Section R
Team Roles
Understanding people; The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"
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Dr Meredith Belbin's self‐perception inventory questionnaire,17 answer grid, and descriptions of the team roles are available on the Internet. Additional analytical services have to be purchased. For a project, I prefer the original eight team role questionnaire. The nine team role questionnaire contains the extra role of a specialist. They are in effect an extreme plant (see Paragraph 1.3 below). As a project manager, you probably do not need a questionnaire to identify these people. Further, you will recognise that they are not really team players. They make their expert contribution and then opt out.
Belbin's questionnaire is about behaviour, and whilst it has some elements of fixed personality traits built into it, behaviour can be changed. Consequently, it should not be held on a personnel file. In fact you will want to make use of a person's ability to change their behaviour/team role and work at exhibiting the characteristics of another role (see paragraph 2.10, a., ii, in the previous Section Q).
The highest score from completion of the questionnaire is the person's primary role, and the next highest is their secondary role. Sometimes people have two or three secondary roles. Younger, less‐experienced people can exhibit many roles since they have not yet become set in their ways. Conversely, older people, who have become set in their ways will show fewer roles. However, the intelligent, experienced person will realise that different behaviour is needed in different situations and will, consequently, exhibit a variety of roles.
1 Specification of the Eight Team Roles
The title of nearly all the roles is very descriptive of what the role is all about.
1.1 Chairperson/Co‐ordinator
I prefer the original title of chairperson. Chairing is different from coordinating. As you would expect, the chairperson sets priorities and organizes and coordinates the group. They also control the activities and contributions of the group. This involves the clarification of problems and group objectives, assigning tasks and responsibilities, and encouraging group members to get involved in achieving objectives and goals. They should be calm, self‐confident, and controlled.
1.1.1 Positive Qualities:
They bring out the best in others by treating and welcoming all potential contributors on their merits and without prejudice. They have a strong sense of objectives.
1.1.2
Allowable Weaknesses:
They are of moderate intellect and can lack creativity.
1.1.3
Comments on Belbin's ‘Positive Qualities and Allowable Weaknesses’:
You might be upset at being ‘moderate or no more than ordinary.’ What Belbin is getting at here, is that you do not necessarily have to be cleverer than the group in order to manage it. However, you do need to be at the same level as the group. If the group is smarter than you are, then they will get away from you, and you will lose control of the group.
1.2 Shaper
The shaper wants to get on with the job. They are a driving force that challenges, argues, and disagrees. They unite the team's effort and push them forward to decisions and actions. They are achievement motivated, extroverted, impatient, have a low frustration threshold. They are competitive and respond to challenge. They have good insight. They are a non‐chairman leader. They are highly strung, outgoing, and dynamic.
1.2.1
Positive Qualities:
They bring a sense of purpose to the team with drive and a readiness to challenge inactivity, ineffectiveness, complacency, or self‐deception.
1.2.2
Allowable Weaknesses:
They are impulsive and prone to provocation, irritation, and impatience.
1.2.3
Comments on Belbin's ‘Positive Qualities and Allowable Weaknesses’:
There is little to say here; that's what shapers are like. However, the strong shaper needs to work at not showing the ‘allowable weaknesses’ traits if they want to keep the respect of their team.
1.3 Plant
The Plant thinks differently; see the quotation at the start of this section. They contribute original and creative ideas and strategies for achieving the objectives adopted by the group. This role brings a breadth of vision, creativity, imagination, and innovation for solving difficult problems. But they don't necessarily communicate their ideas effectively. They are individualistic, serious‐minded, and unorthodox.
1.3.1
Positive Qualities:
They are clever and have imagination, intellect, and knowledge.
1.3.2
Allowable Weaknesses:
They can be ‘up in the clouds’ and inclined to disregard practical details or procedures.
1.3.3
Comments on Belbin's ‘Positive Qualities and Allowable Weaknesses’:
The allowable weaknesses are very logical. Once you start to manage creativity, it dries up. You want someone who thinks ‘outside the box’ and stops the group from going down ‘group think’ tramlines. They are obviously most needed in the early stage of each project phase and good for helping with project problems.
1.4 Resource Investigator
This role keeps the team in touch with the environment outside the group by exploring opportunities and identifying ideas, information, and resources. Performance of this role involves developing a network of contacts and coordinating and negotiating with other groups and individuals. They are extroverted, enthusiastic, and curious.
1.4.1
Positive Qualities:
They have a capacity for improvisation and contacting people and exploring anything new. They have an ability to respond to challenge.
1.4.2
Allowable Weaknesses:
Their interest is likely to wane once they have ‘cracked the task’.
