Team Roles And Group Dynamics In Public Sector Organization

Importance of Synergy in Public Sector Organizations

With the help of this report it will be evaluated as to how team roles and group dynamics matter. The way in which a team member can make a difference in a project will be understood after going through the report. I have done an internship in a public sector organization and there I was assigned a specific role. Based on this experience, it will be figured out if I was the appropriate choice for this role. Results obtained from Belbin team report report will help realize whether I did justice to the role that was assigned to me. It will suggest if I had every capability of handling the role. It is obvious that when working in groups, there are many factors which need to be taken a note of such as communication, collaboration, environment and others. Synergy is again something much important in teamwork and there has to be proper measures taken to build up proper synergy. But the concern is that choice of team members matters when developing synergy and thus this can be said that everything depends on the energy and enthusiasm of team members. Therefore, an individual needs to be included in a team judging his or her strengths—this will be beneficial for the team and also for the individual as well.

As mentioned, the group that I worked for was Public group that is it belonged to the public sector organizations. Public sector takes under its purview all of those organizations which are owned as well as operated by the government and are established to render services for the citizens. Services such as healthcare, national defense, water management and others are in general provided by the public sector. The organizations in this sector can be compared to voluntary sector organizations which do not seek to generate a profit.  Funding for the public services is in general raised by means of different methods that include taxes, financial transfers from other levels of governments and more.  I got the opportunity to work in a school for a span of 8 months as a IT consultant. The school had some temporary requirement and thus it was hiring some interns and I was selected for the post after passing three stages of tests. There are some prerequisites when working in a public area service and the most important ones are leadership, skills of problem solving, creative thinking and communication. The sector works exclusively for welfare of the people like for instance, the school for which I worked had the mission and vision of “producing jewels for the society”. They were particular about the steps that they were to follow to give proper education and overall upbringing to the students. Thus, the sense of responsibility in such sectors matters and has to be remembered on the back of the mind always.

The school was investing in a project of developing an e-library and I was assigned the role of IT consultant. It was on me to lead the school authorities towards a good decision supporting their vision of gradually becoming laced with online facilities. E-library was the first thing that they wanted to start off with. This was to be developed for the students of the school in an exclusive manner. It was really a critical role as much of the decision of the school authorities was dependent on me. I had to carry out research to understand the existing IT structure of the school and then go on to provide justifications. There was a need to be specific with points and thus the existing situation at the school premise had to be evaluated. The role that of IT consultant is difficult as the sense of responsibility is huge. It becomes even more tougher when the pressure handling capabilities lack in an individual. The school had already decided that in the next 7 months they were going to complete the task and the last month of internship was kept exclusively for monitoring the e-library system developed. This was th really important for the school and expectations from me was really high. An IT consultant is generally not involved in the monitoring stages but the school authorities felt that they also need some sort of guidance as well in that stage, in case something does not work as it was desired of. Thus, there was extra pressure on me and I understood that much of the project proceeding was dependent on me. Role of IT consultant comes laced with much responsibilities and it becomes even tougher when one is hired specifically for a project. The contribution in the project matters and the importance of the IT consultant is to the extent that a project can be tagged as failure or success on the basis of the role played. For instance, if the IT consultant fails to give a proper advise and the authorities being inexperienced in this follow the same and start of with the work considering the same, it will become a chaos. The sense of responsibility is what matters and that creates a pressure and if this pressure is not handled well, the work can get derailed from the set project process.

Challenges of Being an IT Consultant in a Public Sector Organization

The challenge in front of me was that I had to communicate with the IT team and the in general staffs of the school so that proper decision could be taken. I met many people and some were cooperative but again some were not that cooperative and this certainly was the toughtest part in the entire project. But the best part of it was experiences of people in this and the idea they had about such similar systems was understood. This gave a good detail to the study and there was much to learn and note down at this stage.

Here the role that I played was that of shaper. For the school authorities, I was the one to decide on the way they should proceed so as to achieve the required goal. Challenging, thriving and lastly responding proactively in dynamic environment is something that is needed in such a situation. It is also required that there is the potential to handle the obstacles or hurdles that come on the path of the project progress so that these can be addressed on time. The main part is to keep the team working in the project engaged throughout the entire project process. Being the shaper of this project, the role was crucial and I was the ones whose suggestions in the matter mattered highly. There was a need to figure out how the present IT infrastructure could support the new venture and what had to be the new inclusions. The main aim was to modify the existing system and do it in a way that proper integration happens with the present system.

The team role that I played does not match the Belbin Team Role Overview. According to Picture 1, I best serve the role of plant (from observer’s perspective) as I am creative, imaginative, free-thinking, solving difficulties and more. By weakness as identified is that I ignore incidentals and am pre-occupied to communicate in an effective manner. As mentioned earlier, I founded communication with the stakeholders really tough and this certainly matches with the attitude that I have in general being suitable in the role of plant. A shaper is more prone to provocation and there are situations when he tends to offend feelings of people. But as such in the project, I did not get indulged in such type of situation where the person in front of me would feel offended. This could be because that I am suitable more for the role of plant. In reality, I avoided incidentals and am too pre-occupied to communicate in an effective way.

Picture 1: Belbin Report Results

Apart from that of the observer’s perception, my self-perception says that I am good as a coordinator (refer to Picture 2). The role of a shaper does not match in any way with co-ordinator. Coordinator is someone who is mature, has lot of confidence and has clarity regarding the goals. He is someone who delegates in an effective manner. The negatives being, a coordinator can be manipulative and at times can offload own share of the work.

