Effective management of goal achievements is best realised when managers are a mix of 'undistinguished misfits' rather than high performing all-star teams, believes
Dr R Srinivasan

Few weeks ago we discussed an important point on the hierarchical structure in a software development organisation. Once we decide the right type for an organisation, the next important step should be the assignment of apt roles for respective managers, which will encompass critical leadership and the expected support roles. Many software gurus have brought out the noteworthy segments under this subject. I would like to discuss some of them in this article for the benefit of our readers.

Jim McCarthy, in his publication, Dynamics of Software Development, identifies three important approaches to be undertaken by the management, if the organisation has to become a successful software development centre. They are: (i) The management should have a perfect identification and definition on how a product could be a winning one. (ii) They should have a good perception and vision of the application areas of the end product. (iii) They should guide the project team towards the goal of bringing out a successful product. Here comes the question of the composition of the management team-should we have the best team with everyone being outstanding or should we have a mix of the best and the less experienced? Meredith Belbin, in his book, Management Teams, suggests that management teams should be of the second type mentioned above. His study revealed an astonishing result that "effective management of goal achievements was best realised when the managers were a mix of undistinguished misfits rather than any of the high-performance all-star teams."

In a typical software development project, every key person has an important leadership role to play in leading the project to be successful. These people happen to be the project manager, the process manager (from quality department), the software architect and of course the project leader. Following Belbin's framework, each one of them have specific roles in critical leadership as well as in support roles to play in the most diversified teams and to take it towards success. Under the leadership role, the project manager will be the overall driver through constant monitoring of the project status. The process manager should work hand in hand with the development team so that each phase of the software development goes through the stipulated process, thereby establishing quality in the work. The software architect is actually the initiator of development methodologies and should make sure that every phase of development is under the planned architecture.

The project leader will be the one to work along with members of the development team and see to it that everything is progressing fine as per the project plan in terms of actual development. In the support role, the project manager has the onus for successfully finishing the project in association with the project leader. The process manager is a supporter to implement the processes, the architect and project leader take their roles as implementers. The underlying importance of these points is that the management team should share the appropriate leadership foci among themselves. It is also possible that in some organisations, because of non-availability of enough number of managers, one manager can have more than one role to play as long as he has the required capability to perform each role without any contradiction.

In order to implement the important aspects of Belbin's model, special care has to be taken to establish an effective management team. William Brown identifies four different stages under this process, viz., forming, storming, norming and performing. The purpose of the team and the roles to be played by each is identified in the forming stage. The required interactions between team members to discuss and identify individual responsibilities and the respective authority levels are done in the storming stage. Once a common understanding and agreement has been reached, the team will address the management tasks in the norming stage.

In some cases there might be lack of clear boundaries in levels of authority, but such matters are sorted out in an amicable manner. Having reached the stage that everybody within and outside the team are very clear about various identities mentioned above, the team reaches the performing stage and goes towards self-managing to achieve the goal of completing the project successfully. Such an effective management team, with its normalised controls in hierarchy, will take the organisation towards the highest level of maturity.

  ( To be continued)

(The author is Chief Technology Officer, Internet Component Management Group, Bangalore and can be contacted at: r.srinivasan@iCMGworld.com)