A Case Study of Organizational Project Management: Leadership, Team Building, and Strategies for Success

This case study examines Ecological Wastewater Solutions Pty Ltd, focusing on leadership qualities, team building, and vulnerability mitigation strategies. The project aims to enhance project management tools and techniques, select an appropriate leadership style, influence the project team, motivate team members, develop self-managed teams, and address challenges faced by the project team. Strategies for achieving organizational goals and distinguishing the company from competitors are also discussed.

Running head: A CASE STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
A Case Study of Organizational Project Management
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1A CASE STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Executive Summary
The main objective of the project is to deal with the case study of Ecological Wastewater
Solutions Pty Ltd which delivers an eco-friendly management system of wastewater to the
clients of Australia and Asia-pacific region. The aim of this report is to provide EWS with the
leadership qualities that a leader should have in the mentioned organization and the steps that
the organization should follow in building a good quality team which will help the
organization to reach its goals. The strategies that should be taken by the organizations head
in restricting the vulnerabilities in the organization is also provided in the below mentioned
report which will help the organization to be different from its competitors.

2A CASE STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
1.1 Overview of the project....................................................................................................3
1.2 Purpose of the project.......................................................................................................3
2. Flow of the overall paper themes...........................................................................................3
2.1 Choosing a Leadership Style............................................................................................3
2.2 Tools and Techniques for influencing project team.........................................................5
2.3 Five types of power for motivating team members.........................................................6
2.4 Methods for developing self-managed teams..................................................................6
2.5 Steps to alleviate challenges faced by project team.........................................................7
3. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................8
References................................................................................................................................10

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1. Introduction
Project Management may be stated as the technique of planning, initiating,
controlling, executing and finishing the work with the help of an organized team and meet the
specified goals within the stipulated time (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). The project
management is encircled with many goals and objectives too (Heagney, 2016). There are
many vulnerabilities regarding the management of project, which needs to be reduced to
provide an effective way to achieve the goals.
1.1 Overview of the project
In this assignment, the chosen organization to work with is taken as Ecological
Wastewater Solutions Pty Ltd (EWS). The organization deals with eco-friendly management
system of wastewater for the treatment of sewage (Grizzetti et al., 2016). This organization is
now looking forward towards the growing and in the expansion of the process that they are
up-to.
1.2 Purpose of the project
This purpose of the report is to deal with the tools and techniques that are to be used
for an enhanced project management (Project Management Institute, 2017a). This assignment
also states the five powers that should be implemented to provide motivation towards the
employees for an enhanced productivity rate.
2. Flow of the overall paper themes
2.1 Choosing a Leadership Style
Leadership Style refers as the approach and manner of providing a direction,
implementation of plans and providing motivation to people working in an organisation.
From an employee perspective, it can be said as the specific pattern of implicit as well as

4A CASE STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
explicit actions that are performed by their leader (Holten & Brenner, 2015). There are
different project management styles in EWS that are described below:
Authoritative: A leader falls in this group of leadership style who has a clear vision of
its goals and maintains a happy profile to share the vision with his entire team. This enhances
the encouragement of the staff to collaborate for the completion of the project (Zhang et al.,
2015). An authoritative leader has the knowledge of the whole project.
Coercive: Many leaders work with small and junior teams, who uses this type of style.
The team members often views this style as dictatorship (Landa & Tyson, 2017). However,
the managers concern about the education and providing knowledge to the junior employees
to drive the project’s completion.
Democratic: A leader falls under this leadership style when the leader does not
focuses on leading the project or providing a guidance to the employees to complete the
project (Amanchukwu, Stanley & Ololube, 2015). This lack of managerial capability
lengthens the project delivery time and demotivates the morale of the employees to work
efficiently.
One for all and All for one: The leaders falling under this category is said to follow
the management styles that are likely to fulfil all the aspirations of the employees as well as
of the organization (Antonakis & Day, 2017).
Selection of one leadership style: In case of EWS, the one for all and all for one
leadership quality is to be chosen to enhance the employee’s encouragement to build up a
good quality service towards the wastewater management project. The managers should
provide education and training to its employees so that they can run the project in a more
advanced way and perform accordingly to get achieve the organization’s goals. As the leaders
falling into this category have the full knowledge of the project this leadership style will be

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the best implemented style of the other styles as stated above. So these type of leaders can
give an enhanced progress of the goals of EWS. This type of leaders can handle any critical
solutions arising in the EWS. Hence this leadership style will be very beneficial for the
Organization.
2.2 Tools and Techniques for influencing project team
The tools and techniques that can be used to enhance the progress of the EWS project
team are discussed below.
In case of influencing the EWS project teams, the utilization of charts are helpful as
they can be said as graphical representations, which explains the level of authorities as well
as the reporting manager’s matrix. These charts easily provide a clear view to the employees
about the management plan which that is followed in the organization (Milosevic &
Martinelli, 2016). These will help the project delivery to be faster as the work distributed
throughout the organizational structure is clearly stated in the form of the organizational
chart.
The matrix is an important technique that is often used by any organization and is
mainly known as responsibility assignments matrix. This implementation of this matrix at
EWS will give a proper display of all the work packages that is to be delivered.
This technique of networking is the most important tool that are used to influence a
project team. This defines that all the organizational employees, the leaders as well as the
managers should be well connected to each other which will help the organisational leaders to
maintain the transmission of the information regarding the update of the project in a regular
basis (Remington & Pollack, 2016). The communication between the leaders and the
employees is very necessary in accordance for the progress of the project.

