Building Effective Project Teams
2-day Workshop

This program is designed mainly for intact project teams but is also appropriate
for team leaders without their teams. It presents and provides experiential
practice in the teamwork skills that are so essential to project success. This
program is an expanded version of our Teams in Project Management program.
All exercises are more complex and are designed to build team cohesion and
effective interaction. Like all of our programs, it is highly interactive. The exact
order of presentation of these topics is flexible and is usually determined by the
issues and questions brought up by the participants.

NOTE: This program requires some telephone (or on-site) consultation prior to
presentation so materials and presentation can be adapted to meet specific
needs and/or address specific issues.

How project teams are somewhat unique
  • Types of teams
  • The unique characteristics of project teams
  • Exercise: Building a project-team charter
  • Exercise: Brainstorm and prioritize typical team problems (this
    information is input to later exercises)

Meeting skills
  • Agendas
  • Exercise: Developing a meeting agenda
  • Meeting minutes
  • Specialized types of meetings
  • Information-sharing meetings
  • Exercise: Role plays demonstrating effective practices for this type
    of meeting
  • Problem-solving meetings
  • Exercise: Role plays demonstrating effective practices for this type
    of meeting
  • Decision-making meetings
  • Exercise: Role plays demonstrating effective practices for this type
    of meeting
  • Presentations
  • Exercise: Role plays demonstrating good presentation skills
  • Managing the inevitable conflicts
  • Exercise: Determining the cost of organizational conflict – in real
    terms
  • Exercise: Role plays demonstrating various conflict situations (if
    conflict is a major issue for participants, this topic can be
    expanded to allow sufficient time for some resolutions to be
    developed)

Leadership, trust, power and authority, and motivation
  • The essentials of team leadership
  • Exercise: What the team wants from its leader and what the leader
    wants from the team
  • Exercise: Developing a personal leadership-development plan
  • Building and sustaining trust within the team and between the team and
    the organization
  • Exercise: Assessing trust levels (this is a team-specific exercise
    in this program)
  • Exercise: Building “trust accounts”
  • Power and authority
  • Where power comes from
  • The five types of power
  • How and when to use each type of power
  • Exercise: Role plays demonstrating the effects of various types of
    power on common situations
  • What motivation is and how it works
  • Simple forms of motivation available to everyone
  • Exercise: Team leaders and team members develop separate
    motivation strategies then compare and contrast the results to
    develop an agreed-upon approach

How teams grow and develop over time
  • A basic model of team development
  • Exercise: Assessing the current stage of development of the
    teams
  • The common problems at each stage of development
  • Exercise: Identifying and resolving team-specific issues
  • The most effective leader and member behaviors at each stage
  • Exercise: Role plays demonstrating common issues at each
    stage of development

Interpersonal Communication
NOTE: This topic includes a short online self-assessment participant’s are
asked to complete prior to the training.
  • The critical nature of communication in projects
  • Within the team
  • Between the team and the organization
  • Exercise: Debrief of the Communication Style Self-assessment
  • The strengths and weaknesses of various communication styles
  • Effective, active listening
  • Other common communication issues

Negotiation
  • Negotiation may be the most important skill for a project team
  • Collaborative negotiation (win-win), building from a common ground
  • Exercise: Role plays demonstrating effective negotiation skills

Open discussion
Topics and issues that are of particular interest to the participants (usually the
last thirty to sixty minutes of the second day of the program)
ProjectTraining.com
Providing Project Management
and Process Improvement Training
for over 20 years  
"The key elements in
the art of working
together are how to
deal with change, how
to deal with conflict,
and how to reach our
potential...the needs of
the team are best met
when we meet the
needs of individuals
persons."
Max DePree
CEO, Herman
Miller
Leadership is an Art