The following Statement of Relevance logbook is concerned with looking at people and organisation within the construction industry and how the two phenomena affect the role of the project manager.
Introductions
The following Statement of Relevance logbook is concerned with looking at people and organisation within the construction industry and how the two phenomena affect the role of the project manager.
The areas that I will look at are:
* Objective, policies and ethics.
* The construction industry and its people.
* Human resource management.
* Organisations and their structures.
* Classic and modern day organisational theories.
* Managing project teams and the team work involved throughout organisations.
* Delegation and motivation throughout the organisation.
* Authority, power and leadership that influence the people within an organisation.
* And, some Models in decision making in the organisation.
All of the above areas relate strongly to theories of organisations and the people that make the organisations up.
There are many argued points that I discuss in the statements, that give insight into the different goings on in the organisation, and how people relate to one another to achieve productive work, and how a project manager, manages a team efficiently.
Statement of Relevance One
Objectives, Policies and Organisational Ethics
From the dictionary of English Language and Culture,
Aim: noun 1) Something that you intend to do or achieve.
2) E.g. the company is aiming for a 25% increase in profit.
Objective: The dictionary also recognises as similar to the description of an aim, but it really constitutes the steps one must overcome to fulfil the aim.
Strategy is what must be achieved and policy is the framework within which the activities will be conducted (Torrington, Weightman, Jones. 1989 People and Organisation.)
People and their values implement how a strategy is implemented.
"Corporate Strategy is... concerned with what people want organisations to do... the aspirations, expectations, attitudes and personal philosophies which people hold."(Johnson and Scholes, 1984 pg16)
Strategy is affected by the aspirations and expectations of that inside and outside. Customers and employees affect the strategy. Many issues of management strategy may become public strategy and will be affected by external environments. Inside the business, values to constrain strategy are mainly in labour unions.
Policies can be problematic and restrictive, and curtail the freedom to make decisions rapidly in changing environments. However, policies do introduce change, make a managers position clear and produce consistent behaviour.
Maybe there is certain opportunity to copy policy from company to company, but generally as a rule, a policy for one organisation may not be right for another.
To formulate policy one would be best suited to follow certain steps:
. Identify the topic
2. Win support
3. Decide key points to highlight
4. Work out the details
5. Win agreement
6. Implement and publicise
7. Have procedures ready
8. Monitor an outcome
Should policies be written down? If they are you are somewhat trapped with a commitment if not it may produce behaviour that is devious or difficult to control.
Some are not written, as they are not so clear as they are confident.
Statement of Relevance Two
Construction Industry and Its People
The construction industry is a particularly diverse area, where there are many individual companies that add to its existence. As a general view this has to be the way as the product that the industry produces is unique, built to order, expensive, and the process at which it occurs is separated along many different labour lines.
In some ways it is what has been the burden for the industry. The fact that it is so diverse, means that the industry relies upon the quality of the economic climate, the markets, political influences and also people from many different backgrounds. To have all of these prerequisites working in harmony together at once is a high target to accomplish at times.
The people that do make up the team within a project can change with regards to the end product being delivered, the funding of the project, the contractual agreements, and the external environments influences. Construction projects usually are undertaken by a variety of firms which change from project to project. The work of firms in the construction industry and its professions presents two types of management issues: the problem of managing firms and the of managing projects. Therefore there can be complex forms of management matrix. A conventional form is shown below.
Architecture
Structural Engineering
Service engineering
QS
General contractor
Domestic contactor
Nominated contractor
Project no.1
Project no.2 Proj. Man.
Project no.3
Management of the Firms
Sourced from Walker, A. Project Management in Construction 4th Edition. 2002. Blackwell
The diagram implies that each of the three projects are all run using the exact same professional practices. This is rarely the case. Usually there will be different mixes of professional practices depending on the project in hand.
The industry tends to perform well but not well enough, especially management wise (e.g. Wembley Stadium and The Millennium Dome).
The Egan Report, 1998 was set on Rethinking Construction. To achieve thee targets in the diagram below the industry according to the Egan Report must be transparent to everyone in the project. There must be improved working conditions and improved management and supervisory skills. The industry must replace competitive tendering with long-term relationships based on performance and efficiency.
Drivers of change Improving the Processes Targets for improvement %
Sourced from: Blockly, D, Godfrey, P. Doing It Differently systems for rethinking Construction. 2000. Thomas Telford.
Statement of Relevance Three
Human Resource Management
Soft and Hard theories of Human Resource Management (HRM) occur within organisations. Organisations as a whole adopt their own management philosophies. Thus arranging their policies.
