Measures of Central Tendency: Mean, Median and Mode
Dornell.izella
1. 2011 Program Management
Challenge
Developing High
Performance Teams
Presenters:
Bobby Watkins NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center
Izella M. Dornell U.S. Department of Commerce
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3. High Performance Teams
Overview
• Developing strong teams and relationships
within the team are major components that
enable mission success
• Optimizing team performance should be a
high priority for an organization’s
leadership
• A team’s functionality can mean the
difference between having the appropriate
resources made available or landing on a
“high risk” cancellation list 3
4. Six Step Problem Solving Process
Act Plan
1. Identify/
Select
Problem
6. Evaluate 2. Analyze
the Solution the Problem
5. Implement 3. Generate
the Solution Potential
Solutions
4. Select &
Plan Solution
Check Do 4
5. Blue Print Tools
• Team Building
– Fostering collaboration through “team
building” is the key component for
effective execution of the organization’s
mission, programs and projects
– Must realize that people are the
foundation for building and nurturing
high performing teams
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6. Team Building Components
• Purpose
• Structure
• Motivation
• Dynamics
• Communication
• Respect for members
• Feedback
• Closure
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7. High Performance Teams
Leadership
• Effective leaders first gain an
understanding of the context of their
organization
• Mission
• Stakeholders
• Constraints
• Political environment
• Culture
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8. High Performance Teams
Leadership
• Characteristics
– Use different leadership styles
– Define and focus on goals and objectives
– Articulate a strategy for moving forward
– Engage employees/team members
– Put customers first
– Involve key stakeholders
– Seize the moment
– Communicate, communicate and communicate
– Create alignment
– Expect the unexpected
– Stick with it
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9.
10. Who Touches the Process?
• Process Owner
• Professional staff who do the work
• Technical staff who do the work
• IT representative
• HR representative
• Finance representative
• Customers & other stakeholders
• Suppliers
• Benchmarking partner
• Somebody with facilitation skills
• Somebody who has done a process improvement
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12. A Team Facilitator Who:
– Consults (Knows when to shut up)
– Focuses the Team
– Encourages Initiative
– Shares Tasks & Leadership
– Trains & Develops
– Cultivates Honesty
– Cultivates Respect
– Coordinates Activities
– Motivates the Team
– Measures, Measures, Measures
– Cultivates Creativity
– Runs Interference
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13. Team Members Who:
• Care
• Take Responsibility
• Freely Offer Ideas & Talents
• Encourage the Ideas & Talents of Others
• Focus
• Think (till it hurts)
• Are Positive
• Appreciate & Utilize Diversity
• Helps the Leader
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14. Meeting Ground Rules
• 1. Respect Each Other
• 2. Share Responsibility
• 3. Criticize Ideas Not People
• 4. Keep An Open Mind
• 5. Question & Participate
• 6. Attend All Meetings
• 7. Listen Constructively & Carefully
• 8. Be On Time
• 9. Make All Points At Meetings
– (Not In Parking Lot)
• 10. Be Candid & Diplomatic 14
15. High Performance Teams
Balanced Results
Processes implemented to
maximize program and project
efficiency with the “active
cooperation” and “buy-in” from the
TEAM
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16. Obtaining Team Balance
• What do you need to be able to do?
– Create a Blue Print
– Know the Environment
– Determine the Leadership
– Establish organizational goals/mission focus
– Build a functional team
• Build relationships
• Establish alliances and coalitions
• Beware of organizational “land mines” i.e. politics/culture
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17. Ten Reasons to Use Teams
(Besides getting the boss
off the hook on tough
decisions)
18. 1. Reduces Stress and Politics
• Boss does not have to be all knowing
• Vastly increases the data used for
decision making
• Process less personal (in good ways)
• Personal status and “histories” not part of
the process
• More objective
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19. 2. Reduces Bureaucracy
• Communication among units immediate
• Assignments made and completed outside
of “chain of command”
• No need for sequential “clearance” for
permission to take next steps
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20. 3. Creates Fun and Energy
• Group commitment to each other pushes
things forward
• People bond when on a well defined
mission
• Brainstorming, creativity and innovation
are invigorating
• Learning is invigorating
• A good facilitator will make sure there is
fun
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21. 4. Consensus Can Happen
• Solutions moves forward without sabotage
– Majority rule causes sabotage
– Unilateral decisions cause insurrection
– Consensus causes the group to “dig deeper”
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22. 5. Makes Your Diversity A
Resource
• Produces tangible experience of the
advantage of differences
• Infects the organizations culture
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23. 6. Creates Continuously Improving
Systems
• Systematic approaches used by teams
produced systems
– Systems have monitoring devises
– Systems have means of calibrating to
changing customer requirements
– Systems have input, in-process and output
measures
– Systems are deployed to standards
– Systems can be compared and benchmarked
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24. 7. Not Constrained by the
Organization Chart
• Include Suppliers
• Include Partners
• Include Customers
• Include the Customer you want
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25. 8. Learning Happens
• Transfer of skills, knowledge and point of
view
• Innovation results when concepts from
unrelated fields meet
• There are development opportunities even
in a “flat” organization
• Hidden talents emerge
• Personal growth inevitable
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26. 9. Puts the “We” in Your
Organization
• Builds relationships across silos
• Communication channels outlive project
• Credit and pride goes far and wide
• Supports empowerment
• Encourages matrix management
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27. 10. Produces Better Solutions That
Actually Get Implemented
• All the right egos invested
• Every “gift” can be in the room
• All bases have been touched
• Everyone pulling for success
• Everyone adapting for success
• Lots of folks get credit for success
• No put downs
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