1.4.3
Comments on Belbin's ‘Positive Qualities and Allowable Weaknesses’:
As a project manager, you may well be low in this aspect in which case, this is an unusual example where you might want to select someone based on their Belbin profile. As a project manager, you will initiate many scenarios, and if ‘you lose interest once the initial fascination has past’, you will be in trouble. Hire an assistant/secretary who is a high completer finisher.
1.5 Team Worker
These people build relationships. They promote unity by creating and maintaining a team spirit. They improve communication by listening and bringing people into a discussion. They provide personal support and warmth to group members and smooth over tension and conflict. They are socially orientated and rather mild and sensitive.
1.5.1
Positive Qualities:
They have an ability to respond to people and situations and to promote team spirit.
1.5.2
Allowable Weaknesses:
They prefer to avoid confrontation and can be indecisive in critical situations.
1.5.3
Comments on Belbin's ‘Positive Qualities and Allowable Weaknesses’:
They may be seen as indecisive when pressed to support one point of view or another in a discussion. They will be more concerned with the cohesion of the group. They will be reluctant to express a view which, in effect, means they are taking sides. They want to maintain relationships with all parts of the group.
1.6 Implementer/Company Worker
The company worker gets on and does the job. They are concerned with the practical translation and application of concepts and plans into manageable tasks. This entails a down‐to‐earth outlook, coupled to perseverance in the face of difficulties. They are conservative, reliable, responsible, and predictable.
1.6.1
Positive Qualities:
They are logical, orderly, and hard‐working, with practical common sense and self‐discipline.
1.6.2
Allowable Weaknesses:
They are slow to respond to change and new possibilities and can lack flexibility.
1.6.3
Comments on Belbin's ‘Positive Qualities and Allowable Weaknesses’:
The positive qualities are just what you want in your discipline and project engineers.
Whilst the allowable weaknesses sound harsh and negative, they are in fact very positive qualities for people who get on and do the work. The team has agreed on what and how the work has to be done, and you don't want to experiment with new ideas at the execution/implementation stage.
1.7 Monitor Evaluator
This role involves analysing ideas and proposals being considered by the team. They bring a dispassionate analytical logic to situations, and they prevent the team from committing to bad decisions. It is important for the monitor evaluator to point out, in a constructive manner, the weaknesses of proposals being considered. They are sober, unemotional, and prudent.
1.7.1
Positive Qualities:
They have judgement, discretion, and are strong‐minded.
1.7.2
Allowable Weaknesses:
They can lack inspiration and may be demotivating to others.
1.7.3
Comments on Belbin's ‘Positive Qualities and Allowable Weaknesses’:
You want your project controls manager or project office to be staffed with people with these characteristics. You want them to take a hard line when evaluating progress. Monitor evaluators are also useful people to stop the ‘group think’ process. However, this may frustrate the plant who has come up with the ideas and others who are keen to get on with the work.
1.8 Completer/Finisher
The Completer finisher dots the ‘i’s' and crosses the ‘t’s.' They are systematic in ensuring that the group's efforts achieve appropriate standards and that mistakes of both commission and omission are avoided. They bring a conscientious approach to quality and standards of performance and meeting deadlines. They are painstaking in checking detail and the search for errors. They maintain a sense of urgency within the group.
1.8.1
Positive Qualities:
They have a capacity to follow through and are thorough/meticulous.
1.8.2
Allowable Weaknesses:
They can be anxious, with a tendency to worry about small things and can show reluctance to delegate and ‘let go.’
1.8.3
Comments on Belbin's ‘Positive Qualities and Allowable Weaknesses’:
A rare characteristic in project people and consequently valuable. They have just the attitude needed when deliverables have to be issued.
2 A Suggestion for a Project Manager
Project managers do not have to be shapers, but in certain industries, such as the process industry, they are most likely to be strong in this area. I have come across construction managers who are off‐the‐scale as shapers. I have known successful project managers who have various combinations of Belbin roles. However, being bold, my choice would be:
- Shaper – chairperson
- Team worker
- Monitor evaluator
3 Matching the Roles to the Project Process
3.1
Matching the Belbin roles in pairs, we can see that they combine together to form a useful project cycle (see Figure V.R.1). Further, to some extent, the emphasis on the roles rotates clockwise as the project moves through the phases starting with the project management/leader role.
- The chairperson and shaper provide direction.
- The plant and resource investigator provide information.
- The team worker and company worker deliver and produce.
- The monitor evaluator and completer finisher control.
3.2
Examine the detail of each of the eight roles, and you have an ideal combination of skills to achieve any task:
- Setting objectives and assigning responsibilities.
- Being an achievement‐motivated leader.
- Putting forward ideas and strategies.
- Identifying information and resources.
- Improving communication by providing personal support.
- Practical translation and application of concepts and plans.
- Evaluating feasibility for achieving objectives.
- Achieving standards and maintaining a sense of urgency.