SELECT REMAINDER OF PROJECT PARTICIPANTS

Bob and Uma met with the core team members to discuss the remainder of the team. Uma had already sent an e-mail to the core team members asking them to consider people they would need for the rest of the project. Bob had identified the key project stakeholders who would need to play an active role if the project was to be successful. Based on the project plan, the team came up with subteams (listed in Table 3-4).

Table 3-4: B2B Project Subteam Responsibilities
Subteam and Leader	No. of Subteam Members	Responsibilities

Networking team-Scott	1 network administrator 1 systems administrator	Take care of network, security, firewall issues, systems, user management

Technical team-Sanjay	3 developers 2 contractors 3 consultants as needed at various stages	Programming and implementation

QA team—Paul	1 quality assurance engineer 2 testers at a later stage	Develop procedures for quality testing and prepare test plans

Business analysis team—Chris	4 business analysts	Work with different functional people to come up with requirements

Sanjay said that he wanted to schedule the five consultants as soon as the project schedule was approved; he didn't want to lose good candidates because they were not scheduled soon enough. Uma wanted all the core team members to give her their subteam members' names and responsibilities. She wanted to prepare a responsibility matrix.

Project Leadership Considerations

Project leaders should realize that selecting appropriate people for subteams has a great deal to do with project success. The comments on selecting key project participants made in Chapter 2 also apply here. However, at this level, technical competence may be more important. Many project managers and sponsors try to act in a collaborative manner with the members of the core project team and others in the organization as the remainder of the project participants are selected, but some do not. The subteam leader usually is in the best position to identify people who have the expertise needed. However, the sponsor or project manager may need to use their political acumen to actually get the person they want assigned to the project. Project leaders want to ensure that they are not simply "stuck" with workers that functional managers want to unload or with whoever happens to be available regardless of whether they are the best people for the job.

By totally delegating the responsibility of choosing subteam members to her core team, Uma abdicated responsibility. She could have empowered her core team by working collaboratively with them. The best long-term method of ensuring the ability to recruit eager and competent people is for a project leader to take care of both the projects and the people they are responsible for; such a project leader's reputation will spread. Wise project leaders want to be able to say convincingly, "If you work with me, you will be successful both on this project and after it. I can say that because that is what has happened to the people and the projects I have been associated with". In effect, the project leader is recruiting based upon both past success and future potential. Everyone wants to work with a winner. If a project leader and a project both appear to be winners, willing and competent participants will be much easier to find.

One of the key aspects of the detailed project plan is assigning responsibility. If this is done clearly, it helps with identifying and recruiting the additional participants that are needed. The more specifically a project leader can delineate what a participant will be doing, when, under what conditions, etc., the easier it will be to find the right people for the project. Team needs and diversity of input also must be considered.

Project Leadership Lesson: Planning—Human Resources

A Project Leader Needs to:

Accept that we may not be able to have assigned to our project the particular subject matter experts we really want

Have the courage to understand the full range of the company's personnel needs

Exercise the wisdom to ensure that both project and other organizational needs are met.