As can be seen above there is quite a process involved in developing even simple software like scripts. Nearly all software is developed in teams because the results are better. An example of the reasons why can be found at The importance of teamwork (Atlassian - Jan 2023).
Working as a group is essential in Information Technology and most industries due to various reasons. Tasks often require a team due to their complexity or the diverse skills needed. Additionally, team collaboration brings forth multiple viewpoints, combining different experiences and perspectives. Some team members focus on the big picture while others pay attention to detail, ensuring fairness and benefiting everyone involved.
However, effective teamwork requires proper execution. Communication is crucial, with clear expectations, deadlines, and alignment of individual work with the team's objectives. Miscommunication and clashes arising from different communication styles or personalities can hinder progress and cause conflicts. It's also important to maintain focus on the project's goal, as individual agendas may divert the team's purpose and hinder success. Within a team, two key functions lead to the success or failure of the team. These are:
- Communication: Effective communication ensures that everyone understands their roles, deadlines, and how their work contributes to the team's efforts. Regular meetings facilitate open communication, allowing for knowledge sharing and leveraging diverse viewpoints to enhance the project's outcome.
- Project Management: Even when working alone, project management is vital to sequence tasks properly and address critical points that could impact the entire project. Various project management methodologies are employed in the IT field to ensure efficient planning, coordination, and successful project completion.
The IT professional often becomes the project manager for many IT activities. The IT person is the one with the overview of what needs to occur for the project to be completed successfully. They need to coordinator the supplier, the client, and any other people that may be required (e.g. electricians, network installers, etc.).
What is the role of the project manager?
Project managers are essential–they set and help the team meet project milestones. They do this by performing the following:
Guiding the project from Strategy through to development
A good project manager helps to keep the design process on track, steering towards opportunities and coaching through challenges.
Anticipating roadblocks
Having a project manager who anticipates and gets on top of roadblocks early is invaluable to a project team. This will allow the project team to focus their efforts on what they do best, and clients will appreciate this high-level problem-solving that lets the project move along smoothly.
Facilitating open communication
When project managers handle communication and logistics, it leaves the rest of the team free to focus on productive work. The project manager should communicate with the client regularly to provide updates on progress and seek feedback. A good project manager links together the client, the project team, and any other important stakeholders.
Having a good understanding of the clients and projects
Project managers should keep up-to-date with current industry trends and best practices. Having a variety of clients and projects will help keep strategy and project management skills sharp.
Using collaboration tools
It is useful to use the same collaboration tools as your clients for communicating, creating to-do lists and tracking project progress. This way, your clients can continue to use the same lines of communication that they are used to with your project team. Some examples of helpful collaboration tools are Slack, Teams, Zoom, Trello, Asana and ZenHub.
Thinking about business and championing good culture
'While it is important to have a team that is collaborative and supportive, forming teams where each member can focus on their strengths is part of the secret sauce that allows project teams to deliver consistent, high-quality work.' (Down, S., 2021).
Activity
As a group decide on a virtual team building game from: https://www.sessionlab.com/blog/virtual-team-building-games/#skillshare.
Once you have decided upon a game, think about how the decision was reached. Some specific questions are:
- How did you even communicate?
- Was everyone in the team included in the decision-making process?
- How were differences of opinions resolved?
Having learnt a bit about communicating as a team, you are going to do a small project. Design a small suite of scripts that will collect the following information about a computer:
- Computer name
- Physical RAM
- Physical Drive
- CPU details (manufacturer, model, number of cores, and speed).
Once these details have been captured have a system where they can be:
- Displayed on a form
- Exported to a CSV file.
Have another script that will import the CSV and use it to create a new VM with a different name. Once the details have been read have them come up in a form where the user can update the information as required before the VM is created.
Select one of the group to function as Project manager and negotiate between the team members who will undertake what tasks. Two or more people, in this activity, can work on the same task in order to aid the learning. The role of the project manager is to make sure the activity is completed in time to do the module assessments.
