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Key Points:

• Selecting the right team members for a project is crucial for its success but is often challenging to get right.

• Like choosing the crew for a sailing trip you first need to understand the type of journey you will be taking and the roles each crew member will need to play.

• To select your dream team then ask four essential questions:  Do they have the Capability, Influence, Capacity, and Desire to go on the journey with you?

• If you don’t answer ‘hell yes’ to each question, keep looking for a better match.

• With the right team assembled, your project will have a higher chance of success, bringing you closer to achieving your project's goals.

Choosing a project team is a lot like choosing a boating crew

It’s pretty obvious projects need people to succeed.  But what’s not so obvious is how to select the right people to work with you on a project.   Each project has its own timeframe and unique set of challenges to overcome often requiring different skills and experience.  Like choosing a boating crew – they are very different depending on whether you are sailing a racing yacht or piloting a passenger ferry.  If you’re a first-time or emerging project leader, choosing the right people to form a team to work with you can be a daunting task.  Even the most seasoned project leaders find it challenging to make the right people choices at times.   In this article I provide four essential questions to ask that will help you select the perfect team members for your project. 

Determine the type of project you are leading

I’m often asked by my clients “how do I choose the right team members for my project”.  It’s the second most common challenge I’m asked to help with, after “how do I develop the right strategy and plan for my project?”

Projects are delivered by people.  Their skills, experience and how they perform individually and collectively are one of the most important factors in projects success.

Projects are typically more complicated and challenging than basic operational activities of an organisation such as repetitive reporting, transaction, or customer activities, where uncertainties and ambiguity are usually low because detailed processes have been developed to follow.   

Projects involve teams understanding and navigating uncertainty, managing stakeholders, balancing financial constraints that are often interdependent and within specific timeframes to deliver results.   

Which is why selecting the right team members is a crucial factor in delivering a successful project.   How you recruit for a project role needs to reflect the type of project you’re working on and the specific role and characteristics of the person you need. 

Before you start thinking about who to interview or tap on the shoulder to work with you on your project – consider the TYPE of project you are leading.  Is it more like a Passenger Ferry or a Racing Yacht?

You need a different crew with different skills to successfully pilot both craft successfully.  Similar to sailing, knowing the nature of your project and how each team member will need to perform their role and work with others will help you frame the picture of the type of people you will need to work with you to achieve  your project goals.

Passenger Ferry projects require people with differing experience and expertise to complete tasks largely independently. The project will be successful where these tasks are completed when needed.  These types of projects typically require low innovation and are largely coordination challenges.  Team members will need alignment to the goals and clear instructions on what they need to do to be successful.

Racing Yacht Projects require a high level of collaboration and communication between people to develop new and novel solutions to challenges that are both foreseen and unanticipated.  The project’s success will largely be determined by how team members interact and support each other.  Team members need high levels of self-motivation to sustain the journey.

In reality, your project will sit somewhere on the spectrum from passenger ferry to racing yacht type projects. 

Identify the roles or skills you need to complete your project

Like selecting the right boating crew, you’ll need to work out what roles or positions each team member needs to fill.  You may not know all the roles / positions to start with.  And that’s OK.  You can fill additional roles as the project progresses or when you need them. 

Projects have the following three types of roles:

1. Project Leadership roles: Project sponsor and project manager(s).

2. Workstream roles:  People that lead and undertake specific types of tasks or contribute specific expertise that combined with others complete the major activities required to reach the project’s goals.  Examples include, Technology, Finance, Taxation, Product, Business Development skills.

3. Support roles: People that support the leaders and workstreams efficiently conduct their activities and tasks.  Examples include, Administration and Accounts Payable support skills.

To identify the roles and skills you need, start by breaking your project into the topics or areas that impact your organisation and consider what tasks or expertise you need to help overcome your project’s challenges. 

A passenger ferry for example requires a captain (Leader to pilot the boat and direct operations), a customer services officer (to collect fares and manage passenger safety) and often has a first mate (as back up to the captain to pilot the ferry in case of emergency).

