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Thursday, March 25, 2010

My Love/Hate Relationship with Project Teams - Revisited


Project teams can be a project manager's greatest resource or can be a huge impediment to getting things done.  I have a lot of opinions about project teams and most people would find them to be controversial.  I will state them here and hope for feedback.


My general theories about project teams follow:

Project teams often tend to waste a lot of time, and like to blame others (inside and outside the team) for lack of project process
Project team members are rarely on the same page

Internal politics doom many project teams from the start

Project managers usually often don't have the ability to reward or punish bad behavior

One or two "bad apples" can spoil the whole bunch

Many functional managers don't believe they have to support project teams, and at times they do all they can to undermine the team approach to managing projects

A "visionary" is a person that is usually often disengaged from everything, and accountable for nothing

Lack of leadership, direction, and follow-up from top management is the number one cause of project failure

If you have a member of your project team that would rather be doing something else, do everything you can to grant their wish

Most project managers and many managers are wimps when it comes to managing individual members of their teams

Lots of organizations talk a good talk when it comes to project management and change, then go about managing change using the same old failed processes

Many project team members are loyal to their functional departments, not to the project

Teams by nature are dysfunctional, and because of this fact the project schedule and estimates should reflect this

Dysfunctional project teams are usually the fault of senior management because of their refusal to attend important project team meetings.  Ultimately the project manager is still accountable for project team dysfunction.

Many Some project teams are composed of the wrong people doing the wrong things at the wrong times.
Project team dysfunction is normal.  Staying dysfunctional is typical, but in the end detrimental to the careers of those involved.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you sure you've chosen the right profession?

ProjectSteps said...

Yes, after 20 years I'm sure I'm in the right profession.

Now, are you sure that was your best effort at leaving a comment?

Anonymous said...

You're right. It wasn't worth it.