Tomnies (1955) saw the similarity of soft and hard to that of community and association. Where soft and hard is primarily, soft: emphasis is on people as a great asset, and hard: emphasis is on strategic business objectives. Further community and association is primarily, community: emphasis on belonging to a group brought together by common experience and shared values, and association: where people are drawn together for economic interests.
Refer to page 4 table 5 of the relevant photocopied material.
Planning plays a major role in HRM. Similarly to planning capital and financial resources.
Human ...
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Tomnies (1955) saw the similarity of soft and hard to that of community and association. Where soft and hard is primarily, soft: emphasis is on people as a great asset, and hard: emphasis is on strategic business objectives. Further community and association is primarily, community: emphasis on belonging to a group brought together by common experience and shared values, and association: where people are drawn together for economic interests.
Refer to page 4 table 5 of the relevant photocopied material.
Planning plays a major role in HRM. Similarly to planning capital and financial resources.
Human Resource Planning precedes recruitment and selection. (See Page 7 of relevant photocopied material). As someone must plan what is needed in the first place.
The size of an organisation normally determines the level to which this is approached.
The Human Resource Planner is responsible for analysing changes in labour force, forecasting what is needed and maintaining present information.
When organisations enlarge it is when a more complex Human Resource Planning system is needed i.e. say over 300 staff. There can be various stages to which a planning system may be developed. These can vary in their level of complexity and sophistication. There are 4 stages shown on pages 7-8 of the relevant photocopied material.
As was established in Project Management 1, when approaching the nature of business along the line of a systems theory, the production process consists of inputs and outputs within the certain environment.
Human Resource is a major input, and understanding how the environment is going to affect it, is critical to a company's success.
The Harvard Business School considered environmental scanning where one identifies the current environmental trends in order to evaluate their influence on HRM.
A firm may scan for example socio-economic, political, legal, demographic and educational trends. These are macro-environment trends. Also there are micro trends, which may include the firm's competitive position, its long-term strategy, its managerial philosophies, and the attitudes of its employees. This may be seen as internal environmental scanning.
Statement of Relevance Four
Organisations and Organisational Structures
'Conventional texts on management often define organisations as groups of people united by a common goal. This definition puts organisations as being rational and rather more united than may be strictly true.'
Source: Morgan, G (1989) Creative Organisation Theory. Sage
Most things are run within organisations in modern society. Some examples:
* Organisations are grand strategies that individuals create to achieve objectives that require the effort. (Argyris, 1965)
* The process co-ordinating different activities to carry out planned transactions with the environment. (Laurence and Lorsch, 1967)
Mainly differences with organisations are their purpose and its need to be formally structured and organised to achieve its goals.
Structure provides the framework for organisations and its pattern of management. A company uses structure to be efficient, to monitor itself, to account for its position, to co-ordinate work and for staff to be happy.
Peter Drucker's quote in lecture notes 7/23, shows the need for good organisational structure. He feels organisational structure should satisfy three requirements.
. Organise for business performance. A direct and simple structure.
2. The structure should contain least number of management levels. Less distorted instructions.
3. Organisational structure must make possible the training and testing of future top management.
A more contemporary writer, Child, looked at the consequences of badly designed structure,
* Low motivation and morale may result from inconsistent and insufficient delegation of decision-making.
* Late and inappropriate decisions may result form, lack of good information to the right people, poor co-ordination of decision makers in different units.
* Conflict and lack of co-ordination may result from, different goals, failure to bring people together into teams and lack of liaison.
* Poor response to new opportunities and external change may result from, failure to give attention to environmental change and failure to give adequate attention to innovation and planning of change.
* Rising costs may result from a too long hierarchy of authority, an excess of administrative work at the expense of productive work.
Sourced from, Mullins, L. Management and Organisational Behaviour. Fourth Edition. Pitman Publishing. 1996.
Statement of Relevance Five
Classical and Contemporary Organisational Theories
Classical theorists generally are formal or scientific management writers, but only a part yet mainly were criticised for not taking account of personality factors of a workforce. Such theorists are Taylor, Fayol, Urwick, Mooney and Reily and Brech.
However out of date their theories may seem there are important factors still applicable today such as structure and the technical form.
F.W.Taylor (1856-1917), was the founder of scientific management. Where he found that there is a certain way to do each job. He believed of efficiency through incentives and certain ways to work. He set out what are the principles to guide management:
* The development of true science for each persons work.
* The scientific selection, training and development of workers.
