Heritage Arboretum Development Project

Leading and Managing a Project Team While Creating an Arboretum During a Pandemic

Our team is a sub-committee of our township's Tree Committee. We started with anyone who volunteered during a Tree Committee meeting and discovered some individuals were more willing to work hard and promptly. We also discovered that trying to get a large team to even meet during the pandemic when we were not allowed to meet indoors, and the weather was cold and rainy was difficult. So as we regrouped and formalized our team, it became a small team. Ease of meeting and making decisions are advantages of this small team as is team member knowledge of our product. Each team member can speak knowledgably about many aspects of our project.

We sought generalized specialists. Each member had experience with plants and an expertise such as being an arborist, landscape designer, self-taught native plant expert, or planner. Members also graduated from Tree Commission Academy, which is a two-year program taught by the state urban forester. This program includes not only general knowledge of plants and their care but also workings of local governments, budgets, planning, and related knowledge to help run a tree program.

Team members were involved in planning all along. This started with walking the site and assessing current plants. It continued with providing input and review of the arboretum application. Once our arboretum status was granted, team members and other

stakeholders engaged in rounds of input and discussion as we created our master plan that will provide general guidance for several years. As we looked at shorter time periods, team members met and recommended species to plant.

The team utilized several Agile principles. Simplicity was employed in keeping the design as clean and easy to maintain as possible while still adding to the number of species. The team changed in response to feedback, although this was a work in progress as some feedback was negative about team members' favorite design elements. We continued to consider our vision of native plants, beauty, and education as we selected plants so that we could add as much value as possible, and we strived to plant quickly in the more visible places to create quick value. We found that despite our early efforts for feedback, some feedback did not come quickly and was disruptive when it did come. Therefore, we had our product owner work intensively with key stakeholders to secure early and detailed feedback that was actionable.

Team member responsibilities include attending both our sub-committee meetings and those of our parent committee; collectively and actively participating in making decisions; performing between meeting work individually and in with other team members and with other volunteers; and actively sharing ownership of the project

How can leaders use the following types of leadership effectively?

1. Transformational
2. Servant
3. Developmental
4. What team development when in-person meetings are difficult such as when the pandemic limited inside meetings and weather limited outside meetings?
5. How can the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Team Members be more effective using the Agile concepts of simplicity, value, feedback, and change on this project?