The Project Team Members

Project teams are multi-disciplinary! Team members are bought together from different departments and may include experts from external companies or suppliers. The project team members are responsible for completing the project (doing the work) according to the project schedule.

Having the right skills within the project team is crucial to project success, and the membership of the project team may change as different skills are required for certain phases and deliverables. Typically, the project manager will be consistent throughout the project life cycle although on some large projects specialist project managers may lead certain phases for example a procurement or feasibility stage.

A project is typically made up of the following members:

Project Sponsor or Executive (might be sitting on a Project Board)*
Project Manager*
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)*
Change Management Function
Project Assistant/Project Coordinator
Project Planner and Controller
Risk Management function
Team Manager(s) – Line managers of the SMEs
Testing Manager(s)
Testing team
Quality Assurance function

*These are the core roles on a project team. The other roles may or may not be required depending on the industry, project type and project size

7 Steps to pick Team Members

The selection of the right team members is essential for the successful completion of a project. Therefore, you might be interested in the following 7 effective steps in choosing the right set of project team members for a project:

Project Analysis: It’s essential that you spend time and effort in completely understanding and analysis what your project is all about and what steps, tasks, and activities need to be processed in order for you to steer it into successful completion. Break down all these steps into individual tasks and tasks into sub-tasks; this way you can easily detect the resources you will need to complete the event as well as the duration based on the set productivity.
Project Requirements: Check for any requisites put down by the management, such as time constraints, budget constraints, or resource constraints, so you will be able to plan your recruitment and project team members accordingly.
Meeting with the HR: It’s a key step that you meet and explain your problems and predicament to the HR head. This way you will be assisted in finding out the most suitable project team members for the project and will get a great idea if there is a need to recruit project team members from outside the company. If that is so, you will need to prepare, in coordination with the HR, a recruitment drive for the project. This will be added and considered within your project budget (as subjected to consideration by the project sponsor and executive sponsor).
Meeting with Other Managers: Along with the HR, it’s a great practice that you also meet the internal employees’ direct reporting managers in order to gain a wholesome view of the executives, personnel you want to hire for your project. You can ask them to provide ratings for their competencies, technical skills, and team-work abilities so that you will be aided in making the best decision.
Narrow It Down: Once you’ve met and discussed, it’s time for you to make a potential list of the candidates you find are suitable for the roles. Among these individuals are your project team members who will assist you and work towards the successful implementation of the project plan in the near future. Categorize them under the skills they possess so that it will be easier for you to jot down their roles going further.
Pick and Choose: Your next step is to evaluate your list and strike in the candidates under each category to come to the number you believe is perfect for the project. These candidates should have the right blend of skills and personal behavioral attributes to become contributing project team members. If there’s a slight doubt in your mind regarding any of the employees in that list, you can go ahead and have a personal one-on-one or interview with them to gauge their mindset and skills, thus, helping you to make a decision.
Analyze Your Pick: By this stage, you already have a project team in place, but all that there’s left to do is conduct a last-minute analysis to gauge if the team does indeed have the balance needed to complete this project as intended. You will also need to do a once-over to check if there’s a potential personality clash between the project team members so as to avoid quarrelsome situations and creative blockages during the execution of the project plan.

Conclusion

It’s really important that you have a completely enhanced and dedicate project management team and project team in place to be able to successfully execute the projects you undertake. The team does comprise of varied different individuals who COLLABORATE and make things happen. Without the key quality of team-work, being a part of a project team seems meaningless. These individuals bring something unique to the table and are always gunning to make things happen.

Know your Team

or 4 Types of Team Members You’ll find in every Team:

Every team is different. Each team has their own established work and collaboration methods, but there are 4 types of team members that you will find in every team. And while they are very different from each other you will want to have at least one of each type in your team.

Remember that each type has different needs and the project leader has to develop individual methods to bring out the best in each team member. Different personalities meeting each other can lead to disagreements so the Project Manager has to find Solutions to resolve these conflicts effectively. Great teamwork means that the team members complement each other and that each team member can contribute to the project equally.