manage team performance - tafe nsw

Manage team performance: Worksheet 1 2002_311_006 December 2003

Manage team performance

Have you considered what your organisational, work group and personal work goals are? Do you know how they support each other?

Work goals require co-ordination of resources, technology and work loads with other members of the group. This may require negotiation skills and control measures to ensure the goals are attained.

All of these activities require planning and scheduling. A work plan may include a sales plan, reporting plan, production plan, budgetary plan, work schedule, and team or individual learning goals.

Planning and scheduling must be done with the input of all stakeholders, and all needs and concerns must be addressed.

Key terms

Goals Goals are desired long-term outcomes for individuals or groups, or for your entire organisation.

Objectives Objectives are short-term goals.

Key Result Areas (KPAs) Those parts of the business operation which are crucial to its success.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Agreed yardsticks of satisfactory progress in particular areas of the organisation’s activities.

Goals Goals are desired long-term outcomes for individuals or groups, or for your entire organisation. Organisational goals provide direction for management


and are the basis of corporate planning. Goals are achieved by setting and attaining objectives.

Objectives Objectives are short-term goals. Consider them as clear, specific measuring posts indicating progress towards achieving a goal.

Investigate

Have you ever considered how your organisation’s goals and objectives are being met by what you do in your job? In order to do so, investigate the goals of your firm or of a firm with which you are familiar.

Multiple goals

At first glance it may appear that your organisation has one single goal, for instance to make a profit, or to provide a service efficiently. But if you look closely, you will probably find that your organisation has multiple goals.

Firms may seek to increase their market share and to provide employee satisfaction, as well as to be profitable. To identify your organisation’s goals, you should look at corporate or business plans, mission/vision statements outlining to the public the performance goals of the firm, annual reports, and public relations announcements.

As you do so, however, you should be aware that an organisation’s published goals may not always be reflected in reality, and that other, unstated goals may be being pursued as well. These can only be identified by examining what the organisation actually does.

Important goals for organisations could include the following:

• greater profitability

• increased sales

• increased market share

• improved image as a good corporate citizen

• fewer customer complaints

• a better return on investment.


Goal-setting at different levels

Your organisation’s goals should guide the things you do now and what your work group aims for. Goals determine what needs to be done. The old saying, ‘If you don’t know where you are going then any road will get you there’, suggests that if you have no clear goals you may not make the best use of your resources and your efforts may be wasted.

Your work goals may be set at a number of different levels in the organisation. The following set of goals will give you an idea of these different levels in a sample organisation.

The organisation’s mission

• ‘to produce the best quality mobile phones in the world’

Directional goal

• ‘to have all presently available technology features in our mobile phones within two years’

Departmental goal

• ‘to develop design specifications for the use of video features in the current model phones within six months’

Team goal

• ‘to design a video system for the mobile phone within three months’

Individual goal

• ‘to research the dimensions and requirements for incorporating the video capacity to the screen of the mobile phone within one month’

As you can see, goal setting is a vital function in any organisation, and is undertaken at various levels.


Now that you have considered your own job and how it contributes to organisational goals, consider how you do your job. The way you plan and schedule tasks will be affected by guidelines contained in corporate policies, sectional or departmental requirements, and personal plans.

In turn, the way your work group schedules tasks in order to meet agreed objectives must also fit in with personal schedules and organisational guidelines.

Sourcing information to determine goals The information needed for making decisions about personal and organisational goals can come from various sources. Internal sources, within the organisation, include accounting information and sales and production figures. External sources of information include all sources outside of the organisation such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, research reports and so on.

The way you do your job is influenced by official standards, by the law of the land, by Occupational Health and Safety regulations, and by company policy.

Guidelines for job behaviour may be found in the following:

1 minutes of an Annual General Meeting (AGM) of your organisation

2 your organisation’s Mission/Vision Statement

3 industry standards recommended by experts such as the International Standards Organisation (ISO) *

4 industry codes of practice **

5 your manager’s expectations and standards.

*Note on 3 above:

Many of the guidelines of the ISO, for instance ISO 9000/2000, are used by Australian organisations as benchmarks for gaining quality accreditation. You may wish to access the following website to explore industry standards.

http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/iso9000-14000/iso9000/qmp.html

**Note on 4 above

With regard to industry codes of practice, the following website provides a number of different codes of practice for various financial service organisations. These contain the standards that customers expect when dealing with finance companies.


http://www.fido.asic.gov.au/fido/fido.nsf/byheadline/Industry +codes+of+practice?opendocument

Think

In the following scenario, reflect on the way the above five sources of job behaviour guidelines influence the way the job is done.