* Co-operation with workers to ensure work is carried out in the prescribed way.
* The division of work management to workers.
Workers were regarded as rational economic beings motivated directly by monetary incentives linked to the level of work output.
Taylor analysed work from the view of the supervisor, one of his contemporaries, Fayol, evolved a top management theory. Which is now commonly known as the five functions of management: planning, organising, commanding, co-ordinating and controlling.
A further classical theory but somewhat separate from management and organisation of work is, bureaucracy. Which is a theory put forward by German sociologist, Max Weber, who believed that the market structure of western world should be highly structured and holds the following qualities:
* Role definition. Duties clearly defined.
* Hierarchy of authority. A clear chain of relationship and responsibility.
* Rules and procedures. Consistent and clearly defined elaborate set of rules to the company.
* Qualification for office. People are appointed on merit and attested.
* Impartiality. Duties are discharged impartially. And people are motivated by prospect of moving up the hierarchy.
More contemporary theories of organisation's and their relevance to management, included a change from the Taylorism thinking that a worker was just an extension to the machine, but started to consider the human characteristics of the workers. Therefore from the early 1900's theories began to change.
Ideas that came about from the Human Relations Movement started to find better ways of getting the best from the workers but also keeping them happy.
Famous writers included Elton Mayo who wrote upon the famous Hawthorne studies of Western Electric Company. Both the Hawthorne studies and that of the studies that Mayo carried out were both based upon treating the workforce with compassion and seeing the change in production. As Mayo combined these two studies he concluded:
* Work pacing. Employees pace of work is set informally between themselves.
* Recognition. Acknowledgement of employee's contribution increases output.
* Social interaction. Workers that can select their working environment to a certain extent tended to perform better.
* Grievances. Scope for employees to air their grievances.
* The Hawthorne Effect. Novelty of working arrangements due to changes and workers being at the centre of attention led to improved performance. This was discovered due to the confusion of the Hawthorne Studies.
Sourced from: Torrington, D. Weightman, J. Johns, K. Effective Management - People and Organisation. Prentic Hall. (1989)
The Human Relations approach has certain criticisms, such as it being insufficiently scientific and that it takes too narrow a view of the role of the organisation and society.
Therefore into the 1950's and 1960's came along further theorists who adopted more psychological orientation, it is known as the Neo - Human Relations theories.
Maslow (1943), put forward the theory of workers of having a hierarchy of human needs (see lecture notes).
Herzberg and McGregor, are also best-known contributors to the neo - human approach. Herzberg theory, contained the hygiene and maintenance factors, which are concerned with the job environment. McGregor held the famous view of Theory X and Theory Y. Where the style of management adopted is a function of the managers attitudes towards human nature and behaviour at work.
Statement of Relevance Six
Managing Project Teams and Team Work
Initially when working in teams, the task that the group has to achieve and the processes by which it is done has to be understood. Also the degree of involvement that the individual people have with one and other affects the team at work.
Teams can at times be seen as a bad thing or a good thing. They can work slowly yet they can also work fast. If a problem to be faced is unfamiliar, teams are likely to perform better. Whereas if the problem faced is common and understood, then individuals usually work more effectively.
Katz and Kahn (1978) advocate groups or teams as being a good place for individuals to find a sense of accomplishment and completion of a task. (Torrington, D. Effective Management People and Organisation. 1996.)
Members of a group must work well together as a team. Belbin, described a functionality of 8 team roles. Team role is a pattern of behaviour characteristics where one team member interacts with the other. The 8-team roles are,
* Company worker
* Chairman
* Shaper
* Plant
* Resource investigator
* Monitor evaluator
* Team worker
* Completer finisher
A creative team requires a balance of all of these roles. Belbin said that a good combination of these roles, (but not necessarily all of these are needed) would be able to face the most difficult of challenges. Team members were chosen initially on the functional abilities they possess, and they would be expected to act upon these within the team. Yet also Belbin believed that the member should be prepared as a back up to any of the other roles within the group.
For a team to work together well, many researchers have analysed the methods of communication within the team to understand any improvements possible. The classic study of this was Leavitt(1951) shown below.
Types of Communication Network
The Wheel- all communication passes through the person at C, but A, B, D, E may be dissatisfied with their roles.
The Chain- no one member can communicate with all the others, some are satisfied but may be in accurate.
The Circle- the chain is closed; every one is equal good level of general satisfaction.
The Y- combines features of the wheel and the chain.
The Completely Connected Network- every member can communicate freely, unsatisfactory for dealing with straightforward matters.
