ASSEMBLING PROJECT TEAMS

Projects, no matter the size and scope, are complex. If they weren’t, they might as well just be tasks on a to-do list. Luckily, projects are also a group effort—for every project, there is a project team working together to make deliverables a reality.

How do these teams come together? Not on their own! There are many ways to form project teams and many factors to take into account.

What Is a Project Team?

A project team is composed of individuals that are working together towards a common goal. This can include executives, a project manager, team leaders from different departments and team members. How this team operates depends on how it’s organized, which can take the form of different project organizational structures.

Within a typical project team structure, projects are headed by the project manager, though they also can be led by an executive that the project manager reports to. The key characteristic of this type of team is that everyone reports to the project manager or another individual at the top of the chain of command.

The project manager often manages the project, the team and all the related tasks in a project management software. Ideally, project management software allows for team collaboration as well as planning, so teams can be at there best.

Three Key Steps to Create a Project Team

As we said, assembling a project team will look different depending on the project and organizational structure. That in mind, here are a few universally helpful details to focus on when putting together your team.

Consider Interdepartmental Needs: Lots of projects require multiple departments to work together to achieve deliverables. Within the project team structure, each involved department should be headed by a leader who manages a team of individuals in their department. So, before getting into the nitty gritty of assembling the team, decide which departments to involve and who will lead them.
Create Communication Practices: Because the project team structure does involve so many tiers of individuals, it’s extremely important to keep communication fluid. Otherwise, the team will begin to feel like multiple, independent departments working toward different goals. The best way to prevent this from happening is by setting a cadence for meetings, requiring status reports, scheduling interdepartmental collaboration time and any number of other ideas.
Clearly Define Expectations: The best way to set communication up for success and keep the entire project running smoothly is by clearly defining expectations. The most successful projects are led by project managers who lay down ground rules and define expectations from the get-go. These rules can also include clear boundaries, what steps to take if something goes wrong and more. We recommend going so far as to put these things in writing and keeping the document somewhere the whole team can reference.

How to Map Team Member Skills for Assignments

Now that you’ve laid the foundation of your project team structure and assembled the team, it’s time to start giving assignments. But, before you do so, it’s extremely advantageous to assess who has the skills to best take on certain assignments. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and playing to a team member’s strengths can majorly improve results.

In order to learn which team members are the best fit for assignments, a project manager or team leader needs to take stock of everyone’s experience and specialties. This is done by creating a skills matrix.

What Is a Skills Matrix?

A skills matrix is a table used to quantify and illustrate each team member’s skills, experience and interest level. The project manager and/or team leader must first gauge a team member’s interest in a certain assignment. This interest is then compared to their skills. Then, this comparison is added to a table comparing the skills and interests of all team members.

To make an accurate matrix, you must create a scale to “score” individuals. When these scores are all displayed in one table, it is simpler to make objective decisions that are best for the project. It is also an excellent opportunity to take note of an individual’s interests vs. their experience, and perhaps give them more opportunities in the future.

young people group in modern office have team meeting and brainstorming while working on laptop and drinking coffee

Benefits of a Project Team Structure

When a project team is structured in a top-down way, everyone knows exactly who to report to, whether it be to ask questions, get approval, present results or anything else. There is zero confusion on which team members to collaborate with.

Another benefit of a project team structure is that it is entirely driven by the needs of the project. Different projects have different demands. This type of organizational structure is custom-tailored to these demands. Now, that isn’t to say a project team structure is always the right choice. There are potential pitfalls to be aware of.

Pitfalls of a Project Team Structure

Above we discussed how project team structures are determined by the needs of the specific project. While this can be a great thing, it can also result in waste. How? At the beginning of each new project, a new project team structure must be created, rather than reusing a structure from previous projects.

Another pitfall to be aware of is the potential for the entire team to become disjointed. If the project manager isn’t careful, communication between leaders can fall apart. When this happens, collaboration comes to a screeching halt, and team members start stepping on each other’s toes.

How to Improve Team Collaboration

Improving team collaboration is easier said than done, and assuming that perfect collaboration happens all on its own is a big mistake. Successful team collaboration is the culmination of thoughtful strategies and adapting to challenges. If you’re asking yourself where to start, consider these three tips.

