Which strategy is more successful in program management? Unity of your staff or rival-ness among your staff?

both I do agree with Adrian. no addition

The strategy you use would greatly depend on the project being handled. Teamwork encourages people to work together and complement each other. When each team member understands their role in the big picture, they tend to support each other and work towards the common goal.

On the other hand, rather than creating a sense of rivalry, fostering a spirit of healthy competition can also gain desired results. Competitiveness urges employees to stretch their limits, move out of their comfort zones and often achieve greater results.

I understand program management as managing a set of projects, hence one can have complementary projects meaning projects that complement each other, or projects that don't share features. Second scenario often happens even in places where it shouldn't like research laboratories, so the question is in fact to determine the circumstances that need competitiveness or team work or even both. 

In case of software development like operative systems, there are several teams that do development separately, but at the end they to cooperate to deliver something that no one of involved project teams would be capable to do by itself.

Another aspect and perhaps the most important in strategic terms for companies to evaluate are the risks of transversal knowledge throughout the entire teams’ spectrum, thus creating opportunities for leaks. Imagine that the company develops a model of investment for derivatives, or new detergent that removes10% less the color, would you share the knowledge through the entire teams?

In conclusion the decision should address a strategy that mitigates the risks of not delivering the agreed output but keeping internal knowledge safe from leaking, since this is the ultimate strategic value for the company.

Effeciency comes from motivation, hence I would suggest that the management style changes according to the stage of work, and the environment, I would suggest the following scenarios to illustrate my point.

In new innovative solutions, you need to encourage competitiveness, and rewarding new ideas, while you can be sure it has been challenged enough to become the solution, however, while developing the solution, you need to encourage teamwork, and rewarding will be related to best team rather than best person (this reward system would be unfair in the next case).

On the other hand, in operations (depending on operation of course), you tend to want to encourage teamwork, as we know the input, we know the outcome, and we know the process(es) to do that transformation. But, careful, while you are rewarding those who perform well, you are creating a sense of competitiveness, as it would be unfair to reward only5% or10%, you could set a target which team need to achieve, and anyone who does what's needed can get that reward.

I Agree with Adrian and Shobha, projects are team based design, you can't increase the competition among the same team as this might jeopardise the team spirit, you should increase the competition among the teams as this will enhance the team spirit and will motivate them to increase the outcome of the team.

I believe Ideally, you should design the rewards project-based (on the team outcome) and not individual performance.

Good Luck

Team unity is far more efficient over the long term as it creates an environment that fosters growth and commitment. Staff retention tends to improve too.

Rivalry is effective when used between teams within the same group but on different projects, i.e. automotive v truck sales or maintenance teams competing on downtimes.

The team must be a team first, all other techniques can then improve on their effectiveness, but if they aren’t a team all other approaches will be less successful.

العاملين ضروريين في المشروع--فروح الفريق ضروريه لنجاح المشروع--وكذلك روح التنافس  الايجابيه بين العاملين في المشروع تساعد علي تحسين الاداء جدا وتطويره في المشروع--علي ان تتصف الاداره بالعدل والحزم والسعي الدائم لتحسين ظروف العاملين بها

I see that staff unity is the most successful strategy. All ataff should cooperate to achieve the common goal of the organization. Rivalness should be between the organization and its competitors and not within the organization

both are important at the project level but keeping in mind that rivalry should not cross the limits as some people ( with negative thinking) try to sabotage others' success to gain preference. there should be Cohesion within a team and somewhat (Controlled) rivalry among the teams for a project to be successful.

I would take liberty to replace word "rivalary" with "psoitive competition" which leads towards acheivement of common goals by bringing out the best from all team members.

It also helps people in raising the performnce bars for themselves as well as helps in pushing away ceiling of incompetence level making them productive for a much longer period of time.