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 Effective
management of goal achievements is best realised when managers are
a mix of ‘undistinguished misfits’ rather than high performing all-star
teams, believes Dr R Srinivasan
Few
weeks ago we discussed an important point on the hierarchical structure
in a software development organisation. Once we decide the right
type for an organisation, the next important step should be the
assignment of apt roles for respective managers, which will encompass
critical leadership and the expected support roles. Many software
gurus have brought out the noteworthy segments under this subject.
I would like to discuss some of them in this article for the benefit
of our readers.
Jim
McCarthy, in his publication, Dynamics of Software Development,
identifies three important approaches to be undertaken by the management,
if the organisation has to become a successful software development
centre. They are: (i) The management should have a perfect identification
and definition on how a product could be a winning one. (ii) They
should have a good perception and vision of the application areas
of the end product. (iii) They should guide the project team towards
the goal of bringing out a successful product. Here comes the question
of the composition of the management team—should we have the
best team with everyone being outstanding or should we have a mix
of the best and the less experienced? Meredith Belbin, in his book,
Management Teams, suggests that management teams should be of the
second type mentioned above. His study revealed an astonishing result
that “effective management of goal achievements was best realised
when the managers were a mix of undistinguished misfits rather than
any of the high-performance all-star teams.”
In
a typical software development project, every key person has an
important leadership role to play in leading the project to be successful.
These people happen to be the project manager, the process manager
(from quality department), the software architect and of course
the project leader. Following Belbin’s framework, each one
of them have specific roles in critical leadership as well as in
support roles to play in the most diversified teams and to take
it towards success. Under the leadership role, the project manager
will be the overall driver through constant monitoring of the project
status. The process manager should work hand in hand with the development
team so that each phase of the software development goes through
the stipulated process, thereby establishing quality
in
the work. The software architect is actually the initiator of development
methodologies and should make sure that every phase of development
is under the planned architecture.
The
project leader will be the one to work along with members of the
development team and see to it that everything is progressing fine
as per the project plan in terms of actual development. In the support
role, the project manager has the onus for successfully finishing
the project in association with the project leader. The process
manager is a supporter to implement the processes, the architect
and project leader take their roles as implementers. The underlying
importance of these points is that the management team should share
the appropriate leadership foci among themselves. It is also possible
that in some organisations, because of non-availability of enough
number of managers, one manager can have more than one role to play
as long as he has the required capability to perform each role without
any contradiction.
In
order to implement the important aspects of Belbin’s model,
special care has to be taken to establish an effective management
team. William Brown identifies four different stages under this
process, viz., forming, storming, norming and performing. The purpose
of the team and the roles to be played by each is identified in
the forming stage. The required interactions between team members
to discuss and identify individual responsibilities and the respective
authority levels are done in the storming stage. Once a common understanding
and agreement has been reached, the team will address the management
tasks in the norming stage.
In
some cases there might be lack of clear boundaries in levels of
authority, but such matters are sorted out in an amicable manner.
Having reached the stage that everybody within and outside the team
are very clear about various identities mentioned above, the team
reaches the performing stage and goes towards self-managing to achieve
the goal of completing the project successfully. Such an effective
management team, with its normalised controls in hierarchy, will
take the organisation towards the highest level of maturity.
(To
be continued) (The author is Chief Technology Officer, iCMG, Bangalore.
He can be contacted at r.srinivasan@icmg.nu)
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