Forum

Notifications
Clear all

People in a Project

8 Posts
8 Users
0 Likes
365 Views
(@lmbanks)
Posts: 28
Eminent Member
Topic starter
 

In the lecture for "Project Management 101", I  was interested in the establishment of the team in the planning phase of project development. As a former athlete, I  know the importance of playing a role on a team to reach the ultimate goal within a task, but this form of a team took on a different meaning for me overall. An example I  would use would be being on a relay team in track and field. Each leg of the relay has their own role based on skill-set, technique, speed, and dynamic that they add to reach the overall goal. The respect gained in that aspect of a team is similar to that of a family that works like a machine. If one part is off, then the end goal may seem like it is more difficult to reach overall. There's also the dynamic of knowing each team member's strengths, weakness, and motivational needs that they may have to have to remain motivated on the end goal. In project management, especially in the planning phase, there appears to be different sub-groups or "sub-teams" that focus on key aspects of the project, such as the Quality Assurance Plan or the Communication Management Plan. 

 

The questions I  would like to pose are: How important is the connection within a team to meet the project objectives in biotechnology? Will knowing and understanding these strengths and weaknesses help for the advancement of project completions and developments throughout the phase itself? 

 
Posted : 27/02/2023 12:12 pm
(@kcbutlermsm-edu)
Posts: 27
Eminent Member
 

In every team/group environment, there has to be some great chemistry between all group members. The team/group leader should be able to identify every member's strengths and opportunities to make sure everyone is in a position to be successful and complete the project. Being able to give and receive feedback as a team member and team leader is also huge for encouraging members to perform at a high level. Team members should have input on the development of a project, not just the leader. 

 
Posted : 01/03/2023 4:05 pm
(@mbonds)
Posts: 24
Eminent Member
 

Hello Leah,

This was a fantastic discussion post, and I appreciated how you connected the subject to your experience as a former athlete. Teamwork is essential in every industry, to answer your question; in the life sciences and biotech sector, it acts as a unifying factor and a source of answers. Teams with members from different disciplines, such as pharmacy, business, IT, marketing, chemists, doctors, and more, are better suited to collaborate. Being able to communicate and work effectively with people who are different from us is crucial because diversity can be a major roadblock to productive teamwork. Taking the time to get to know one another and recognize the subtle differences that make each member special is also crucial.Knowing and understanding how you as an individual work with others, learning how others work in a team, uplifting each other, being active learners and listeners and more will create advancement and rewards for the team as a whole.

 
Posted : 01/03/2023 7:05 pm
(@astone46)
Posts: 18
Active Member
 

Hi Leah, 

 

Great discussion overall. I can completely relate. I too held positions on various amount of teams as a teenager and throughout college working with my counterparts on executive boards. The connection with a team is very important as it will affect the overall effectiveness and quality of the final product. Working on a team it can be quite difficult when each person has different communication and learning styles. The most important aspect of teamwork is to ensure each person on the team is aware of their role and responsibilities within the team. Utilizing the time spent with one another to learn a little bit more about what each person brings to the table can help the group dynamic and the tasks that are given throughout the project. Being able to understand each other allows for developments, planning phases, and discussions regarding the product life cycle to come easily and drive other teams that one has to work with to work well together because of the work done by the product team. Overall great discussion post Leah and I am looking forward to hearing from you more throughout the duration of this course. 

 
Posted : 03/03/2023 9:35 pm
(@jo277)
Posts: 63
Trusted Member
 

The very common saying of 'there is no I in team' has monumental impact in not just the biotechnology industry but the workplace as a whole. It is upmost critical that teams work together, in synchronous harmony, to meet a common goal or objective. This has to do with being able to complement each other's weaknesses with a strength that can be used to supplement their weakness. This plays crucially into assignment of roles in a team and project management, which allows everyone to be active and committed to a role they feel most comfortable and proficient in. Being able to recognize who excels in what and supplementing weaknesses with a team member will not only create an inter-environment of friendliness and teamwork, but also engage in learning development time that allows weaknesses to be addressed and built on. Like any other industry, a project of significance is no easy feat to achieve by oneself, and a good team leader will be able to recognize the significance of working together and maintaining an operable, positive atmosphere which permits and improve morale and efficiency.