Imagine you are a customer service operator for a service provider. You are a sales assistant in a hardware store which is part of a chain of such stores; or you are working as first customer contact in a call-centre.

Your job tasks must first reflect your organisational goals. These may be outlined in an organisational Mission Statement, and may state that your firm will offer excellent customer service and ultimate customer satisfaction (AGM and Mission Statement).

So the way you greet the customer and how you handle any inquiry must support your organisational goals. Obviously, you will need to be polite and accommodating (just put yourself in the customer’s place and imagine how you would wish to be treated). You may also need to observe privacy laws, so as a call centre operator, for example, you may need to inform the customer that the conversation may be recorded for training purposes, and ask if they have any objection (Privacy Act, ISO 9000).

You may also need to consider safety issues—particularly in a retail business context—such as locating electrical cords and office furniture according to current WorkCover regulations (Occupational Health and Safety).

Finally, your manager may require you to answer each telephone call within three rings and to complete the call within 60 seconds. Floor sales personnel may be required to keep customers waiting no longer than 30 seconds (manager’s expectations, corporate standards and industry benchmarks).

Measuring progress towards achievement of goals

From time to time, organisations need to assess their progress towards achieving corporate goals. To do this, they look closely at key result areas, those parts of the business operation which are crucial to its success; and at key performance indicators (KPIs), agreed yardsticks of satisfactory progress in particular areas of the organisation’s activities.


Research

Look up the following organisational web sites, and note the way they present key result areas and key performance indicators (KPIs). You could then extend your search to organisations in the same industry or business as your own.

http://www.nemmco.com.au/publications/annual/kpi.htm

http://www.portbris.com.au/asp/portfacilities/kpi

Reaching agreement with others

Personal goal-setting in a team context

You may have heard the saying: ‘dream, believe, achieve’. But it is only by setting goals and establishing action plans that we can start to realise our dreams.

When we are working with other people, we need to co-ordinate our own plans with those of others. Working in an organisation, our own performance goals and measures of success need to harmonise with those of the organisation itself, and with those of our work colleagues.

Planning involves setting goals and deciding how best to achieve them. A very old saying still rings true today: ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’. Planning is like a ship’s rudder. Without it, it is impossible to control the effects of the environment and unexpected occurrences, while still reaching the goal.

Planning does not guarantee that you will reach your goals, but it will keep you focussed, and you have a greater likelihood of goal achievement if you make detailed plans.

Establishing appropriate and realistic goals is a pre-requisite for the planning process. Brainstorming is a good tool to use at the beginning of the planning process.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a technique designed to stimulate creative thinking and generate new ideas within a short period of time. It is a process whereby individuals or groups write down any and every creative thought that comes


to mind when focussing on a task or problem. The aim is to collect as many ideas as possible. After all the ideas generated have been written down, the next step is to evaluate all ideas and discard those that are deemed to be worthless.

Once you have identified your goals you must consider those of work team members. You will need to negotiate team objectives and allocate available resources. This will require gaining the agreement of all team members on:

• their personal goals

• the team’s objectives

• how their performance will be measured, and

• against what they will be measured.

This task may need to be handled by your manager.

It is imperative to have a clear understanding of what personal work goals are, and what they involve. We set goals for ourselves every day, some simple, others complex, some long-term, others short-term. If we are going to achieve our goals they must be clear and concise.

If they are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-framed (SMART), they will provide focus and direction and be more likely to be achieved. By the use of action plans, we are able to monitor and control our activities to achieve our goals.

There are six steps you can take when planning goals:

1 Establish a realistic target.

2 Use the 5 W’s and H triggers (What? Who? Where? When? Why? How?) to determine what needs to be done, who will do it, when will it be done, and so on.

3 Sequence activities in the order in which they should occur.

4 Communicate your plan to those who will be involved in it or affected by it.

5 Implement your plan.

6 Check your progress against the plan to make sure that your original target is being achieved.

Benefits of goal-setting

Setting goals has some major benefits. It can assist in production or output, as staff are more aware of their firm’s expectations. Goal-setting makes the efforts of people more focussed. Goals assist in the monitoring process. Work activity standards can be set and individual output or behaviour can be measured against them and corrections made if necessary.


Another benefit of goal-setting is increased motivation. A sense of accomplishment can be gained from meeting goal targets, and often additional recognition and rewards will follow.

Setting individual, personal goals gives you a sense of direction and purpose, which helps when deciding on goals. Goals should be realistic and challenging and should address and conform to the main purpose of your organisation. They should be concise, specific and measurable, be attainable yet challenging. Individual goals should be co-ordinated with other group goals and compatible with the firm’s overall goals.

