Successfully Building Project Teams

July 10th, 2007 by Carmen Schubert

Running a project at the same time while working on other tasks can be quite a challenge. In order to manage both effectively, Hal Macomber provides on his blog ten rules that might help to improve project work.

Referencing all rules would take too much time – and you have probably other things to do. I rather decided to select three rules that from my point of view are worth talking about and focus on them one by one.

The first to start with is “Build relationships intentionally”

Building relationships with the team members of the project are essential and should therefore be the first step before starting the project. To work together efficiently in the project, people need to get to know each other and create trust. By respecting and helping each other, team spirit can be created. This is important for the success of the project.

Honestly, it is easier to write and talk about it than to put it into practice. It is often challenging to build solid working relationships, if people do not know each other, and if they do not work full-time on the project.

According to my experience, people who do not dedicate a significant amount of their time to a project just tend to create overhead. Especially if they need to coordinate and arrange a lot with other team members who work full-time for the project. In such a case, you should at least consider whether you can afford to “kick” these part-time team members out of the project. Normally, it is better to have fewer people on a project, with most of them available full-time.

Just some aspects that worked for me when building project teams:

• If the project is rather a major undertaking, try to organize a kick-off event with some adrenalin involved. Special events, like canyoning, rafting or similar activities work great (… just make sure that your team members have the physical condition to participate). If you hang on a rope while climbing down a cliff with your team members holding the rope, the relationship to your team members can not become any stronger…

• Establish a small set of “project rules” right from the beginning, so that each team member knows what is expected of her and what is important.

• Assign clear responsibilities – it is also essential that each member knows what he is responsible for.

• Make sure that everybody subscribes to the goals of the projects. But be sensitive to the personalities of your team members: while some people just get excited by BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), others just stall and panic.

Jon R. Katzenbach mentions in his excellent book “Wisdom of Teams” that high pressure coming from the outside can be a success factor for high-performing teams, too. From my point of view, he is definitely right about that. It is incredible what you can achieve with a team that is facing a “nobody believes we can do this” attitude. This is really a rewarding experience if you finally made it. But, of course, you do not want to have these situations too often.

In my opinion, the opposite is also true: if goals are too easy to achieve and nobody feels committed to them, you will not even achieve trivial goals.

Coming up soon, the rule that leads to successful project work: “Coordination and collaboration”.

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