Project Team

- Project Team.
A Project Team is an organized group of people who are involved in
performing shared/individual tasks of the project as well as
achieving shared/individual goals and objectives for the purpose of
accomplishing the project and producing its results. The team
consists of the full-time and part-time human resources supposed to
collaboratively work on producing the deliverables and moving the
project towards successful completion.
Organizing a project team is a typical task of a project manager.
Successful implementation of this task requires the manager to
acquire, develop and lead a group of people who are supposed to do
the project. Organization of the project team is the responsibility
of the project manager who is committed to building a productive
team of professionals in order to guarantee that the project
deliverables will be produced on schedule, under budget and as per
specification, and thereby the customer will accept those
deliverables.

Proper project team organization is one of the key constraints to
project success. If the project has no productive and well-
organized team, there’s an increased probability that this project
will be failed at the very beginning because initially the team is
unable to do the project in the right manner. Without right
organization of teamwork, people who form the team will fail with
performing a number of specific roles and carrying out a variety of
group/individual responsibilities. Hence, when you plan for a new
project, first you must take care of the best project team
organization through team building activities.
Organizing a project team is a typical task of a project manager.
Successful implementation of this task requires the manager to
acquire, develop and lead a group of people who are supposed to do
the project. Organization of the project team is the responsibility
of the project manager who is committed to building a productive
team of professionals in order to guarantee that the project
deliverables will be produced on schedule, under budget and as per
specification, and thereby the customer will accept those
deliverables.
Before getting started to organize a project team, it is essential
to understand the project team definition. Senior supervisory staff
(executives, project managers) as well as group leaders should
clearly understand the definition because such an understanding is
required for establishing teamwork, maintaining continuous
training, establishing productive communications, and supporting
collaboration. Here’s the project team definition:

A group of people turns into a team when every person of the group
is capable of meeting the following conditions:
a. Understanding the work to be done within the endeavor
b. Planning for completing the assigned activities
c. Performing tasks within the budget, timeline, and quality
expectations
d. Reporting on issues, changes, risks, and quality concerns to the
leader
e. Communicating status of tasks
f. Being a person who can jointly work with others
So when you look for candidates to your project group, first make
sure a candidate is ready to meet all the conditions; otherwise
switch to another candidate. If you understand this, you get more
chances to find the best candidates.

Three Conventional Roles
Every team, regardless of the project type, size and nature, has
three roles (defined as “conventional”). These roles are:
1. Leader. A project team leader is a person who provides leadership
and guidance to the team and takes responsibility for the results
of teamwork. The team leader role involves the development and
encouragement of the team through training, leading, motivation,
recognition, rewarding and other activities that stimulate or force
team members to do the required tasks.

2. Member. A project team member is a person who is actually involved
in doing assigned tasks. Team members directly access the project
and actively evolve its processes. They’re subordinated to the team
leader.

3. Contributor. A project team contributor is a person or an
organization that participates in teamwork but is not actually
involved in performing tasks and carrying out project team
responsibilities. Contributors help improve the project through
giving valued suggestions, expert judgment and consultation. They
aren’t responsible for the project results. Often project team
contributors have an interest or concern in the project, so they
facilitate successful completion.
When organization of the project team is appropriate, all the roles
are allocated adequately. Successful teams often work under the
direction and supervision of project managers who oversee the work
of the team leader and provide expert advice to team members. In
this situation, contributors work in collaboration with the
managers.

Responsibilities and Duties
A team can be responsible for a variety of duties and
responsibilities, depending on the project they’re involved in.
Good project team organization entails proper setting of team
responsibilities and duties, while considering specific goals and
objectives of the project. Here’re several common responsibilities
and duties of a project team:
Gaining the right understanding of the amount and scope of assigned
work
Following the planned assignments
Increasing the details level per task and activities, if needed
Completing the assigned tasks within the constraints of scope,
quality, time and cost
Inform the leader of any issues arisen
Proactively communicate and collaborate with other team members
The Organizational Chart
Usually all possible roles, duties and responsibilities of a team
are listed in the project team organizational chart. Below you can
read the definition.

A Project Team Organizational Chart is a detailed and document-
based graphical representation of the team to outline specific
roles, duties and responsibilities of the team members and other
stakeholders participating in the project, and to formally
constitute how exactly they are expected to collaborate with each
other throughout the course of the project implementation process.
It is also regarded as a mechanism of managing team development
processes through designing training programmes based on the group
relationships established by the chart.
The team leader usually uses the organizational chart to thoroughly
keep track of the processes associated with team management, and to
record particular relationships between group members during the
course of the implementation life-cycle. Team members use the chart
to explore what roles and responsibilities they have been assigned
to, who will share those roles, and who will manage and lead their
efforts.