Setting goals should be done in a logical and orderly manner. By following the steps provided below your goal-setting is sure to obtain the best results:

• Identify the goal you want to achieve. Be specific about what you are aiming for

• Be clear on how performance will be measured

• Set objectives or targets along the way to increase motivation

• Set the time-span involved. Goals need to have a completion date if they are to have a positive impact on performance

• Set goal priorities. Goals need to be prioritised so that effort and action can be proportional to the importance of the goal

• Determine co-operation requirements. Before determining your goals, check whether achieving them depends on co-operation from others. If so, you will need to co-ordinate tasks with others and consider the impact of personal inter-relationships. Plan ahead.

Collaborative goal-setting

The way team goals are set is determined by your organisational culture, the time-frames your organisation’s work cycles may require, and the sort of activities your organisation is engaged in. Some work group goals are given to the group in detail by senior managers. Elsewhere, management may give the work group a general target, and then as a group exercise the team may need to work together to define specific goals that need to be achieved in order to achieve the broader organisational goals.

An important principle of teamwork in goal-setting is that the more people involved in defining the goals they have to work on, the greater their commitment and motivation to achieve those goals.

Specific techniques for collaborative goal-setting

There are various different ways that groups can arrive at agreed goals. Two of these are the Nominal Group Technique and the Delphi Method. Using these techniques, groups can systematically and logically solve problems and reach agreement.


Research

Using the assistance of a search engine (google.com.au or yahoo.com.au) or the management section of your local library, investigate the Nominal Group Technique and the Delphi Method.

Allocation of tasks and job descriptions within a team Once the members of the work group have decided what their goals are, they must then decide what role each person in the group or team is going to play in order for the goal to be achieved. This requires not only the identification of job tasks, but also the ways in which those tasks can be done collaboratively with others in the group.

First step: the job description

The first step is to consult your job description, in order to identify what is expected of you in your own job. A job description is a document outlining the tasks, duties and responsibilities of a position. It describes job content, work environment and the conditions of employment. Personal specifications, on the other hand, record the knowledge, skills and personal requirements sought in the individual employee. Some organisations may prefer to use key performance indicators to specify achievement expectations.

The key performance indicators or job description for your own position may be obtained from your human resources manager or line manager. You should consult your job description as a starting point when setting personal work goals.

Negotiation

In a work environment, individual goals must be in harmony with, and support, organisational objectives. This would be relatively simple except that we don’t work in isolation. Our goals need to not only reinforce organisational goals but also to complement other team members’ goals.

Once you have identified your own goals you must now consider those of your team-mates. Team priorities can only be set when all team members are consulted and have some input into the priority setting process. By getting all members involved, the whole team will take ownership of the set goals and priorities.


Team objectives, priorities and available resources will need to be negotiated. This will require gaining the agreement of all team members on their personal goals, their role in the team, and the team’s objectives. It will also require agreement and clarification on how performance will be measured.

Use of problem-solving tools such as brainstorming, Nominal Group Technique or Delphi (as mentioned earlier) may help in the negotiation process.

Negotiation is a means of achieving co-operation by bargaining, in order to achieve a situation where everyone wins. Not all members of your group or team will share the same personal values and goals, and this will affect the dynamics of the team. However, if you negotiate with the firm intention of finding a solution that will please most of the members, you have a win-win situation.

Tasks can then be divided up or scheduled among the group or team members. Action or commitment planners allow you to list the tasks for each individual team member’s attention. Time-frames need to be agreed upon, and completion dates negotiated.

An example of a completed action planner for a team is shown below.

ITEM NO

ACTION BY WHOM

BY WHEN

TO WHOM

COMPLETED

1 Prepare draft sales budget

Jenny 30 August

George

2 Revise staffing plan

Dennis 25 August

Karen 30 July

3 Meeting on training proposal

Ian 15 July Ruth 12 July

Think

Consider a situation where you have had to negotiate with others to get something achieved. You may have been chosen as part of a task force to investigate a problem or policy revision. Your organisation may have been restructured and you may have been involved in the creation of a team structure. Perhaps you have been a member of a team involved in preparing a group assignment at school. You may be a member of the local football or softball team.


Can you think of an example of how you have negotiated with others to accomplish both your and their goals more efficiently?

Work objectives and priorities

Prioritising and scheduling

By developing a plan you focus on what you want to achieve. You will need to prioritise: determine in what order tasks will be done, when each task will be completed, how each task will be done, and how its achievement will be measured.

