Team Management and Resources

Team structure

The bid specification may identify the range of skills and competencies that need to be represented in a contractor's team, its size and structure, the responsibilities of individual team members and the inputs expected from them. The client may indicate how team resources should be allocated to the components of the contract, the inputs of time required from individual members of the team and the particular tasks they are required to achieve; job profiles or formal job descriptions may be provided for key personnel. Where these points are not specified, use your past experience of comparable work and your background research to determine the resources needed for the contract and how they can best be structured to form a coherent and efficient team.

The team named in your bid must have the competencies to fulfil all the technical requirements of the contract, but there are also other considerations that influence the way it is structured. These can be brought out usefully by emphasizing, for example, your ability to provide the following benefits:

• consistency and proportion in the team structure, applying a strong commitment of professional effort to the core activities of the contract and an effective response to highly specialized areas of work;

• clear-cut lines of management and direction within the team and between team and client;

• integration - a team that will work as a unit to the same service quality standards and that ideally has achieved success together on comparable assignments;

• continuity - securing the necessary resources to meet peaks in work pressures throughout the contract.

Bidders may be required to explain how they propose to select individuals for key technical and management positions where these are not already confirmed. If the services for which they are tendering are such that staffing levels are likely to fluctuate in response to changes in business volume and demand, clients may ask for a resourcing plan spanning the lifetime of the contract.

Clients differ in their attitudes to the substitution of personnel named in the bid. Some public sector clients may refuse to accept any requests for substitutions once bids have been evaluated, unless they foresee a protracted delay before the work of the contract can start: the bid specification may indicate that in the event of substitution they reserve the right to turn to the next-ranked bidders. For other clients substitution is not normally a problem up to the stage of negotiation. Naming alternatives for a team position is not recommended (Chapter 17).

Team leader

Because the capability, personality and experience of the team leader can play so critical a part in shaping the performance of the work, bid evaluation systems normally attach considerable weight to the competencies and professional background of the person nominated for this role. The information presented in the team leader's CV and in the description of his or her responsibilities can have a forceful influence on the outcome of the bid. The role of the team leader may be defined in the bid in terms of several sectors of responsibility, which may include:

• representing the contractor's interests in post-contract dealings and negotiations;

• acting as a focus of accountability for the work of the contractor;

• developing and confirming with the client a definitive work plan to achieve the intended outputs;

• organizing and integrating contract resources and the inputs of individual members of the team;

• managing and coordinating the day-to-day work of the team;

• maintaining a process of liaison and contract review with the client;

• maintaining effective quality management and time and cost control;

• taking action to correct aspects of contract performance and delivery that may not match the client's requirements;

• coordinating the technical documentation of the contract and the production of technical and management deliverables (Chapter 15);

• communicating and maintaining liaison with third parties specified by the client;

• ensuring that the team's approach is at all times responsive to the views of the client.

Fulfilling these responsibilities calls for a blend of technical authority and management ability as well as good interpersonal and communication skills, adaptability and the capacity to cope with pressure. For this reason, clients like to see a reasonably experienced person occupying the role. The bid should indicate whether the team leader will have the full authority of his or her employers to control the conduct of the assignment - for example, to agree adjustments in work schedules - and to receive instructions directly from the client. If the team leader also has specialist inputs to contribute to the technical work of the contract, these should be itemized separately.

In complex and large-scale assignments, the team leader may require the full-time assistance of a deputy, who should be nominated as such in the bid. There may be justification for proposing a change of team leader between stages of a contract, eg when there is a significant switch of emphasis in the technical content of the work.

Team induction

Even if the bid specification does not require a team induction procedure, you may find it helpful to undertake to provide this, particularly in bids to large corporate clients. The purpose is to ensure that team members start their work with an understanding of the business issues associated with the contract and receive practical guidance about access to services and data within the client organization. Indicate that client managers would be invited to contribute to the induction procedure.

Head office involvement

Bids for large-scale contracts often include top-level management inputs by directors, partners and other executives in the form of a 'review board', 'policy coordination panel' or similarly titled unit. Your reasons for proposing their involvement should always be made clear in the bid - eg 'to secure agreement on matters related to compliance with the terms of contract'. Clients may want to be assured that principals will make a technical contribution to the contract, especially if their names and experience are used to help win it. But they are unlikely to be impressed by bland remarks about headquarters managers 'supporting the project' or 'back-stopping'. Tell the client exactly what you have in mind.

Bidders sometimes make the mistake of describing multiple layers of responsibility in which the team leader is overseen by project coordinators who in turn are answerable to project directors. Encircling the team with a profusion of 'advisory panels' or 'specialist resource groups' is another fault along the same lines. This approach may be intended to convince clients that you care about quality and are safeguarding their interests; but the client may see it as confusing, defensive and, worst of all, damaging to the credibility of the team actually doing the work. Whatever role you give top-level management, it ought not to detract from the authority of the people leading the team.