CMI 503 Assignment Example
A team thrives when its members have a good mix of skills and experience. A manager can help by using methods to assess the team’s current and future needs and by understanding how learning and development contribute to both individual and team goals.
Table of Contents
Task 1: Good practice guide: Approaches to managing and leading teams
AC 1.1 Evaluate theoretical models used for managing and leading teams
The GRPI model. Originating with Rubin, Plovnick and Fry and used widely in team diagnosis since, the model holds that team difficulties should be examined in a fixed order: Goals, whether purpose and objectives are clear and agreed; Roles, whether responsibilities and decision rights are understood; Processes, whether the ways of working are fit for the task; and Interpersonal relationships, whether trust and communication are sound. Its central proposition is that most problems presenting as interpersonal originate higher in the sequence.
The model’s value is its discipline. When a curriculum team reported persistent conflict between lecturers and attached learning support practitioners, the visible problem was relational. Working the sequence located the actual cause at role level: neither group knew who held responsibility for adjusting assessment arrangements, so each assumed the other had done it, and the recurring failures were being attributed to attitude. Diagnosing at the wrong level would have produced a facilitated relationship conversation that fixed nothing. The model is also easy to teach to curriculum managers who have no management training, which matters in a sector where leaders are appointed for subject expertise.
Its limitations warrant a statement. The sequence is asserted rather than empirically demonstrated, and the claim that interpersonal problems are usually downstream is a useful heuristic rather than a finding. Genuine interpersonal problems exist, and a manager applying GRPI rigidly may keep re-examining goals while a bullying situation continues. The model is also diagnostic only, identifying where the problem sits without indicating what to do about it.
LaFasto and Larson’s five dynamics of teamwork. Derived from a large study of working teams, the model identifies five levels at which team effectiveness is determined: the individual team member, in terms of experience, problem-solving ability and openness; team relationships, particularly the willingness to give and receive constructive feedback; team problem solving, meaning focus, clarity and a supportive climate; team leadership; and the organisational environment, covering direction, structure and systems.
Its strength is scope. Unlike models that address only internal dynamics, it explicitly includes the organisational environment, which is decisive in further education where funding methodology, timetabling systems and awarding body requirements constrain what any team can achieve. Its emphasis on openness to feedback is also well matched to a professional workforce, since lecturers are accustomed to peer observation and the model gives that practice a team-level rationale rather than a compliance one.
Its limitations include a descriptive character that identifies what effective teams have without specifying how to build it, and an evidence base drawn largely from interview and survey research subject to hindsight bias, since successful teams may explain their success in terms that flatter it. The breadth that is its strength is also a weakness in application, since a manager said that five levels matter has not been helped to prioritise.
Must Read