DEFINE THE PROJECT TEAM

Mapping out who is involved in the project is the first step in building your project team. The most obvious place to start the definition of the project team is to use the existing who's who spreadsheet that was developed during the initiation phase of the project (see Table 1.2). Potentially this could enable you to determine at least an initial group of people who need to be included as part of the project team. However, the who's who spreadsheet does not cover all of the people in the project and it may not have been kept up to date as new people joined the project. It is also probable that the spreadsheet doesn't show how the various people listed relate to one another in terms of work on the project.

Unless you have spent effort on keeping the project's who's who directory up to date it is probably more productive to start with the work breakdown structure when determining the project team. This is a simple but effective way of identifying a large number of team members quickly. It also has the benefit of linking together team members who are undertaking similar or related activities. This analysis should allow you to produce a team organization chart. The chart should be similar in style to the chart shown in Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Project organization chart

This chart shows the names and some key information about each person. Additionally it shows the project reporting relationship of one person to another. However, the chart also clearly shows one of the difficulties that advanced projects pose when you are building an organization chart. Advanced projects have a large number of people working on them and this makes it difficult to display the information in a manner that allows it to be easily accessed. This can be overcome by drawing a separate chart for each work package and if necessary a separate chart for any sub-work packages.

When all the charts have been completed you should have a suite of papers that collectively set out the organizational chart for the project. Before considering publishing this chart you need to address those people who may not have been included in the work breakdown structure. You need to seek out those people who are on the periphery of the project and add them to the chart.

Project managers sometimes find it difficult to decide who they should include in the chart and who should remain absent. They spend a disproportionate amount of time worrying about whether someone will be offended about being left off the chart. Often they avoid the question by including everyone they can think of. This is unnecessary and clogs up the chart, making it harder for team members to find those people they are searching for. You do not need to do this.

To determine who should be included in the chart you should analyse the meetings that are held in support of the project and include the people who are involved in them on the chart. This works effectively since the project meetings that are interwoven through a project are normally generated by interest in the project. Many of these meetings are not driven by the needs of the project but by the desire of those outside the project to influence the day-to-day activity. Therefore gathering a list of these meetings, their purpose and membership can prove to be an effective method of identifying team members. The list generated is likely to include senior managers, the project sponsor and people external to the organization, for example customers. Once all of the potential project team members have been identified your initial organizational chart should be updated and published.

Rather than presenting this information in a paper format it is more effective to consider using an electronic publishing method. Perhaps the simplest method is to incorporate the material into a Web page that all of the people in the project have access to. Using a Web-based approach can prove effective since it is easier to keep it up to date and avoids the expense of republishing the chart suite every time there is a change in team personnel.

When the chart is published you should take time to ensure that those involved in the project know that a new chart is available. As the project progresses there will be smaller changes as the team make-up changes. Therefore it is good practice to establish a method of informing team members of changes at the start of the project. The simplest way of achieving this is simply to send an e-mail to the people on the chart.