Tuckman (1965) suggests that there are clear stages in the growth of relationships in groups of people working together. These are known as forming, storming, norming and performing. This position of analysis by the worker is generally undertaken before the stage of communication and the way that they work together.
Stages in the growth of group cohesion and performance is shown in the table below.
Stage of
Development
Process
Outcome
Forming
There is anxiety, dependence on leader, testing to find out the nature of the situation and what behaviour is acceptable.
Members find out what the task is, what the rules are and what methods are appropriate.
Storming
Conflict between sub-groups, rebellion against leader, opinions are polarised, resistance to control by group.
Emotional resistance to demands of task.
Norming
Development of group cohesion, norms emerge, resistance is overcome and conflicts patched up; mutual support and sense of group identity.
Open exchange of views and feelings; co-operation develops.
Performing
Interpersonal problems are resolved; interpersonal structure becomes the means of getting things done; roles are flexible and functional.
Solutions to problems emerge; there are constructive attempts to complete tasks and energy is now available for effective work.
Sourced from: Torrington, D. Effective Management- People and Organisation. 1996. Prentice Hall.
Statement of Relevance Seven
Delegation and Motivation
Delegation, is where the various activities of an organisation is distributed among its members. When the manager has to get things done the efforts of other people come in to play. This is where a relationship between the manager and the sub-ordinate occurs.
There may well be as some may see it, an art to delegation. This is to ensure that the sub-ordinates are clear on the terms of tasks, and to give the authority and the responsibility, so that the manger can then monitor the performance. In some ways delegation is a social skill.
Effective delegation must entail the right people. A manager must know what to delegate, when and to whom. Yet also, one of the most difficult aspects of successful delegation is the fact that if a manger delegates responsibility, then he/she must expect that the sub-ordinate may undertake the task in a different manner from themselves.
Not only is delegation a matter of training and learning for the sub-ordinate, but it is also for the manager. Mistakes naturally occur, this is part of the learning curve. Yet if the sub-ordinate has made a mistake a manager must encourage the worker not beat him down. And further still, the manager must be sure not to allow 'reverse delegation' occur where the sub-ordinate puts the responsibility back to the manager. A manager must work with the worker to see where things have gone wrong.
Main stages in the Process of Delegation are shown below.
Sourced from: Mullin, L. Management and Organisation Behaviour 4th Edition. 1996. Pitman Publishing.
Motivation is concerned with why people behave in a certain way. Mullins (1996) states the underlying concept of motivation is some driving force within individuals by which they attempt to achieve some goal in order to fulfil some need or expectation.
This theory gives rise to the basic motivation model which is shown below.
Sourced from: Mullins, L. Management and Organisational Behaviour 4th Edition. 1996. Pitman Publishing.
McGregor (1960), established what is probably the best-known theory about management attitudes to their workers, Theory X and Y.
In brief, Theory X was concerned with seeing the worker as having an inherent dislike of work and therefore the worker must in some way be directed to work to a satisfactory standard, and this is generally what the worker wanted.
Theory Y however was concerned with workers wanting to work if they know that they are relied upon. Committing their objectives is a type of reward that is associated to their achievements. The worker does have a capacity of imagination and creativity to give to their work, if given the opportunity.
Sourced from: McGregor, D. The Human Side of Enterprise. 1960. McGraw Hill. Pg 47-48.
Maslow (1954), was famous for establishing the Hierarchy of Human Needs. These are shown as below.
Self Actualisation Needs
Esteem or Ego Needs
Social Needs
Safety Needs
Physiological Needs
The ranking above is based on two main assumptions. One, that only when a set of needs is satisfied can you move onto accomplishing the next set of needs. There fore for mangers the implications are, that is not worth trying to satisfy a persons esteem needs or self actualisation needs unless the lower needs are satisfied first.
Herzberg (1968), developed Maslow's theory by making a stronger distinction between lower and higher order needs. He described the lower needs as potential dissatisfiers, or hygiene factors, and only the higher order needs were the satisfiers or motivators.
Statement of Relevance Eight
Authority, Power and Leadership
Organisational structure and culture are ways of things getting done: authority, power and leadership and autonomy are ways of getting things done. The performance of the manager will be improved by understanding how the features of authority, leadership and power mesh together.
"The notion of leadership is that there is a combination of personal qualities and skills that enables some people to elicit from their subordinates a response that is enthusiastic, cohesive and effective, while other people in the same situation cannot achieve such results."
From, Torrington, D. Effective Management, People and Organisation. 1989. Prentice Hall.