Here’s a small checklist of the key tasks for creating a project
team organizational chart:
Make a Project Team List. First you need to list all the people
(and theirs names) who are supposed to be the participants of your
project team. You can do this after you’ve finished interviews with
candidates to the team.
Allocate the Conventional Roles. Now you must think about what
individuals will take what roles. Use the results of your
interviews to start with leaders, then list members and
contributors.
Assemble the Whole Team. Use your team list with the details on the
roles assigned to your people to assemble the team. This means you
need to formally constitute the team.
Identify the Stakeholders. Your team if formed, now you need to
identify the stakeholders or those people/organizations having a
direct interest in or affected by your project. They are the
sponsor and the customer. Note that although the stakeholders are
not participants of the team, they’re added to the project team
organizational plan because they influence decisions of the team.
Build the chart. Finally use all the data to create the chart and
display relationships between the team and stakeholders on it. The
relationships will show who is reporting to whom and what
supervisory mechanism is used for leading teamwork.

Success in the workplace depends on your ability to build a team,
as well as to interact with others on that team. Together, people
are able to accomplish what one person alone can not. This is known
as synergy.
Following are the characteristics of a Good/Effective project team:
 A clear, elevating goal: This is a goal which has been
communicated to all.
 A results-driven structure: The goal has been jointly
decided by all the team members. They are fully committed towards
achieving it.
 Competent members: Each team member has the required skill
set in order to achieve the team objectives.
 Unified commitment: There is nothing happening in silos.
With the total commitment from team members, achieving
organizational goals becomes easier.
 A collaborative climate: Commitment from team members and a
good leadership leads to a collaborative team with a productive
work environment.
 Standards of excellence: Quality orientation is vital to
the success of any organization.
 External support and recognition: Appreciation as well as
appraisal is required to keep the morale of the team high.
 Principled leadership: Leadership defines a team. An able-
bodied leadership can chart the team’s path to success.
 Each team member participates actively and positively in
meetings as well as projects. This shows a person’s commitment as
well as understanding towards a project.
 Team goals are clearly understood by all: Communication is
vital for achieving successful completion of any project.
 Individual members have thought about creative solutions to
the team’s problem. Thinking out of the box is vital in today’s
economic scenario.
 Members are listened to carefully as well as given a
thoughtful feedback. Listening is an important skill for any team.
Each team member is important. The thoughts and ideas of each team
member have to be listened to, with respect, no matter how silly
they may sound at first.
 Everyone takes the initiative in order to get things done.
There is no concept of passing the buck. This is an indication of
clear communication leading to understanding of individual
responsibilities.
 Each team member trusts the judgment of others: Mutual
trust and respect is highly important for the team. This is the
only way to achieve the organization goals.
 The team has to be willing to take risks: Risk taking is an
attitude which comes with confidence. Confidence on yourself as
well as on the team, besides the ability to face all consequences.
 Everyone has to be supportive of the project as well as of
others. A team is one unit. Unless these cohesive forces are there,
the team will never be able to work efficiently enough.
 There is ample communication between the team members.
 Team decisions are made by using organized as well as
logical methods.
 Dissenting opinions are never ignored: In fact, they are
always recorded in order to be revisited in case the future
situations dictate so.
 Teams are given realistic deadlines: External support as
well as aid is vital to the success of any team.
barrier of project team building:
An efficient team needs support from both inside and outside. It
needs to meet the individual needs of its members in order to
achieve the organization’s goals.
Major barriers exist when team members have professional objectives
and interests that are different from the project objectives.
Role conflict: team development efforts are stops when an role
conflicts a exist among the team members, such as ambiguity over
who does what with the project team and an external support groups
Project objectives or outcome is not clear: unclear project
objectives frequently lead to conflict, ambiguities, and power
struggles. It becomes difficult, if not impossible, to define role
and responsibilities clearly.
Dynamic project environment: many project operate in a continual
state of change. For example , senior management may keep changing
the project scope , objectives and resource base. In other
situations , regulatory changes or client demands can drastically
affect the internal operation of a project team.
Competition over team leadership:  project leaders frequently
indicated that this barrier most likely occurs in the early phases
of a project or if the project runs into severe problem. Obvioulsy
such case of leadership chanleege can result in barrier to team
building.