Interpersonal Skills in Freeview's Re-Launch Project
This paper examines the interpersonal skills applied during the re-launch of Freeview, the United Kingdom's most popular free digital television service. Drawing on the PMI Project Management Body of Knowledge framework, the paper analyzes five core interpersonal competencies — leadership, team building, motivation, communication, and influencing — as demonstrated through Freeview's project structure. The analysis covers how a steering committee model fostered trust, how resources from three partner organizations were integrated into a cohesive team, how open communication drove performance, and how a flat organizational structure supported staff motivation. The paper provides a concise case-based illustration of applied project management interpersonal skills.
- Overview of Freeview and the Re-Launch Context: Background on Freeview's history and re-launch case
- Leadership: Steering committee model and strategic leadership approach
- Team Building: Integrating resources from three partner organizations
- Motivation and Communication: Flat structure, open communication, and staff engagement
- Influencing and Conclusion: Team socializing and shared influence strategies
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What makes this paper effective
- Consistently applies a recognized professional framework (PMI's PMBOK Guide) to each interpersonal skill before grounding the concept in the Freeview case, giving the analysis both theoretical legitimacy and practical illustration.
- Uses a clear parallel structure throughout — each section defines the skill, states its importance, and then explains how Freeview implemented it — making the argument easy to follow.
- Keeps examples tightly linked to the case: the steering committee, the three-organization resource pool, and the flat organizational structure all serve as concrete evidence rather than generic claims.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates concept-to-case application: each interpersonal competency is first defined and supported by a citation, then mapped onto specific decisions made during the Freeview project. This technique shows the reader not just what the concepts mean in theory but how they manifest in an actual organizational scenario, satisfying a core expectation in applied business and project management writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a company overview and case summary, establishing context. Five body sections follow — one per interpersonal skill — each organized as definition, significance, and case application. The references section closes the paper. The structure is essentially a framework-driven analytical report rather than a traditional argumentative essay, which is appropriate for the project management subject matter.
Overview of Freeview and the Re-Launch Context
With over 19 million subscribers, Freeview is the most popular digital television service in the United Kingdom. The company recently launched Freeview Play, giving subscribers even greater control and choice, including a catch-up TV feature. The greatest selling point for Freeview is that it is free: subscribers do not pay anything to access its channels. The company was launched in 2002 by DTV Services Limited, a firm jointly owned by Arqiva, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Sky. At launch it had just twenty-five channels, but it has since grown to include over sixty free-to-view channels and twelve high-definition (HD) channels (Freeview, 2015).
In recent years, the emergence — or rather re-emergence — of competitors in the free-to-air market, such as ITC and DTT, created the need for a technical and marketing re-launch. The BBC ensured that a proposal to acquire Freeview was developed within the short timescale set by the ITC by formulating its investment, advertising, and strategic plans quickly to meet the deadline. The BBC made the bid for the licenses and secured them. This time, however, the company followed a single management plan rather than the earlier approach of seeking input from all three companies simultaneously.
The required resources — marketing employees, technical development employees, and management employees — were drawn from among the three partner companies to enable a number of important decisions: working with the Transmission Company and other competitors as partners; hiring a project manager to oversee staff across different regions and cultures; and appointing managers for the project launch. All shareholders agreed to an integrated project plan and the establishment of a small steering committee to provide overall management. The committee was given direct access to the project manager and played a key role in enabling open communication among team members (Wearne & White-Hunt, 2014).
Leadership
Effective leadership is broadly understood as concentrating the efforts of a team towards a common objective and enabling team members to work together. In essence, leadership involves getting people to do what is needed. Key determinants of effective leadership include trust and respect. Although leadership is critical throughout an entire project, it is most essential during the opening phases, when the project vision must be communicated and participants must be motivated and inspired to commit to the stated goals. Throughout a project, team leaders are responsible for creating and maintaining communications and strategy, team building, fostering trust, mentoring, and monitoring and assessing project progress and team performance (PMI, 2013).
The leadership strategy adopted by the BBC for this project was to establish a steering committee with direct access to the project manager. The company believed this structure would foster trust among team members and encourage everyone to work towards a common goal. The firm adopted strategic leadership with a clear vision and shared values, expecting this to allow staff to make decisions quickly with minimal formal supervision. This approach was also intended to free the project manager to focus on other important matters, such as aligning the project vision with best practices in a constantly changing business environment (Rowe & Nejad, 2009).
Team Building
Team building refers to the process of helping a group of people — united by a common objective — to work effectively with one another, with leadership, with external stakeholders, and with the wider organization. Teamwork is the outcome of appropriate leadership combined with sound team-building practice. Team-building activities encompass both interpersonal procedures (including conflict management, communication, leadership, and motivation) and task-related activities (such as creating goals, defining roles and responsibilities, and establishing processes).
Establishing a productive team environment involves addressing project team issues and treating them as collective problems rather than assigning individual blame. Team building can be further strengthened by securing top management support, fostering team member commitment, implementing suitable rewards and recognition, developing a team identity, handling disagreements effectively, encouraging trust and open communication, and providing ongoing guidance. While team building is especially important at the front end of a project, it is a continuous process. Changes in a project environment are inevitable, and a sustained team-building effort is required to manage them effectively. Outcomes of effective team building include mutual trust, improved decision-making, high-quality information exchange, and efficient project management (PMI, 2013).
In the case of Freeview, the team was built by leveraging resources from three organizations. These resources included marketing personnel, management personnel, and technical development personnel. A project manager was also appointed to coordinate staff across different regions with varying organizational cultures.
References
Freeview. (2015). About. Retrieved from http://www.freeview.co.uk/about-us
Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. (2009). Organizational behavior: Managing people and organizations. New Delhi: Dreamtech Press.
Project Management Institute (PMI). (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (5th ed.). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
Rowe, W. G., & Nejad, M. H. (2009). Strategic leadership: Short-term stability and long-term viability. Ivey Business Journal. Retrieved from http://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/strategic-leadership-short-term-stability-and-long-term-viability/
Wearne, S., & White-Hunt, K. (2014). Managing the urgent and unexpected: Twelve project cases and commentary. Farnham: Gower.
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