John Adair has been widely influential on models of leadership within the United Kingdom. Adair produced a picture of leadership by arguing that people in working groups have three sets of needs, two of which are shared with all group members, and one being related to each individual.
. The task to be accomplished together.
2. Maintaining the social cohesion of the group.
3. Individual needs of team members.
Adair's three circle model
Of leadership
The above diagram shows the three sets of needs, or leadership functions, are expressed as three overlapping circles. This emphasises the essential unity of leadership, so that a single action by a leader may have influence in all three areas.
Authority stems from a structural position within an organisation, but can have its problems for a manager in that it gives them a different frame of reference than that of their sub-ordinates.
In many ways the essence of authority is where a manager has the capabilities, and the expertise to be authoritarian. Its relationship to leadership and power is different with regards to the persona of the manager in position. Authority is the right that the manager has to guide his/her workforce.
The subordinates look to the manager for authority on which they can rely to act on their behalf, solve problems and offer guidance. The problems therefore can involve the manager not wanting this deferred reference that he/she is a superior being to the workforce.
Authority does have a certain unavoidable reference to power. However this differs when in regards to legitimate power and illegitimate power.
In an authoritarian position you are regarded as having a certain amount of right to impose your power upon others within an organisational framework. When power is used outside this framework to impose will on others it may be seen as illegitimate power.
In some regards it be positive form of power.
'In a case for example where there is a balanced pursuit of self-interest in the welfare of others; viewing situations in a win-win situation, engaging in open problem solving and then moving to action and influencing.' French and Bell (1990)
Project managers must understand that power has the potential for influence over others outside the legitimate authority structure. At the same time the manager must avoid becoming paranoid over power, which is easily done when working in complex organisations.
Statement of Relevance Nine
Models in Organisational Decision Making
The project manger be sure of being rational (but not overly) when confronting a decision making process. The system must be controlled. Initially there must be full understanding of the problem at hand, to do this facts must be obtained. Next, objectives must be established suitably, and analysis of the consequences of any decisions must be understood. Once a decision has been made there must be a new set of rules that are applied to establish a positive feedback and control system.
There is an approach to the decision making process that lies along side other approaches in organisation and management. Viewing the organisation as a system emphasises the need for good information and channels of communication in order to assist effective decision-making in the organisation. The decision theory approach focuses attention on managerial decision-making and how organisations process and use information in making decisions. Decision making writers have seeked to explain the ways in which conflicts are resolved and choices are made.
The leading writers in the decision making approach include, Barnard, Simon, Cyert and March.
Barnard, believed in co-operative action throughout an organisation. People should communicate and have common commitment and contribution to achieve what is commonly required. This in turn would lead to a co-operative system within the organisation. Simon, developed the theory in that he saw management as a decision making process, and wished to establish how the decision-making can be improved. He failed to see that man is completely rational and was content in seeing an administrative decision making process where man 'satisfices' rather than 'maximises'. Administrative decision-making is the achievement of satisfactory rather than optimal results in solving problems.
Conclusions
The nine areas of relevance all paint a very descriptive picture of organisations of old and new, and managerial theories also of old and new.
There has been over the years a number of changes that a project manger has had to face and adjust to in order to have reliable organisations, as free as possible for disruptions and unavoidable changes.
In general I have learnt that these changes have occurred in areas of,
Ethics within the organisation,
The people and relationships within an organisation,
How people are managed effectively within an organisation,
The basic theories of the whole organisation,
How people are not only managed, but also how they are influenced within the organisation.
There has been without a doubt over the last 20 - 40 years great emphasis put upon the people in an organisation rather than the organisation itself. This in a variety of ways been a good and a bad thing.
The underlying factor that I found throughout the topics is the debate between control of the organisation in order to see the worker perform at a steady rate, and allowing the worker to be comfortable and perform at his/her own pace. Both arguments have there positive factors and in modern organisations you find a combination of the two ideas in practice.
Bibliography
. Walker, A. Project Management in Construction (3rd Edition). 1997. Blackwell Science
2. Maylor, H. Project Management. 1996. Pitman Publishing
3. Mullins, L. Management and Organisational Behaviour (4th Edition). 1996. Pitman Publishing.
4. Torrington, D. Effective Management. People and Organisation. 1995. Prentice Hall.
5. Walker, A. Project Management in Construction (4th Edition). 2002. Blackwell Science
6. Blockly, D, Godfrey, P. Doing It Differently systems for rethinking Construction. 2000. Thomas Telford.
Neil Anstee (98209214) BE206 Project Management 2