Role of Shaper in E-library Development

Picture 1: Belbin Report Results

The work that of IT consultant does not have any space for manipulation as being a consultant only good suggestions that are in favour of the company are to be provided. In no way the school authorities should be manipulated to take a decision that has some personal gains. Thus, here I feel that the role of a coordinator was not needed though it is the best roel that I can play in a team project.

Table 1: Compare and contrast between role played and roles as per Belbin Report

Shaper accepts the team challenge for improving the team and improving the team building in any organization. Shapers are usually extroverted and dynamic in nature and they also enjoy stimulating other peoples in the team, finding all the best and effective approaches to solve the issues in team. While a group of the shaper can argue constantly and the team members become unable to get their work done, having a shaper in the organization will be the great way for driving the team to deliver the work within time in the effective way. Shapers are very good at decision making and they also tend to make their decision very fast. Beside this, they also struggle to cooperate and compromise. Shapers also try to allow other people in speaking first for avoiding any biasness in the group. The willingness of the shapers to argue the point and their perception regardless of the views that are expressed by the previous speakers can be very helpful to the decision-making process of the team members. Shapers in the organization always see the big image as well as the entire plan by ensuring that his or her suggested solution to the issue does not lead to any change in the direction. Shapers also direct the efforts put by the team members and imposes the shape to all the activities of the team so that the team members can be capable for facing the challenges and keeping the collaboration strong. Shapers in the organizations maintain the positive attitude as well as strive to find the effective and best ways for overcoming all the issues and problems, which are faced by the team members.

Apart from the role I played, the roles that my Belbin Report suggests me to be best in is coordinator and plant. From self-perspective, I am more of a coordinator who as well has major contributions towards group dynamics. A coordinator has to be take the responsibility of overseeing successful completion of the project. He is vested with the duty of performing some special tasks, being highly abled in team management and so on. Most importantly, he needs to establish relationships with the varied stakeholders of the project, much more efficiently than other working on the project. Then again, the role as per observer is that of plant, here as well group dynamics has major role to play. Generation of ideas and resolving issues are some key responsibilities of a plant and thus without having proper rapport with the team, these responsibilities cannot be addressed.

Belbin Team Role Overview

When studying the module, I got to learn much and the academic literature that I reviewed were mainly including Belbin team role report, group dynamics, teamwork in project management, different roles in project management, team development and more. Many of the materials proved to be much useful as I got to learn much about group dynamics and others. All of the academc literature that were reviewed were from Google Scholar and each one has some major contribution to my knowledge base. The main findings hinted at the significance of teamwork and team development in a proper and effective manner. A common thing was that all of the content was similar and it is not necessarily publication bias as almost every author had proper justifications in the favour of the information provided. The data that was collected was done following proper steps and it was ensured that no step gets skipped in any way. The keywords were focused on and it was taken into consideration that in no way the resources included be irrelevant or out of the scope of the research. The academic literature said that much of team development depends on the synergy the is created. There is no way to go pass the team members rather the level of collaboration should be such that much gets solved and the project environment gets lightened up. Belbin team role test was exclusively searched for because I was inquisitive to know the significance of this. The research done suggested that this is one of the most commonly used team role test and that this can be used in an effective and efficient manner to develop ones personality. The work style as suggested from the Belbin report is project managing followed by checking process. The role that I played as a shaper in the project of the school can to some extent be included under the broad umbrella of project managing. Being a consultant, I was someone which everyone in the team looked upto when certain decisions were being taken. My advise mattered and whether a decision needs to be implemented or not was totally dependent on me. It can be said that the school authorities were to take the last decision but then their decision was totally dependent on my advise. Thus, the literature as well provided much evidence that role that of the shaper is much important in any project. I did justice to the role of the shaper after getting to know much about this role from the existing literature. The role that was played by me had much influence on my life and inspired me to take up such similar projects in the future. Something that really enlightened me was that in team development, checking of the progress of the work is important. The role of the consultant is contricted to the initial stages of project but then as the school authorities were specific about the monitoring stage as well, they wanted to continue with me till the e-library starts functioning as expected. This again, built pressure that had to be handled in a way supporting the main goals and objectives of the task. The main issue suggested in the literature seemed communication and unfortunately this was the prime issue that I faced. There was much that I learnt from the literature about the entire domain of project management. The project environment matters a lot along with the fact that the ones involved in the project should be cooperative and have much level of collaboration amidst them. Team development that is much required and is essential when the project is to be handled with less human resource in hand. Again, to ensure that high standard is maintained the project, there is a need to be proactive and take up the part of organization in a proper way. Task allocation will be done in a way that the strengths of the persons are utilized in a proper way. The use of strategies should be done in particular and specific steps followed to meet project objectives.

I am glad that though being good at roles such as plant and coordinator, I did justice to the role of shaper serving in the designation of IT consultant.  I look forward to many such opportunities where I can go out of my comfort role to take some challenges and learn more.

Conclusion

From the above discussion done it can be said that the roles that a person need to be played in a project can be based on the test report originated from Belbin report. There are other such tests as well which can be used but here this report has been based on the Belbin report. I actually played the role of shaper but the report suggests that I have the capability of becoming a plant as per observer and coordinator as per my self perception. Three of these roles have different prerequisites and that these have to be judged in a way that proper tasks be allocated. Through the help of such tests one can be assured that he or she will be able to handle a specific role or not. This is highly required when the project being dealt with involves many different or varied stakeholders those who have to be guided and communicated throughout the project proceedings. The role that of a shaper is tough, as much of the decision making lies on the suggestions or the advise that is given by the shaper. Any wrong suggestion can lead the team project to fall flat and this is the reason why much needs to be done or understood when working on any project.

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