PM-502, Management Characteristics of Successful Project Managers
A. Session No: 2	Short Title: Understanding Team Nets and What They Can Do

C.	Learning Objectives: Learn to recognize the fundamental theory and principles of team nets, understand how organizations have successfully used the principles for a competitive advantage, and be able to understand the application at various levels within organizations.

D.	Reading Assignment: Lipnack & Stamps, Section I.

E: Session Description: The team net factor can, and has, helped solve the world’s economic shifts by providing people in organizations the ability to do things together in a realm of co-opetition.  Projects in the future will be managed using the same principles.  By offering new tools to manage change, we help people tackle all kinds of problems and opportunities with greater effectiveness.  Students will learn to recognize opportunities in future projects to apply these principles.

F: Point One:
	a) Question: What are the principle elements of co-opetition?
b) Key Point: Compete and Cooperate.  Many businesses will not survive into the 21st century unless they resolve this apparent contradiction.
c) Instructor Notes: Elements of Co-opetition?
1) Key to future vitality-companies compete and cooperate
2) Companies cooperate and compete at the same time.
3) Dynamic of independence and interdependence-core of new, emerging flexible organization.
4) Usually viewed as opposites - if you cooperate you can’t compete.  If you compete you can’t cooperate.
5) Tri-Cities paradigm - three cities are doing it.
	6) Three local hospitals are doing it.
7) D&D Focus Area of EM-50 program, Large Scale Technology Demonstration Project for C-Reactor.
8) The essence of human nature is co-opetition.
9) Provides a revitalizing dynamic - paradoxically, both cooperation and competition are intensified as local firms organize themselves to learn with their customers, suppliers and competitors.
10) American examples predominate in a survey.
11) Tension is natural and, when not out of control, healthy in a democratic, open economy
12) The most frightening hurdle for companies to jump is cooperating to compete.		
	
G: Point Two:
	a) Question: What are the principle elements of the concept of team nets?
	b) Key Point: Team nets bring together two powerful organizational ideas: Teams and networks.
c) Instructor Notes: Principle elements of the concept of teamnets:
1) Unifying purpose		P
		2) Independent members	M
		3) Voluntary links		L
		4) Multiple leaders		L
		5) Interactive levels		L
6) Each principle found in every successful teamnet.
7) Clarify and communicate the unifying purpose.
8) Identify the independent members - members are the people and groups that contribute specific capabilities to achieving the shared purpose.
		9) Create voluntary links - not just channels of communication.  Relationships are real
			a) Physical communications links
			b) People actively communicating
			c) Interactions over time = future relationships
		10) Recognize the power of multiple leaders 
a) Myths - all leadership comes to a single point
				    - networks have no leaders
b) Leaders are members who make and keep commitments, know how to follow, and may participate in the decision making.
11) Stay connected at all levels
			a) Myth - networks are flat
			b) Cross-level multiple-role feature is one source of its power
			c) A teamnet has at least three levels: a network of teams composed of members
d) Levels are the succession of parts and wholes that make up the complex networks.

H.  Point Three:
a) Question: What are the principle elements and concepts that define the concept of boundary crossing.
b) Key Point: Members of boundary crossing team nets work across conventional boundaries, cooperating for mutual benefit while retaining competitive independence.
c) Instructor Notes: Principle elements and concepts of boundary crossing.
1) The business wave of the future.
2) Work together without giving away trade secrets.
3) Work across conventional boundaries, cooperating for mutual benefit while retaining competitive independence.
4) Too expensive and complicated for any size company to go it alone all the time.
5) Today, going it along means missing opportunities; tomorrow, it means going out of business.
6) Suppliers become partners
7) Boundary crossing teamnets are business’ potential secret weapon.
8) No matter now big we get, we can’t do it all alone.
	9) Opportunities:
a) Purchase cooperatively
b) Market jointly
c) Combine research and development
d) Co-sponsor training
e) Set up quality programs

J.  Point Four:
	a) Question: What are the five generic “levels” that exist within team nets?
b) Key Point: Whether a boundary team net is big or small, global or local in extent, it has multiple levels of organization.  Size is not the same as levels.
c) Instructor Notes:
1) Principles apply to groups of all sizes
2) Five generic levels:
a) Economic megagroups - Large scale forms as Keiretsu, regional networks, integrated small business strategies.  Macro-networking opportunities
b) Alliances - A group of enterprises - small sets of multi-national corporations - enterprises are internal to alliances.  Share in parts of strategic interests.
c) Enterprises - An incorporated legal body, private, public, or government - break into a cascade of groups-within-groups.
d) Large organizations - functions, departments, divisions, programs, projects.  Decompose into smaller groups (DOE’s Technology Focus Areas, e.g., 105-C Reactor Interim-Save Storage Project and Large Scale Technology Demonstration Project). 
e) Small groups - no matter where in the structure, small groups have specific roles.

K.  Point Five:
	a) Question: What are the five team net organizational scales?
b) Key Point: Team nets apply and exist across the organizational range: from small groups, to larger organizations, to enterprises, to alliances, to economic mega groups.
c) Instructor Notes: 
Level                  	Scale                                      
Small Group		Top Teams, Study Circles, Empowered Teams (Rule of seven)
Large Organizations	Socio-technical Systems, Empowered Clusters, Cross Functional Teams (cluster around 40-50, or 150-200)

Enterprise		Core firms, Service webs, Internal markets, Kaizen (Adjust your teamnet scale at this level upwards)

Alliance		Flexible business networks, Strategic alliances, Joint ventures

		Megagroups		SME economic development, Voluntary geographies, Keiretsu (Very large agglomerations of teamnets of every size and point of scale).		

L.  Point Six: 
	a) Question: How are team nets being used to successfully avoid layoffs in today’s world economy?
b) Key Point: As the new century dawns, people skills, and knowledge are the basis of real wealth, not raw material.  The only way to maintain jobs is to compete and survive in the global economy.  The best jobs with the highest satisfaction, most freedom, and greatest reward are those that sell expertise.
c) Instructor Notes:
1) People skills and knowledge are the basis of real wealth - not raw materials.
2) Business people - not governments - lead the effort.
3) 1970 was the unheralded takeoff point for small business employment growth.
4) Compete and Survive in the local economy:
a) Joint marketing
b) Market research
c) Trade shows
d) Trade missions
e) Investment in education, training and skills
5) Improving job skills - the best job with the highest satisfaction, most freedom, and greatest reward are those that sell expertise:
a) Specialized and customized work
b) High-end markets
c) Technology transfer
d) Rapid product development
e) Quality programs
f) Striving for excellence
6) Creating jobs - 
a) Stimulate creativity
b) Learning organizations
c) Key strategic information quickly available
d) Joint product development
7) Always begin with the people - seek to enhance the skills, experience, and creativity of the people; networking releases peoples creative potential.