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The managers of EWS should have an expertise in judging, and making decisions
when risks are identified in the execution of the project. Identifying the risks and
vulnerabilities in the project, staff retention as well as release plans are some of the qualities
that should be present in a manager (Project Management Institute, 2017b). This will provide
quality as well as timely decisions to all the risks arising in the project.
In case of EWS, holding meetings between the members and project manager can be
an effective way of putting influence in the team. The regular commencement of meetings
will help the managers to keep a regular track of the project and through these meetings they
can provide the decisions that are to be taken to enhance a project’s progress.
2.3 Five types of power for motivating team members
For motivating the team members of EWS towards the efficient execution of the
project there are five forces that are incorporated by the managers (Levi, 2015). These are
The legitimate power enables a project manager to state his decisions that is to be
taken for the progress of the project which can be very helpful for the EWS.
The reward power helps the managers to identify and reward those employees who
worked hard for the organisation and increase the work comfort so that the employee can
perform better. This will be very helpful for the employees of EWS.
The expert power of EWS characterizes the ability for the administration of the
information, expertise and knowledge to other employees.
As EWS is initiating a new project, there should be a critical review of the employees
predefined needs as well as execution plans. If the employees fails to achieve the goals set by
the EWS then the managers should take initiative to stop this by motivating the employees at
EWS.

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2.4 Methods for developing self-managed teams
Self-managed teams are a necessary part in the agile project management (Annosi et
al., 2017). This self-managed teams can be developed using the following methodologies.
Shared leadership: In case of efficient project execution, every manager should be shared
with equally efficient team members that will make every team a balance one and
performance will be equal from each and every team.
Team orientation: The orientation of teams should be in such terms that they could cope with
the upcoming risks themselves. This will help the risks to be overcome in minimum time and
increase the productivity factors of EWS.
Learning: If the self-managed teams of EWS are provided with proper learning and
education then the employees could handle the risk events in a proper manner which will be
helpful to the organization.
Autonomy: The self-managed teams should have the autonomous work culture among them
which will enhance the performance of the team as well as of the organization.
These above stated approaches are taken into consideration by EWS to create self-
managed teams as these will help the progress of the organization’s success and make the
organization different from its competitors (Inayat, 2015). These strategies are taken by the
leaders of the organization to develop the self-managed teams and aim to achieve the
company’s goals.
2.5 Steps to alleviate challenges faced by project team
There are certain challenges that the managers of a project face while dealing project
management. The project managers should be quite capable of identifying these risks and

8A CASE STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
prevention measures should be taken by them to alleviate the challenges (Morrison et al.,
2019). These are explained below:
 The managers should clearly specify the team members about the responsibilities of
the part of the project that they are handling so that they could own the project and
work efficiently.
 The managers should ensure that the key personnel should not pull off the project at
crucial times either on a temporary basis or permanent basis as this will hamper the
project’s success.
 The team members should be kept updated with the deadlines of their part which in
future will meet the deadline of the whole project.
 The managers should have the potential of gathering all the requirements that are
necessary for the fulfilment of the project.
 The manager should take every single problem as a serious one so that it does not
goes to a higher level where the solution will be hard to implement.
 Management, collaboration and communication among the team members as well as
with the managers are very necessary to avoid any vulnerabilities arising in the
project (Muller, 2017).
3. Conclusion
Thus from above discussion it can be stated that EWS should follow the necessary
steps to choose good team manager. The tools and techniques mentioned above should be
taken into consideration by the whole managerial team of EWS to put up an effective success
to the project they are handling. Moreover, the 5 types of power that are stated above to
motivate the employees, can enhance the work culture of the EWS to maintain the success of
the organisation. The creation of self-managed teams can put a positive impact on the

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project’s success. Finally the steps that are to be kept in mind by a project leader is also stated
in the above work which will help the managers to detect the risks in the project beforehand,
so that they can provide the solutions to any upcoming risks.
Thus it can be concluded that with the help of the above stated points EWS will be
capable of maintaining a strong team for the project and a strong team leader who will lead
these team members to carry out an effective and successful project in the organization.

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References
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principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management,
5(1), 6-14.
Annosi, M. C., Foss, N., Brunetta, F., & Magnusson, M. (2017). The interaction of control
systems and stakeholder networks in shaping the identities of self-managed teams.
Organization Studies, 38(5), 619-645.
Antonakis, J., & Day, D. V. (Eds.). (2017). The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
Grizzetti, B., Lanzanova, D., Liquete, C., Reynaud, A., & Cardoso, A. C. (2016). Assessing
water ecosystem services for water resource management. Environmental Science &
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Heagney, J. (2016). Fundamentals of project management. Amacom.
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change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(1), 2-16.
Inayat, I., Salim, S. S., Marczak, S., Daneva, M., & Shamshirband, S. (2015). A systematic
literature review on agile requirements engineering practices and challenges.
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techniques for the practicing project manager. John Wiley & Sons.

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Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. J., Morrison, J. R., & Kalman, H. K. (2019). Designing effective
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