Project Management
Certification & Training

Project Team Member Motivation and Conflict

By Dick Billows, PMP, GCA

Summary: Motivating your project team is not done with inspirational speeches or threats. Good leadership and project technique are the keys to a high performance team culture

Creating cohesive project teams

Project managers often find themselves with a team composed of people who have been "borrowed" from their real departments and real jobs. These team members may see the project assigned as just one additional burden they have to bear and often their project work is heaped on top of their regular assignments. Project managers usually do not have any rewards to give these people for outstanding performance. A combination of these factors makes motivating a project team the challenging task. Our primary tool for coping with these challenges is the assignments we craft and then assign to the people on our team. As well, we use our interpersonal skills to make clear assignments, perform fair evaluations of work and give performance feedback in ways that make the project a positive experience for people. Our failure to handle any of these issues effectively can produce conflict within the project team. Our team members can also have conflict with other people with whom they have to work during the course of the project. We need effective tools for coping with these conflict situations as well as for motivating our project team members.

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Project team member's performance: guidelines for criticism

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Conflict Analysis Template