Ask the Four Essential Questions to help you select the perfect project team member

Once you are clear on the type of project you are leading and the roles you need to recruit for, you’ll be in great shape to start the process of selecting your team members. 

The four essential questions to help you select the perfect team members are:

1. Do they have the Capability to perform what’s required of the role?

2. Do they have the Influence or Authority to capture the attention and cooperation of stakeholders they need to work with?

3. Do they have the Capacity to complete the work when you need them to?

4. Do they have the Desire to work with you and the wider team on the project?

Capability

Start by asking yourself what you need this person to do.  Make a list of the outcomes you need from this role.  Consider if you need the role to lead others, provide information, undertake analysis, communicate with stakeholders or collaborate with others to find new solutions to a problem. 

Also identify what qualities you need of this person.  Do they need to be a creative thinker, able to take initiative and lead, communicate exceptionally well or collaborate constructively with others?

Influence

Projects deliver change and rely on collaboration and communication with others to be successful.  They also rely on access to resources and knowledge. 

Consider who the person needs to be able successfully influence and work with and what specific resources they need to be able to access to be effective on the team and whether the candidate can provide these.

Capacity

Projects can require 100% dedication or a fraction of someone’s available time.  The time commitment will depend on the role and nature of the project.   As best you can be clear on the expected time commitment required of someone before you begin searching to fill a role.  If you’re not certain of the exact time commitment, provide the best estimate you can.

Teams perform at their best when there is trust between team members.  Trust is created when people spend time together and form a bond to achieve a goal.  When people change on a project, it takes time to build trust and recapture momentum lost as a result. 

Think of it like this, if your sailing trip was to take three months and your crew member only had one month available, that wouldn’t work so well would it? 

Where a role is part time, and a resource will be fitting it into their other responsibilities, assess how the candidate will make sure project deliverables and commitments will be met alongside their other goals.  This may mean discussing it with their manger if the role is critical to the project.

Desire

A candidate that has the right capability, influence and capacity provides a compelling trifector of attributes.  And for many people is enough to select someone to work on the project.  But as research confirms. without the desire or motivation to engage and want to work on the project, your team will struggle to perform.  

Working with people who genuinely want to be part of a project is a delight.  They provide energy, ideas and make things happen.  Where someone is reluctant it can feel like an anchor pulling against the rest of the team.   A team member that is not ‘pulling their weight’ can be caustic to team moral and can increase the risk of not achieving your project goals.   

On corporate projects, people are often ‘allocated’ to teams by their leaders.  This is helpful, but only when the person is truly committed to doing the work needed and has the energy and drive to overcome the challenges their role needs to face. 

Ask the candidate what is exciting about the project and what part of it motivates them to want to join the team?   A project that needs significant challenges to be overcome over a long period of time will need considerable discretionary effort.  Make sure there is something valuable and meaningful in it for the candidate to work with you on the project.  It could be part of their career progression, learning new skills or the chance to achieve something significant.  

Conclusion

You can build a dream team for your corporate project by considering what your project needs from its crew, what roles they need to fill and answering the four essential questions to select the perfect team members.  

If a candidate is not a ‘hell yes’ to all four essential questions, then keep looking.   With the right team assembled, your project will have a higher chance of success, and you'll be one step closer to realising your project's goals.   Remember, it's not just about having people on board, but about having the right people in the right roles performing to the best of their abilities.

With the dream team in place, your project is set to sail smoothly towards success. 

If you’d like a free ready to use template to help you think more clearly about your project team recruiting strategy – download the Team Selection Model.

 

Happy sailing and send pictures!

Cheers, Craig

  

At ThinkClearGroup we help people in corporate roles excel at delivering projects. 

How to select your dream team is something we teach in our Project Excelerator Workshop.  If you’re looking to level up your project delivery skills and fast track your career, book a discovery session or email us at contact@thinkcleargroup.com today.

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