It is important to assess the workload to be completed so that the right resources can be allocated. The estimated workload will decide the time that has to be allocated to the task. Obviously the time required to complete a task will be affected by the physical resources available.

Scheduling is an important step in the process of converting your well-thought-out plan into action. The inefficient scheduling of work can result in poor utilisation of resources. People and equipment can be idle in one area while bottlenecks are occurring in another.

Another negative result of inefficient scheduling is dysfunctional decision-making regarding task priorities. Important jobs may be put off while jobs with lower priorities are completed.

A schedule will list activities, in step-by-step order, and indicate what is to be done, who is to do it and the time that has been allocated to complete it. It must be realistic and can only be prepared after a situation is analysed and assurance is given that all estimates are realistic, whether they be estimates of time or of finance.

To schedule effectively we need to know:

• details of the task involved

• estimates of the time needed to complete the activity

• number of items or services to be completed within a time-frame

• number of machines and/or staff available to complete the task

• external and internal environmental factors that may influence performance.


Planning and scheduling tools Tools that can be used to plan, schedule or control activities include Gantt or Load charts and Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) charts. These tools allow the manager to chart activities and planned output over a period of time.

Gantt charts

Gantt charts are used to plan and monitor business activities. A Gantt chart is similar to a bar chart. It shows start and finish dates for the activities that make up a project. This will enable you to see at a glance the stages of a project and the amount of time needed to complete the job.

Gantt charts are useful for scheduling unrelated activities that can occur at the same time. A Gantt chart could be used to identify and allocate tasks and responsibilities of staff involved in planning a conference; or you could schedule a number of sub-goals that will make up a total goal, such as the following example of a Gantt chart for the replacement of a machine:

Figure 1: A Gantt chart for implementing the replacement and use of a new machine.

To make a Gantt chart, you need to identify:

• step-by-step activities needed to get the job done

• dates on which each of the tasks should start and finish

• the completion date for the whole project.

Then, as the activity or task is progressing, you need to record the actual time taken to complete the task.

PERT charts

Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) network diagrams are flowcharts that are used for more complicated and complex projects. The network diagram is a picture of what should be happening in order to


complete a set task. It illustrates the tasks that must be done before others, and those that can be done concurrently.

Developed by the US Navy, this technique is used for scheduling complicated projects that are made up of many activities, some of which are interdependent. It is a method of flowcharting to graphically highlight relationships between different activities.

PERT diagrams are not the type of planning tools used in highly repetitive manufacturing operations. Their major value is in one-off projects that need careful overall planning and control, such as building or publishing projects.

Long term goals

Just as a Gantt chart can be used as a tool to plan the attainment of a short- term goal or task, long-term goals or tasks can also be planned.

Think back to your own goals. Where do you want to be in one or two years’ time? What position do you hope to hold in your firm? Do you hope to be promoted? Or do you hope to be working elsewhere?

In order to achieve your long-term goal you will need to develop an individual action plan. The following steps can help you achieve this:

1 Break your goal into achievable sub-goals that are both realistic and motivating.

2 For each sub-goal identify what needs to be done, who will do it, and when it needs to be completed.

3 Build an overall timetable, so that you can monitor the achievement of each task and be on track to achieve the long-term goal.

4 Keep a written record of your progress as a reminder and a stimulus to keep moving forward.

The following example provides a format for an action plan:

Goal Action Who Date

Take an overseas trip this December

1.April, 2003

Go to bank to discuss finance

Me This week

Open a savings account

Me This week

Save approx. $100 per week

Me On-going

Decide on location Me June

Confirm date and cost

Me June

Pay deposit Me September 10


Organise passport Travel agent September

Pay second instalment

Me October

Pay final instalment

Me November

Confirm bank balance and finance

Me November

Leave on holiday Me December

Factors affecting the achievement of work objectives

Possible problems and contingency plans

It is unwise to assume that plans can always be implemented without difficulties being encountered. Difficulties can be the result of many events occurring. Consider the following:

• competitors cut prices in response to your company’s aggressive marketing campaign

• a strike on the waterfront leaves you without materials needed by your factory

• a key employee resigns

• rising interest rates reduces demand for your product

• drought increases the price of required commodities

• we experience an extended period without gas or electricity.

Good planners take into consideration the fact that they might have to respond to unexpected events such as those we have listed above. They might ask ‘what if?’ questions to better understand the problems that we may encounter. For example, ‘What if our main competitor drops prices in response to our advertising campaign?’ and ‘What if interest rates rise by more than two percent?’.