 
Like the OP mentioned, the values of an athlete include ensuring that no one on the team is left behind and everyone is committed to the same goal regardless of position and status, and to foster a feeling of community. What is interesting to address is redundancies in skillset within a team, which can actually hamper production, which is why the project manager should vet for both personality and uniqueness of skill brought to the table
 
Posted : 14/09/2023 1:13 pm
(@rm829)
Posts: 40
Trusted Member
 

I would like to piggy-back off of what both of y'all said by adding that the personal relationship one has with other people within the group is crucial to success. I remember one of the greatest warnings we got as undergraduates when starting a Capstone project was "Don't make a group with your friends." This always puzzled me. I guess it all just relates to knowing your friends well enough to get the work done, and our professors' assumption was "you know who your friends are and their work ethic... you don't want to be fighting over this project." I feel like the personal connections you make with people (that are a part of the project), OUTSIDE of the project work itself, leads to the fluidity of teamwork you will see in the assignment. I would argue that having a close relationship with the people you work with creates and even more productive and honest environment. Not only do you see the strengths and weaknesses of these people by getting to know them better, but you also have the ability to gain a closeness that may have been limited by just speaking about business itself and nothing else. Communication about where someone is lagging or advancing in the assignment is crucial. By having that interpersonal relationship with someone on an even deeper level, the walls that may limit creativity and straightforwardness can be brought down and further improve the project.

 
Posted : 16/09/2023 3:55 pm
(@vkp3687)
Posts: 12
Active Member
 

Teamwork is essential in the Medical Device Development, Life Sciences and Biotech Industries, and it is the glue that ties everything together and generates answers.  Researchers in many fields, currently recognize that no single person can contribute all the necessary expertise to solve increasingly complex problems.  Group dynamics don’t always go smoothly, particularly within the life sciences.  Trained to nurture their visions, researchers can struggle to interweave their efforts and become a team.  Multidisciplinary teams are the core of Biopharma, and Medical Device Development Projects.  The collaboration of talent from physicians to biomedical engineers, chemists, toxicologists, pharmacologists, etc., as well as members who cover programming, data management, IT, and biostatistics, to the production, sales, and marketing team members, brings a project to ultimate fruition.  Their collaboration produces the drugs, medical devices, diagnostics, etc., that change the world.  The world is so complex, no one person has the skills or knowledge to accomplish all that we want to accomplish.  Interdisciplinary teams are the way to make that happen.  Creating highly functional teams within teams and then joining them into one group, often across the country and sometimes globally, is a science in itself.  It begins with understanding the difference between task work and teamwork.  Taskwork is the actual work that must be accomplished to complete the project.  While teamwork involves the interrelated thoughts, feelings and behaviors of team members that enable them to work effectively together.   Understanding the elements of teamwork is vital.  How well people work together may be more important than how well they work on the tasks.  What elements produce a cohesive, productive team?  A team consists of four roles –contributors, communicators, challengers, and collaborators.  During the course of a project, individuals can fill multiple roles.  Contributors: Work on a specific piece of the project, delivering the results to the team.  Communicators: Keep track of social interactions, heals conflict, and keeps various team members informed.  Challengers: Question – or challenge – ideas and results, ensuring hidden glitches are discovered, and the outcome is successful.  Collaborators: Articulates the vision, clarifying the goal, and keeping the team united as they move forward.  Covering all the roles is not the only factor. In the Medical Device, Life Sciences and Biotech industries, teams often consist of professionals from different cultural backgrounds. It is essential to spend time getting to know each other and understanding the distinctions that define each member. It’s not the differences we can see, but the deeper factors –personality traits, values, abilities, thought processes, etc. –make a significant impact on a team’s cohesiveness. These factors have been labeled the ABCs of teamwork; the attitudes, behaviors, and cognitive states that individually and together affect a team’s success.  Team science research reveals that collaborating across organizational, geographic, and cultural boundaries and disciplines increase productivity and scientific impact.  Bringing them together requires both trust and members’ psychological safety –the freedom to share ideas, questions, concerns, etc.  While we have been creating teams to achieve shared goals for a long time, understanding methods and processes helps teams become more efficient and, ultimately, successful.  What’s changing is the understanding and appreciation that there is a science behind how to manage teams. Teams are complex systems. The more you can manage them using a scientific basis, the better your teams will be.

 
Posted : 17/09/2023 1:17 am
(@atk27njit-edu)
Posts: 58
Trusted Member
 

It is definitely important to assess the diverse skillset of a team before initiating a project. Most of what project management is is getting work done by time and delivering it to the customer so a manager has to figure out how to divide the labor of individual projects, assess the skillset of the team, and assign/collaborate these projects with the team members to get it done on time. I work as an engineering intern and work with the PMs to get their deliverables done on time so a lot of this includes clearly communicating the ideas effectively, being accountable when stuff goes wrong, control the quality in some way(which is related to communication), and collectively make decisions to ensure that stuff gets done on time. Efforts put in by team members bridge the gap between project planning and project execution which leads to delivering high quality parts to the customer. 

 
Posted : 17/09/2023 7:49 pm
Share: