one right way to manage people.  The assumption is totally counterproductive and at odds with reality.  Successful project managers structure practices, such as planning, collaboration, control, and communication to the exceptional context of their projects.

Successful project managers recognize the important role of organizational culture in the success of a project.  Dealing with frequent unexpected events requires an organizational culture that allows a project manager to apply a great amount of flexibility.  Culture may cause an inherent incompatibility.  The various teams to the project may be loosely tied, whereas the tasks in the projects are tightly tied. When an unexpected occurs, the impact on one task may cause other interdependent tasks to be quickly affected. When the direct responsibility for such tasks is distributed among various loosely tied individuals or teams, it becomes difficult to coordinate people’s actions and provide a timely response. Project success, hence, needs both interdependence and trust among the different parties involved. This may only be installed through a change in culture.

Successful leaders instill the value of teamwork for the purpose of achieving set objectives. Teamwork is nurtured and developed with a cooperative effort between the leader and the group. The understanding by the leader regarding their role is an important aspect of team building. When the leader performs their roles effectively, teams become efficient and play their roles correctly. The first role of a leader involves resolving conflicts. Resolving internal group conflicts between individuals in a group facilitates team development in cases where conflict is threatening or damaging. The leader should monitor and determine when to step in and what method to apply in resolving the conflict. A leader should also institute rules and policies to provide direction to the team towards fulfilling its goals. The leader’s role also involves helping the group understand the objective of the team in addition to creating a method to reaching them.

Successful leaders understand the role of communication in project success. A leader promotes effective communication to ensure cohesiveness and sharing of information among all organizational members. It is the role of a leader to promote internal communication by breaking barriers to fighting divisions and competition. A leader should promote communication between departments and force contacts to avoid silting up of internal communication. Where communication is carried out efficiently, teams complete their work quicker and in a more accurate manner than others. Additionally, communication enhances collaboration. For example, where one of the parties believes that contractual documents and project planning provide sufficient protection against unforeseen problems, developing collaboration among all the parties require creative practices.

Question 2

Trust involves creating space for people to thrive as mistrust and excess verifying diminishes that space. There are various practices that are adopted by leaders who desire to build trust in their organizations. One of the strategies involves assuming positive intent until it is proven otherwise.

There were high levels of mistrust between the contractor and the government. Judy enhanced trust between the two parties.  The contractor’s side had the notion that the wanted the product for the lowest price at any expense.  The government side had the notion that some of the contractor only cared about a big profit rather than quality.  Both teams needed to work to dispel the unproductive stereotypes to promote effectiveness.  Judy was instrumental in ensuring that the contractors would do the best job by offering better terms.

Judy also banished bureaucracy in efforts to build trust.  Bureaucracy erodes trust faster as people are mired in excessive rules. Bureaucracy gives a clear message that individuals are not trusted to do the right thing. Judy understood that that downsizing alone was a necessary, but the inadequate condition for lasting success. One thing she did to win trust was to eliminate the bureaucracy on the organization’s side. A large number of employees on the customer’s side handle to work. She downsized in such a way as to eliminate the existing bureaucracy.  The eliminating bureaucracy was one way of proving commitment and ultimately building trust.  Judy also built trust by implementing a win-win situation for both the contractor and the government. Judy wanted to change aimed at changing the mindset of the contractors by developing a “heart and soul” relationship with their products. This way, she would create a win-win situation for both sides. Accordingly,   “I’m going to help you make a decent profit, and you will help me a good product out there.” This enhanced relationships and trust with the contractors. 

Question 3

Judy employed various key learning and behavior modification strategies to solve organizational problems. She employed both positive and negative reinforcements to modify members’ behaviors. One way was through increasing the responsibility of the contractor to enhance their sense of ownership. The reform named Total System Performance Responsibility was one of the biggest reforms that would allow the contractor to do the job of designing and building better missiles.  The program meant that the contractor would accept responsibility carry out necessary and sufficient to build, deliver, warrant, and support missiles that would be combat capable, affordable, and readily available. This meant that they would decide when products met performance requirements.

Another behavioral reform was through the introduction of sustainment engineering.  The concept required contractors to repair the missiles, as well as be responsible for Certain elements of the missile. The practice was aimed at promoting the development of quality products owing to the long history of breaking that compromised reliability. Contractors were the most suitable in keeping the engineering up-to-date as they were fully involved in the design, built, and knew the missile better than anybody else.

Thirdly, Judy opened up channels for open communication between the contractors and the government. Open communication was not the norm on other Air Force projects.  When some people who worked on other programs witnessed the level of openness, they were more willing to deal with the organization. The practice was new as they previously couldn’t ask their contractors for information.  Some of the depots had earlier resisted giving up their work to the contractor. As soon as total system responsibility was established, the situation changed.

Question 4

There are different practices that Judy adopted to influence team’s culture and create a relationship of trust, mutual support, and teamwork among both parties.  The first practice adopted by Judy involved creating a cross-functional team. The government and the contractors were not in a productive relationship due to misconceptions and mistrust between both parties. The development of a cross-functional team ensured that there was mutual trust between the parties involved. For example, Dennis invited Tom Gillman to his internal budget meetings. The action displays the openness between the Raytheon and Air Force. This relationship had not existed before. Creation of a cross-functional team led to a productive Government-contractor relationship.

Cross-functional teams promote Inter-organizational networks that enhance relationships. These networks consist of sets of nodes example organizations and persons linked by relationships. Such relationships promote effectiveness in an organization.  Through cross-functionality, Organizations differentiate processes, people, and structure to maximize efficiency.  The second practice is the promotion of transparency and accountability. Judy developed policies that focused on accountability. Total System Performance Responsibility was one of the practices that would allow the contractor to do the job of designing and building better missiles.  The program meant that the contractor would accept responsibility carry out necessary and sufficient to build, deliver, warrant, and support missiles.

It involved a focus and control necessary to maximize efficiency by defining how things should be done. Getting people to work across boundaries increase their performance in key areas such as decision making, planning and problem-solving. It also increases the ability to the things in the right way. In making tradeoffs between cost and quality, for example, accountability gets people to go beyond what is right for their function and do what is right for the customer. The third practice involved sustaining a major cultural change. It was done through constant meetings with team members at a hotel. A ballroom was rented every month to enable holding of meetings. The practice promoted constancy of purpose. The practice promoted a relationship of trust, mutual support, and teamwork among both parties.

Question 5

Leadership plan

Individual assessment

Competencies and Behaviors

•    Self-awareness

•    Self-management

•    Aspire to excellence

•    Inspire trust

•    Versatility and adaptability

•    Relationship management

•    Communicate with meaning

Vision

To be eligible for future promotions to leadership roles beyond a program director

Goals

The overall goal will be to enhance performance by promoting key leadership behaviors in order to enhance the overall success, of the organization.

Action

•    Engage in leadership training to improve skills

•    Implement employee training to reduce resistance to changes and promote culture

Monitoring

•    Performance evaluation

•    Routine reporting (Lester, 2015)

Reference

Lester, S. W. (2015). Melding Service Learning and Leadership Skills Development. Journal Of Experiential Education, 38(3), 280-295.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in custom essay research paper if you need a similar paper you can place your order from online research paper writer.