Introductory Notes

Integrated team members:

• Provide the needed skills and expertise to accomplish the team's tasks

• Provide the advocacy and representation necessary to address all essential phases of the product's life cycle

• Collaborate internally and externally with other teams and relevant stakeholders as appropriate

• Share a common understanding of the team's tasks and objectives

• Conduct themselves in accordance with established operating principles and ground rules

An integrated team (also known as an "Integrated Product Team" or IPT) is composed of relevant stakeholders who generate and implement decisions for the work product being developed. The members of the integrated team are collectively responsible for delivering the work product. (See the definition of "integrated team" in the glossary.) The integrated team receives its assignment from its sponsor. The sponsor of an integrated team is a person or a group (e.g., project manager or even another integrated team) who can assign work tasks and provide resources.

The following characteristics distinguish an integrated team in an Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD) environment from other forms of specialty work or task groups:

• Team members include empowered representatives from both technical and business functional organizations involved with the product. Within defined boundaries, these representatives have decision-making authority and the responsibility to act for their respective organizations.

• Team members may include customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders outside of the organization as appropriate to the product being developed.

• An integrated team consists of people skilled in the functions that need to be performed to develop required work products. Some of them may represent a functional organization. These people have a dual responsibility to focus on the product while maintaining their connections with the functional organization that can assist the development with additional expertise and advice.

• An integrated team focuses on the product life cycle to the extent required by the project. Team members share and integrate considerations, expectations, and requirements of the product life-cycle phases.

• An integrated team understands its role in the structure of teams for the overall project.

Clearly defined and commonly understood objectives, tasks, responsibilities, authority, and context (of vertical and horizontal interfaces) provide a strong basis for implementing integrated teams.