Managing Large IT projects

No man can play a whole orchestra. For executing large software projects, the organization needs a team of multiple people with a variety of skill sets. However, managing a group of highly educated, individualistic, and talented people in the meeting room can be a very tricky and complex process. Hence following 5 principles should be followed:

1.       No Discrimination/Favoritism: A leader or manager should ensure that there is no discrimination or favoritism among team members. Without mutual trust, the team will never be able to realize the synergy in delivering on a high-voltage project.

2.       Need map of employee: People are driven to work by various needs. Maslow described it as a hierarchical structure of need-based motivation. The five levels of the need motivation are the following.

Needs	Explanation	Software industry	Manager’s tool
Physiological needs	Food, clothes, salary, etc.	Not a concern	Incentive, Accessories
Security needs	Safety of life, Occupational hazard	Not a concern	Health insurance
Social needs	Connecting and Interacting with other people	Concern	Talk to him
Esteem needs	Recognition and Respect	Concern	Give a trophy, Polite conversations
Self-actualization need	Living up to one’s best potential	Concern	Provide training, give freedom

Type of people	Need
Task-Oriented	Wish to accomplish perfection on the task
Self-oriented	Wish to become boss
Interaction-oriented	Wish to interact with others

3. 

       Work extraction map of employee: The task of the manager is to identify the key motivator for each person. Generally, there are three kinds of employees.

Basically, profile all your team members, talk to them regularly, identify their needs, and address their concerns. For example, a penalty for a sincere person would be to induce guilt. The penalty for an indifferent employee would be close monitoring. The penalty for a corrupt employee would be to take away his opportunities. The punishment for a dominating employee would be to take away his power of punishing others. If we treat every employee with the same stick, we often end up damaging his commitment to the organizational cause. “I am the Boss” is not an answer to 99% of the problems.

4.       Respect among team members: Not every member of a team will have some level of competence. Not everyone would be IITian. Some people will be more competent and bossier than others. However, each of them has an important role to play in team dynamics. For example, a task-oriented person will focus on getting the task done but an interaction-oriented person is also important as he breaks the monotony in the team. Hence each of them must be appreciated and should find a place in the team.  Respect the skills of each person. Respect breeds respect.

5.       Mentorship: When an employee enters in the project, he is a clean slate. He needs to be mentored and helped with the knowledge of the project in a structured manner.  However, any step-motherly treatment often results in fragmenting the psyche of the employees. It will definitely demotivate the employees from giving their best to the organization.

A large IT project, bringing people on board is just a beginning, keeping people together is progress. However, the real success comes when people work together with a mutual sense of trust and respect, in a non-discriminatory manner.