W1_Thuraiya_Leadership Styles analysis Using Tuckman model

Weekly Blog 1- Hamed Saleh AL Foori 

Background

This exercise is part of the PMP course, which is a three months program started on November 29^th , 2017 and conducted by Dr. Paul D. Giammalvo from PT Mitrata Citragraha. Engineers from the Oman Power and Water Procurement attended a face to face session for a period of one week. The program was divided into four projects to be completed during the upcoming three months, which include weekly reports, weekly blogs, an academic paper and problem solving for the PMP exam preparation. Following the face to face session is an online learning program for the four assigned projects.

Problem Statement

The topic of the blog for week (1) examines how the Future OPWP PMP 2017 team is effective and what opportunities of improvement are there in order to achieve the desired outputs of the program. The exercise in this blog will identify which stage of Tuckman’s (4) stages of team development Future OPWP PMP 2017 fits in and possible plans for team improvements.

Assessment Results and Root Cause Analysis

Tuckman’s model was used to evaluate the stage in which the team fits in. This model simply explained a team dedicated for a given project moves through four stages before reaching high performance level. These stages are: forming, storming, norming and performing. A survey established by Erin Barkema and John W. Moran was used to carry out the assessment for the 13 members in the team to answer a set of questions for each Tuckman’s stages. Analysis of the results are presented in table 1.

Table 1: Statistical Results of Tuckman’s Model

	Average	Standard Deviation
Forming	23	2.1
Storming	20	1.6
Norming	30	4.7
Performing	31	6.2

The survey showed a very positive overall result; the Future OPWP PMP 2017 team scored highest on the Performing stage, with 31 points, followed by Norming, with 30 points. Because Norming stage has lower standard deviation then performing, This indicates that we have created a solid team with members being at the norming stage of Tuckman’s model

This is due to the fact that team members know each other and some are team members of the same department as following:

Figure 1:  Problem Tree Analysis of the Survey’s Results

Feasible Alternatives

Because the leadership style plays key rule, two leadership styles will be analyzed and one option will be selected to support the results obtained from the assessment.

Tools of Analyzing Different Leadership Styles

Two leadership styles were selected:

1- Autocratic Leadership: The leader has full authority and responsibility and make decisions without consulting team members. Decisions from the boss are implemented with little flexibility.

2- Coaching Leadership: The leader is involved in supervising the team members to ensure high performance and better results. This leadership style creates skilled staff and provides motivation to the team.

Selection of the Acceptable Criteria

Pair-Wise comparison is used to establish the important leadership attributes by evaluating each attribute with a score of either 1 or 0. If the attribute on the left column is more important than the one from corresponding row, the score is 1, otherwise is 0.

Table 2: Pair-Wise Comparison for Leadership Attributes

Leadership’s Attributes	Teamwork	Skill Development	Authority to Act	Communication	Risk Control	Total	%
Teamwork	-	1	0	1	1	3	33.3 %
Skill Development	0	-	1	0	1	2	22.2 %
Authority to Act	0	0	-	1	1	2	22.2 %
Communication	0	1	0	-	1	2	22.2 %
Risk Control	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Comparing the Outcomes form Each Alternative

From the pair-wise analysis, it turned out that the most important attribute is teamwork, followed by skill development, authority to act, communication with the same score and finally risk control.

Selection of the Best Leadership Style  

The following table examines each attribute with the leadership style selected previously to determine the best option. ( High = 2 , Medium =1, Low = 0)

Table 3: Pair-Wise Comparison for Leadership Attributes with Leadership Styles

Attribute/Leadership	Teamwork (33.3 %)	Skill Development (22.2%)	Authority to Act (22.2%)	Communication (22.2%)	Risk Control ( 0 %)	Total (score *%)
Autocratic Leadership	1	1	2	1	2	1.21
Coaching Leadership	2	2	0	2	1	1.54

From the analysis above, we can conclude that coaching leadership style is better than autocratic leadership style.

How to Track the Current Team Performance

The team can track the performance of each project manager as well as the program level based on the previous leadership attributes on a daily basis to examine if the coaching leadership style is being implemented and what other improvements the project and program managers could adopt in the upcoming days.

Reference:

Barkema, E., & Moran, J. W. (2013, October). Retrieved from http://www.phf.org/resourcestools/Documents/Electronic_Tuckman.pdf

Creating a Pairwise Comparison Chart. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.eahoover.com/dconn-web/EDP/Developing_a_PCC.pdf

European Integration Office. (n.d.). Guide to THE LOGICAL FRAMEWORK APPROACH. Retrieved from http://www.evropa.gov.rs/evropa/ShowDocument.aspx?Type=Home&Id=525

Tuckman forming storming norming performing model. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.businessballs.com/managing-teams/tuckman-forming-storming-norming-performing-model-234