sectra case study:team building and responsibilities

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Sectra Case

Project management responsibilities and team building


Recruiting people and Team Building

One may say that for this project, the project was successful in recruiting and integrating new employees into the project team. The issue of the project managers was to build a real team, “almost like a family”. They focused on a strong team spirit to make all the employees closer.

One of the reasons of the success of the project is that the project team really felt being part of a family. The managers were really eager to create a strong team spirit and wanted the new team members be welcomed and feel also integrated to the project. We will then see how they [the project manager and the team members] acted to facilitate a favorable incorporation of new team members and how they managed to attain and retain a relatively positive team spirit.

Here you can talk about the autonomy that the teams had - responsibilities, knew knowledge (here for the technical project manager: about managing, for the other engineers they did nothing about GSM before, etc), the activities (challenges, games), the fact that the team was mixed with seniors and young graduates (energy and dynamism, structure and stability. But also explain in which way it contributed to the good atmosphere). Then talk about the negative points also, that they were kind of a little corporation as they weren’t at all with the whole company, they were apart.

So my suggestions would be that you should more develop the different points and note quote so much as it gives the impression of a listed part. Try to start with your own ideas. For example you mention the staff acquisition model that is proposed in the PMBoK, but you do not really explain the stages and why you actually present it.

- Integration of new team members:

The project team was a mix between seniors and newly graduated. Both groups could seem very different but actually they played a special role within the organization. The first group provided stability and structure whereas new employees provided energy and ambition. We can say that the team grew steadily during the first year, reaching 26 engineers by the end of 1997. It was a real challenge because about 50% of these engineers were new employees and in most case there were recently graduated. 

The incorporation of new team members started from their first interview. The project manager allows the team to meet the candidate, have a lunch with him and could affect the final employment decision.  From the first day, the new employee has a mentor within the team and a delimited task. His responsibility increases step by step within the project. To federate the team, social activities as a project championship in go-cart racing, a driver’s course or softball games were organized. 

We can also notice that in spite of the diversity, there were 5 engineers constituting the core of the organization and we think that these engineers were very important for the stability and the integration of new employees.

- The project manager’s tasks:

We think that a good positive spirit was attained very quickly because the project manager gave a lot of responsibility to the members of the team. All the team was involved in the recruitment of new employees. As we saw before they could meet the candidate, talk with him and established more informal discussions.

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The project managers succeeded in uniting the employees toward a common goal and involving them into the project. The team was dynamic and flexible thanks to the new workers. The project manager put in place a relationship and a communication based on respect and trust. He was ready to listen to the problem and to come up to the team expectations. To finish, he used suitable tools to federate the team. He passed the importance of a team on the employees.  The most important was that the team had a common goal and all of these increased their motivation to ...

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