I just read an interesting article by Michael Wood called Real Project Teams Bring Real Project Success. I particularly liked this part:
In my experience, part of the formula for delivering incredible value on IT-centric projects is the quality of the team doing the work. Unfortunately, it seems that more and more projects are resourced using a talent pool concept where people are thrown together based on credentials without much regard as to their collective chemistry, which in turn does little to foster a winning team environment. Once the project is over, the players go on their merry way perhaps never to work together again. Thus, there is little emotional connection to the project, little or no buy-in by the "team" to the project or each other; in short no investment other than just performing assigned tasks. Is it any wonder that project costs are increasing and
project successes decreasing? Imagine any sport where at each game a team was assembled based on talent (like all-star games) and not based on their ability to work as a unit towards a common goal: winning. Just like in the all-star games the quality of play usually is poor and the effort put out equally as unimpressive.
Read more here: http://www.gantthead.com/article.cfm?ID=242178
What an interesting way to look at the lack of buy-in from a project team, comparing it to a typical all-star team here in the US. It makes for a perfect analogy! This of course got me thinking about ways to get a new team motivated, interested and engaged - and maintain peak performance throughout a project - whether that team be temporary (go all-star team!) or more permanent (go packers!). Sorry, I don't have any current epiphanies - but at least the article kicked my brain and got me thinking! I'm all for keeping teams together if the organization is set up for it. Sometimes temp teams are necessary (remember tiger teams? Steve McConnell Old school..?) and sometimes an org is set up to draw resources from a pool. If managed properly, these temporary project teams can produce the same results as a team that has developed together. If you apply Tuckman's "Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning" concept to any team, big or small, temp or perm, I believe you can still be successful. Of course, there is benefit to having a dedicated set of resources, growing together as a "real" team (as in permanent people, working together) and truly working through the 4 stages of team development to "performing". This is how high performance teams are developed and consistent project success is found.
I know I skimmed over a lot of details, I'm just thinking out...blog? If you have more to add - I'd love to hear from you!
For more on Bruce Tuckman's four stage forming, storming, norming, performing model:
-- bruce tuckman forming storming norming performing team development
-- Forming, Norming, Storming, Performing (PDF)
-- Forming-storming-norming-performing - Wikipedia
-- Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing - Leadership skills from MindTools
-- Matrix Teams
Technorati tags: Teams, Project Management, Project Teams, Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Bruce Tuckman, Team Building
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