Unexpected events do not have to stop us from attaining our goals. What we need are contingency plans to deal with such events. A contingency plan identifies possible changes in the internal or external environment of an organisation, and the action that should be taken to deal with the situation. For example, hiring additional workers if demand pushes up sales to above


the anticipated levels.

Think

Think about a goal which you have not been able to achieve, and consider why you have not been able to achieve it.What were the factors that made it difficult to achieve this goal?How might you have overcome these obstacles? What are some reasons you may have had in the past for not achieving this goal?

To help plan for contingencies you must identify not only factors which you can control, but also uncontrollable factors, such as economic recession, technological developments, or accidents. Then, to minimise the impact of these factors, a worst-case scenario can be planned.

Think

Identify two short-term or long-term work goals in your job or organisation, and think about what might possibly go wrong in the future. What obstacles are likely? (Don’t be afraid to let your imagination run wild! Often unforeseeable factors are so unlikely that we refuse to consider them, and therefore are unprepared.)

The next step after identifying possible obstacles is to develop a contingency plan to cope with their occurrence.

The effectiveness of this plan will depend on the information and input that goes into its development. It is advantageous to consider various possible actions that could be taken and then choose the preferred alternative.

Decision-making can be made easier by using the skills of other team members. Developing contingency plans collaboratively within work groups is likely to produce more complete information, more alternatives and increased acceptance of them. Brainstorming uses an idea-generating process that specifically encourages the identification of alternatives.

Although brainstorming is usually done in groups, you may use the same principles to generate ideas individually. This can be done by jotting down ideas or a number of possible solutions, (including far-fetched ones), trying to generate a high volume of ideas, combining and building on the ideas. All this can be done individually, and it can be very effective.

Ultimately, your chosen solution should be based on careful consideration


of the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative. Each alternative should be evaluated on its feasibility, quality, acceptability, costs, reversibility and ethics.

Efficient and effective use of business technology Once your plan has been decided, methods must be put in place to ensure that the goals are achieved. Technology can be of great use in both the planning and the monitoring of what needs to be done and how the tasks can be managed.

Being able to use email or the Internet, use a spreadsheet or Powerpoint presentation, or operate the newest photocopier and clear the paper jams; are all skills that can help you manage your work priorities and complete tasks as scheduled.

We all need to rise to the occasion and understand this new technological environment and operate within it, developing and maintaining sound information technology (IT) skills.

Applications such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Lotus Notes are now regarded as playing a large part in daily office routines. Other software that may be used includes programs that manage production processes.

Workflow planning and monitoring

Some work places have an internal workflow monitoring system, which enables managers to collect, process and provide feedback. This can help employees to improve performance, project timelines and costs, and design new products and services.

The Internet and intranets are now proving to be invaluable for information seeking as well as identifying successful strategies used by overseas affiliates.

Computerised control systems can produce updated information regarding the use of resources or the time taken to complete a task. Inventory control systems can furnish up-to-date information on stock levels and re-ordering procedures. Your firm may use other control systems that give constant updates or progress reports on factors that are pertinent to the attainment of goals.

Other areas that have been affected by technological change include:

• the adoption of robotics in manufacturing

• laser scanning in supermarkets

• automated storage and retrieval systems


• DVD technology in motor vehicles

• optical scanning.

Using technology to monitor, record and report on individual and team objectives

An additional aspect of reporting on quality is to examine “control” as a key part of managing quality. Control can be defined as:

“The process of monitoring activities to ensure they are being accomplished as planned, and of correcting any significant deviations.” (Robbins, Bergman, Stagg and Coulter (2000) Management, Prentice Hall).

Managers cannot really know whether their units are performing until they have compared actual performance of those activities with the desired standard.

Part of the monitoring and assessing process is the recording and reporting of the information gained from feedback.

The technology you use to record and report this information must be appropriate to your work team’s needs and resources. The method of recording information may be manual, mechanical or electronic.

The following are some data management systems that you may use in your organisation:

• Transaction processing systems (TPS) are used to collect basic data from transactions and routine operations. Some examples are accounting, purchasing, and inventory systems.

• Management information systems (MIS) build on information gathered by the TPS. Some MIS functions are to provide summarised reports to be used by management. MIS facilitate a wide range of decisions.

• Decision support systems assist in decision-making when unexpected occurrences arise or when information needs further analysis before a decision is made.

• Executive information systems assist senior managers who may not be skilled computer users to analyse the data in the MIS by highlighting areas that need further consideration by management.

• Office systems range from the simple typewriter or filing cabinet, to complex systems such as word processing, desktop publishing, electronic mail and video conferencing systems.

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