Hello fellow Project Managers and interested colleagues, how are you doing? We welcome you to the first post of this blog! Hope you all will enjoy this wonderful journey of project management.
As a project manager, you may have the option to hire resources to build the project team or you may be assigned resources who are already part of the organization. If you have the option to build your own team to execute the project, then there are definitely some key criteria that should be considered when building a successful project team.
The criteria listed below is not by any means exhaustive. These are the key areas which has helped many people execute numerous projects and programs successfully.
Subject matter knowledge and experience
Depending on the role you are seeking to fill, it is critical to find the resource who has knowledge and experience. Also, depending on what the project budget is, you can bring someone who has knowledge vs. someone who has done this type of work for many years. It is also important to understand the level of experience required for the role. If the role is something that can be easily trained, you may want to consider resources who have less experience to help control the budget. If the role is specialized and is a critical role to the success of the project, then experience may be more important than just theoretical knowledge/understanding alone.
Adaptability
Project managers are hired to help manage and execute projects, which includes being adaptable to changes within the project. Being adaptable is an important criteria for project resources to have. The stakeholders may not like the solution design, or the development may require significant re-work. If you have resources who are not flexible, then it will be difficult for the project to stay on track and deliver a successful outcome/product/deliverable. Being adaptable is a critical trait that project resources should possess as it is important to understand how stakeholders’ understanding and needs may evolve over time.
Cognizant to culture
The importance of this area cannot be emphasized enough. Understanding the culture of the organization is critical to the success of any project. If the stakeholders of an organization are aggressive, then you will want to bring a resource who has a “driver” type of personality. If the stakeholders of an organization are friendly, you will want to make sure the resources brought on the team show humility and are easy to get along with. Additionally, the project team culture may be different than the culture of the organization they are supporting. The project team can express a culture of inclusivity while the organization may express a culture of a closed-door policy.
Hopefully, you found this helpful. Definitely, there are more criteria to add that can be considered. Please share the most important criteria according to you in the comments section below. Share your thoughts and provide your feedback. Looking forward to hearing from you! Stay tuned for more informative posts, until next time…happy project management!