Seema Sonkiya: Team Performance Review

Article based on PMBOK 4 and agile methodology recommendation of project team management, this article gives insight about how to provide team collective feedback and individual staff feedback as well.

As a Project Manager we need to tell to team that what did we achieve together and where did we fail; means we want to convey the collective feedback. It is equally important to communicate individual staff member feedback.

When project team members acquired, there are two important processes related to human resource development and performance appraisals i.e. Develop Project Team and Manage Project Team. Develop project team work for overall team performance, competencies and interaction, and then project manager focus goes to individual team member which is included in Manage project team.

Teamwork plays an important role in achieving project objectives, so project manager emphasis should be first overall team performance after then individual performance should be collected and communicated. This strategy center that each team want to become efficient and take responsibility of each other team member performance and issues are escalated to team first.

Team and individual performance is collected and communicated using both formal and informal methods.

Performance Measures:

1.       Objective methods: These are based mainly on results of metrics. I would like to give one example. When we use pareto analysis and produce documented results and analyze these results using Quality Assurance process, during identification of vital few’s it may be discovered that most of problems in vital few’s are related to deliverables for which accountability is set to one or few specific members. Then there is need to discuss those team members’ results of those objective methods. Other example of metrics like DRE, No of changes successfully implemented.

2.       Subjective Methods: General subjective measures of performance are based on the evaluator’s judgment, intuition, and feelings, e.g., attitude, cooperativeness, initiative, aggressiveness, flexibility, friendliness, and openness. Informal performance reviews depend primarily on subjective measures. In small businesses, where supervisors and team member know each other well and interact often, feelings toward each other often override objective measures of performance.

Some key result areas are set based on role like Key result areas for a Team leader i.e. application experience, solution design expertise, leadership, problem solving etc. These key results areas are rated either subjectively or objectively based on specific key result area nature. Each key result area should be defined to explain which method will be used to rate them.

Performance measures both subjective and objective are communicated through formal and informal methods.  Formal methods are scheduled explicitly at regular intervals.

Team members not receiving regular formal reviews of their performance are still being judged subjectively by their immediate reporting person, project manager and co-workers. They are simply missing the benefit of concrete measures of how they are doing, which parts of their work are best, and which parts most need improvement

Realistically, subjective measures cannot be avoided. The challenge, therefore, is to effectively combine objective and subjective measures. All deliverables can have some objective measures of performance Like EVM, Burn Down chart and tools of Quality Control and Quality Assurance processes.

When to distribute Team performance:

1.       Informal Performance Distribution: Following are the tools that can be used for informal team performance distribution:

a.      During daily stand up meeting when performance is on track, exceeding or deviating using analysis of burn down chart or EVM report.

b.      During risk reassessment meeting and during analysis of block list.

c.       During face to face conversation during requirement work shop, developing project scope statement and during monitoring and controlling processes using observation and conversation.

2.     Formal Performance Distribution:

a.      After Verify scope process when we have delivered the increment or sprint. It may be part of sprint retrospective meeting. Where emphasis is on to discover what went well and what could be improved while working on sprints.

b.      After final project completion and during final sprint retrospective meeting.

c.      Anytime when performance is deviating or exceeding from normal expectations.

My recommendation is that arranging too many meeting for the sake of communicating performance or to motivate to enhance performance honestly hinders project team performance. Meetings should be structured and planned and should be designed for a time boxed period.

If project manager first emphasis is to improve team performance then it will also leads to individual performance to good extent. We should educate team that it is very important to take responsibility of each other performance even though team mate do not have authority over other team member performance. A second step can be a review of individuals with emphasis on contribution to team success, increased ability to contribute to team goals, and fitting into the team. No matter what is done in individual reviews, teamwork increases peer pressure. In true teamwork environments, satisfying teammates becomes more important than satisfying a supervisor.

After some attempts of successful communication of how team is performing, now it is time to think to deliver how each team member is doing. Yes performance data is collected for both team and individual simultaneously but in normal scenario individual performance should be distributed after few team performance communications. It is very important in promoting teamwork.

If individual performance communication is performed prior to team then that particular team member could imagine that he/she is responsible for team good work or team problems – our objective of teamwork is defeated.

When to distribute individual performance:

1.       Informal Methods: Informal review occurs when required. Continuous and open communication is very important with team members.

a.      Project manager work to prevent problems and solve them as those arises. Depending on team building stage appropriate problem solving techniques are applied, i.e. during performing stage project manager or team lead confront problems as they arise, question are asked as they arise.

b.      When team member work good then he/she should receive praise as it is earned using defined communication methods.

Both project manager and team members work to create an open environment that emphasizes mutual support. Little or no paper trail is generated.

2.       Formal Methods: Formal reviews take place on a regular interval, i.e. once or twice a year. Immediate reporting person usually fill out a form to rate subjective performance measures. Objectives measures are usually brought from analysis of documented results of metrics.

In case of 360 degree review peers, sub ordinates also given a chance to rate a team member for subjective measures,

A team member file includes paper trail of training, progress, retraining, and development and in some cases disciplinary action for the formal review time period.

Team member usually have a chance to comment or respond to the evaluator’s assessment. Basic purpose is to helping the team member through career interests and opportunities can be incorporated into supervisor/team member discussions.

Discussion usually involves team member, immediate reporting person, project manager and functional manager human resources i.e. HR or resource manager.

The basic objective of performance appraisal and communication in terms of feedback improves team member’s performance, decrease staff attrition, motivates self improvement, build trust, competencies and create a paper trail useful in litigation in case of formal method.

Few people complain about having too much information about their performance. Few people complain about receiving too many sincere compliments and too much thanks. Therefore, everyone should be reviewed including members of the management team.

Starting with reviews at the top of the organization is best. Set an example. It helps for the person being reviewed to know that the person doing the review has already had his or her review.

 Seema Sonkiya