Analyzing Team Performance Evaluation and Responsibility Allocation in Project Failure Situations

Can anyone help me with the following situation:

You are part of a team that has been assigned a project with a tight deadline that is not extendable. At the end of the project, one of the team members fails to deliver on the part of the project originally assigned to him, despite his assurance. All the other members of the team have performed flawlessly and completed their parts. There is no way that the project can now be completed, even if all the team members provide their utmost help. Appropriate punishment now has to be meted out by the management. The team member is willing to own up to his shortcoming and shoulder the responsibility. Should all the team members share the responsibility for failure equally, or should they allow that particular team member to take all the blame and punishment? Take a firm position on the issue and support your stand with relevant arguments.

Samina Rafat

Hey Samina,

The same issue has been discussed several times in the recent past. Maybe you should refer to those discussions as well. I believe the decision lies with the leader of the team because it is his/her responsibility to bring the team together and ensure the deadline is met. Even if a team member is at fault and is willing to acknowledge it, partly the leader is also to blame. If he/she fulfilled their role as the leader, issues such as this would not occur.

Samina,

When you work in a team and you are leading a team for a particular project, being a leader, it is your responsibility to tackle the situation and ensure the deadline is met. No doubt, it is teamwork with the same spirit, but a leader always makes collective decisions based on his/her team members. Their decision is final, so definitely, the leader is responsible for the failure of the project.

Basant

Hello everyone,

I read both the replies. Don't you think the team member who defaulted also needs to be punished by the management? As the situation states, the defaulter initially kept assuring that he would submit his work on time. I believe it would be better to punish the defaulter as their delays have caused a loss to the company. This action would help in making him realize and not repeat his mistakes. Moreover, it would also serve as a lesson for others. As for the team leader, he can receive a warning to be more vigilant with the tasks assigned. I am open for further discussion on this!

Shikha Sahai

Hi,

First and foremost, we are talking about a 'team'. So basically, the team has failed. While the easy way out is to blame the team member who failed to deliver, the overall responsibility rests on the team leader. In hindsight, maybe the leader should have incorporated checks to assess the progress of each member and plans to help those lagging behind. A team works in harmony with one another and not individually. Brilliant individual performances have been brought to naught by one. So, was the team selection correctly done?

Gregory Huszczo has laid out seven parameters that can help evaluate team performance:

1. Leadership
2. Talented members
3. Clarity of goals
4. Clear responsibilities
5. Well-defined procedures for team operations, especially team meetings and problem-solving.
6. Interpersonal relationships where communication addresses personality differences and understanding conflict resolution techniques.
7. Good external relationships.

Punishing the person who failed to deliver may be good to convey that the organization does not accept falling short on promises. However, if you want to convert it into a learning opportunity, you must analyze it along the parameters listed and take corrective measures.

Regards,
Shamik Vora

Very interesting discussion this.

My opinion is that when you are working in a team, you are responsible for not only your own role and input, but there is also a collective responsibility which the entire team shoulders. You cannot have water-tight distribution of responsibilities in a team working on a single deliverable within a single deadline. This is why review meetings are held, so that everybody is aware of the overall and individual progress, and if anybody is lagging, the other team members stretch themselves beyond their own roles, and help out the lagging member to come back up to date.

It is from this point of view that I would hold the team leader most responsible because he has failed in his coordinating role. Within the team, of course, the employee who has failed in his deliverable despite all his assurances is responsible for letting down the entire team.

Warm regards, Devjit

Agreed that the team leader is also heavily responsible for the mess up, but the question is asking us what we would choose based on the assumption that we are also a team member. It is asking, "Should all the team members share the responsibility for failure equally, or should they allow that particular team member to get all the blame and punishment?" So, what should an ideal team member be thinking?

Hey all,

It is indeed an interesting topic. In this case, there can be two ways of solving the problem:

1. The team member who could not complete the job on time should be punished as they failed to deliver on their assurance to others for task completion.
2. Both the team leader and team member should be held accountable. It is the responsibility of the team leader to gather feedback and conduct review meetings in a timely manner. If the team leader was consistently collecting feedback, then it is evident that the team member is at fault.

Regards,
Archna