3.2 Setting and Maintaining Standards
As a supervisor you are responsible for helping team members perform at their best. This involves:
- providing structure and clarifying pathways as the group explores possibilities and generates more specific descriptions of the problem (Mumford, 2002)
- providing a structure or process to research and test the project hypothesis.
Better outcomes are likely to be achieved when team members have:
- A clear understanding of the goals they are trying to achieve and the standards expected/required
- Resources needed to achieve their goals, including access to training and development
- Regular feedback on their work
- Rewards or recognition for their effort and the outputs
- Methods for addressing shortfalls.
Setting standards
To successfully lead a research project you need to be confident that the quality of the work will meet the standards of the funding body, your university, your discipline, and yourself. Having explicit standards of behaviour will also build trust and a work environment where everyone can do their best. The university and the funding bodies have codes of conduct and often the research grant or contract will specify standards of confidentiality in relation to intellectual property.
Clarifying the standard of performance and behaviours for the team is something that is best addressed at the commencement of the project, to make sure that each person shares a common view. If possible, it should be done at the startup meeting. The descriptions should be as specific as possible to reduce confusion. The Goal Attainment Scale (Kiresuk, 1994) below provides a framework for identifying a satisfactory goal and also for clarifying what over- and underachievement may look like. This perspective can help identify where to put extra effort rather than overachieve on one goal while falling short on others.
In some situations and stages staff will need detailed instructions about what is required. However, most team members will be highly educated and self-directed, and the issues to be addressed will relate to specific technical procedures, the standards to be applied, and the time frames. The degree of direction and structuring you will need to provide also depends on the maturity of the group and the experience of the individuals within it. Hersey and Blanchard's Situational Leadership model (referred to in Topic 2), which incorporates team capability and willingness, provides a useful framework for balancing the task and the relationships aspects of leadership.
As a group, or with individual staff members, you should clarify the minimum standard of performance necessary to satisfy the project, and any 'stretch targets' that could yield greater dividends. Check that these standards are consistent with the project management plan and are reasonable for a staff member at their level. In the research and analysis phase, identify the specific measurable achievements that are required, including the time frames, so that expectations are explicit. Where outputs cannot readily be described in numbers or are particularly unclear, you may want to use a Goal Attainment Scale (Kiresuk, Smith & Cardillo 1994). This technique asks you to describe satisfactory, very satisfactory, and exceptional outcomes, and then poor and very unsatisfactory outcomes (see the table below). This will provide you and your team members with a common picture of the result you are seeking and highlight when the process is moving significantly off track.
Goal Attainment Scale example – Clinical study subproject
Much more than expected level of outcome |
+2 |
Enabling extrapolation of long term scientific and commercial impacts of the amount of the product required to produce effect |
|
More than expected level of outcome |
+1 |
Statistical expertise in data analysis was used to strengthen confidence in conclusions. All implications of the results were elaborated in the report. Links from this study made to results in other sub-projects. |
Ahead of schedule |
Expected level of outcome |
0 |
Report provided preliminary information to inform the design of subsequent clinical trials. Large data set and fundamental analysis used |
Within 1 week of agreed time |
Less than expected level of outcome |
-1 |
Discussion of the results was incomplete and some relevant results were not included |
|
Much less than expected level of outcome |
-2 |
Some samples not analysed.
Poor quality operational management – e.g. samples lost |
One month overdue |
The Goal Attainment Scale also provides a safe basis for discussing outcomes that do not meet expectations, identifying contributing factors, and working out how problems can be addressed. The same meeting can be used to highlight the interdependencies between staff members' work outputs, so team members can organise their work to support each other's part of the project and reduce foreseeable delays. Draw on team members' previous experience to identify what behaviours make a team a happy and productive place to work.
Typically the factors that emerge are:
- Open communication
- Trust
- Supportive colleagues
- Transparent processes
- No bullying.
It is useful to describe the behaviours that illustrate these qualities so that you and your colleagues share the same expectations. You can develop the list as a brainstorm and it is most effective when done at the start up meeting. Group together items that are similar, ask the group to prioritise them, and then seek a clear indication that they will act in accordance with them. Acknowledgement can be a simple nod of the head or as formal as signing a paper. Note that it is important that there is an act of acceptance and be sure to explore any resistance to the plan so that it can be appropriately modified.
By using the group setting you are drawing on the power of the group to reinforce these behaviours in the future. This common reference point makes it is easier for a team member to talk about behaviours that contradict them. For instance: "Hey, why are you going round telling other people that you thought the analysis was weak? I thought we agreed at the start up meeting that there would be open communication. We should be discussing this as a group."
Maintaining standards
Tempting as it may be to focus solely on your own section of the research, it is important as a supervisor that you monitor how the work is progressing and whether it is meeting the standards you have agreed upon. At this stage there is usually more focus on the interpersonal relationships within the group as well as making sure that the work is on track. This phase involves providing direction, feedback, and regular guidance about research output and workload. It is an opportunity for you to pick up possible problems and address them in the early stages, and possibly to identify unexpected patterns that may influence the analysis of research results.
The value of having explicit standards for procedures and outputs will soon become apparent. If the level of performance was identified as the tasks were assigned (see Topic 4.2 or the Goal Attainment Scale) then the discussion will focus on the difference between the standard and the reality. If expectations were not made explicit, you will find it harder to convince the person that their work was below standard since it becomes your opinion against theirs. At the other end of the spectrum is the work of the perfectionist who spends too much time on minor aspects of a project when you need them to get on with the next piece of work. Again, the standards become the external reference point for the definition of what needs to be delivered. Keep a note of issues that arise and raise them in a broad rather than personal way at team meetings or internal project review points to see if the standards established at the beginning of the project need to be revised.
Modules
