PM Network - Go, Team, Go!

I finally got a chance to read this month's PM Network magazine. There is an article on keeping project team motivated that caught my attention starting on page 38, written by Simon Kent.

The article reminded me of a previous post I wrote back in February, 2007 titled Motivational Theory in Project Management where I laid out some of my thoughts on the topic, specifically in relation to Frederick Hertzberg's work.

The PM Network article is mostly in line with Hertzberg. Instead of focusing on theory or concepts, the article mostly cites specific examples of how various project managers motivate their teams and keep them that way. I enjoyed the experiential approach to the topic.

Jonathan Bowman cited monetary rewards, and he's right in saying that you have to be careful how that is done. Team-wide bonuses for early completion or coming in under budget are good ways of doing this. Hertzberg cites monetary compensation as a hygiene factor, not a motivator, and I am inclined to agree with him. Money can be used as a force for recognition however, if directly linked to accomplishments. Personally, I would stay away from giving individual bonuses based directly on project performance. This could provide incentives for people to excel or look good at the expense of someone else and/or the project objectives. Instead, accomplishment should be documented in the performance review process and have their relevant impacts on salary increases.

Here are some of the techniques brought out in the article that I especially agree with:

• Create a team area for co-located projects. Do some banners and sit people who are on the project next to each other whenever possible. This fosters communication and can help create a better team atmosphere.
• Create a learning experience. This one I really enjoyed. It speaks to leveraging strengths of your team members, while assigning them a supporting role in some other area they are interested in learning more about. This way, they can learn without creating undue risk and stress that would come from just assigning them responsibility for something they unexperienced with.
• Use a monthly 'team barometer' to gauge how things are going on the project. Joli Mallick, PMP offered this up, and I think it's a fabulous idea. It's such a good idea, I'd like to throw out some of my thoughts on how to implement it:
• Exactly 3 targeted questions, no more, no less.
• Completed monthly via a website or survey tool of some kind.
  
• Anonymous
  
• No multiple choice. All free-text.
  
• The questions are generated by the head project manager, with input from subordinate project managers and leads.
  
• The questions change throughout the project. Using the same questions over and over is boring and irrelevant. A team member gets the sense their feedback is actually being used if the questions are original each month. This shouldn't be a tracking tool to measure communication performance or something. It's a direct feedback mechanism for actively managing projects day-to-day.
• Use a monthly status meeting to review the results and discuss the problems and solutions.
  

Something like the above would take a few hours each month to administer, analyze, and communicate. It would be worth it though. This is like a Delphi method session each month to highlight the biggest problems and concerns on the project as early as possible. The time spent should not be difficult to justify.

Motivational Theory in Project Management

I recently studied Frederick Hertzberg's article on his motivational theory, in the Harvard Business Review. The title is "One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?" Read it here.

I've heard about the theory before of course, vaguely referred to as the hygiene/motivator theory and it usually managed to earn about 1 slide in a presentation flooded with motivational theories. I was excited to read the author's article and understand the theory in more depth. There is a lot of value in it for project managers, and I'd like to share some of my notes and thoughts.

Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are NOT two sides of the same coin

• Job satisfaction does NOT result in motivation
• Job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are not opposites of each other
• Job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are separate issues and need to be investigated separately.
• The opposite of job satisfaction is no job satisfaction, or ‘the absence of job satisfaction’
• The opposite of job dissatisfaction is no job dissatisfaction, or ‘the absence of job dissatisfaction’

Hygiene factors – dissatisfaction avoidance – EXTRINSIC to the job (primary causes of dissatisfaction)

• Company policy and administration (policy constraints)
• Supervision
• Interpersonal relationships
• Working conditions
• Salary
• Status
• Security

Motivator factors – to experience psychological growth – INTRINSIC to the job (primary causes of satisfaction and true motivation)

• Achievement
• Recognition for achievement
• The work itself
• Responsibility
• Growth or advancement

The biggest takeaways for me were:

• The clear distinction between satisfaction and dissatisfaction as two divorced entities
  
• My agreement that hygiene factors do NOT contribute to motivation
  
• One or more of the motivator factors needs to be present for everyone on a project team in order for those team members to truly be self-motivated.
• Motivated project team members will take their piece of the puzzle and make it great.
• Unmotivated project team members will require extensive supervision and time from the project manager. These people may not be dissatisfied, just not satisfied (or unmotivated). Again, there is a big difference between dissatisfied and not satisfied.
  
• Confirmation of my experiences in 8 years of managing people and working on project teams.
  Specifically wage increases and working conditions changes do not motivate people, they are only hygiene factors that keep them from being dissatisfied. When you elevate hygiene factors in an unnatural way in an attempt to motivate, all it does is raise the minimum level required of that factor to avoid dissatisfaction. Raises tied to achievement and recognition can have a positive motivational impact if that correlation is transparent and obvious.

How do you motivate your project teams? Tell me!

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