Choose the Right Type of Project Organizational Structure: We’ve talked about the inner workings and benefits of a project team structure, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for every team or project. In fact, if collaboration becomes a big issue, it may be time to take a step back and consider restructuring. There is no “golden” organizational structure that works perfectly, one hundred percent of the time.
Create a Communication Plan: One of the first steps toward improving collaboration is getting everyone on the same page. Within a project team structure, this means making sure different teams all have the same information to work with and know exactly how to communicate with one another to ask questions, express ideas, etc. When this is the case, and the project is made up of various teams and team leaders, a plan for communication lets everyone know exactly how to work together.
Choose Smart Team Management Solutions: Teams are growing every day, but that doesn’t mean we all go to the same office. Team management tools wre created to empower the modern team—made up of individuals in different departments, or even different time zones. Because of this evolution, we need technology that makes collaboration and communication easier than ever. Team management tools create a digital space for everyone to collaborate and see what others are working on.

SYSTEMX BUSINESS MANAGEMENT PLATFFORM Makes your Project Team Better

SystemX offers the smartest team management solutions around, connecting everyone on the team, improving collaboration and cutting down on confusion. Every aspect of our project management software was built with project teams in mind, and we’ve made it easy to collaborate on any and everything you need, like tasks, Gantt charts and more.

Need to know the right person to ask a question? Use the Team page to see what everyone on your team is working on and who might have the answer. And when you’re building a new team for a project, see a roster or individuals broken down into departments or filter individuals by certain skills.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TIMESHEET COMPLIANCE

Assuming you want your business to be profitable, if your product is predominantly people, in that you’re delivering a service or project, it is the same people that are your profit margin. Therefore, how you measure billable time is of utmost importance; do it poorly and risk damaging your profit margin, alienating customers and creating a despondent workforce.

Beyond this any business whereby utilization is a primary metric, whether or not for forecasting deliverables or implementing them, you’ll likely be reliant on the employee themselves to accurately record their time, likely in the form of TIMESHEETS!

But, and we’re not pointing fingers here, employees tend to not like them making it problematic to the following departments:

finance for tracking profit/margin or accurate invoicing
pre-sales for precise demand forecasting
delivery for not having enough hours to implement
customer success for having to deal with unhappy, overbilled customers
project managers for over-serviced clients and wasted hours

WHAT IS TIMESHEET COMPLIANCE?

Stage one is understanding this question. Well, it’s obvious isn’t it? Do ya timesheets! Beyond that timesheet compliance is about filling it in accurately and correctly; often these are to a set of standards that are predetermined at the company level, to establish what is pertinent to them, or on an industry level, so there is affinity to project types. This means projects are tracked effectively and forecasting is consistent and accurate, but also people get paid accurately.

WHY DO PEOPLE CARE?

For the employee it might not be that simple though. Yes there are rules to follow but as a PM you have work to do and a poor memory for the hours you’ve worked. This can cost your business for the following reasons (nicely they all turned out to be P’s):

Profit: if your employees are mis-reporting it’ll likely lead to inaccurate forecasting and this could be in either direction - over or under. Clients getting overcharged, or mis-charged in line with sales promises (sometimes referred to as the value-promise gap) often results in poor customer success, churn and no repeat business; this is only further exacerbated as you then provide correctional work for free. It can also create issues with starting on time when the volume of time required is mis-forecast, further hitting your bottom line.
Pay: on the flip side, undercharging clients might mean your employees are getting the short end of the stick, especially if there is variance in billable rates due to differing types of work or if you offshore your resources. You want to be accurate for both internal and external reasons.
Projections: your forecast’s accuracy is dependant on historical data and if timesheet compliance is low you’ll likely be mis-judgeing how long work should taking in actuality; this can impact in a variety of ways from losing clients at the bid stage as your competitors were able to provide more realistic timelines and SOWs, or it can impact success later with work not aligning to the SOW at each milestone. Timesheets are essential to the concept of good resourcing and beyond - under or over budgeting time can kill a profit margin.
Performance: all of the above puts a customer relationship at risk but also can damage your employee satisfaction, which exacerbates the former. Using timesheets effectively means you can track the important moving parts of a project and your business overall as it can highlight these risks, for example, burnout, underperformance, unprofitable work, client engagement and (un)fulfilled promises.

THE SOLUTION

The SystemX Time Sheets Module in our Business Management Platform. You don’t have to buy the full platform license, and instead just use our time sheet module integrated you’re your accounting software to record billable hours by employees, and project based consulting.

Timesheet tools are commonplace and there are a variety of options to choose, but if service delivery is your world then you should look at our Time Sheets module. Click here to book a 15 minute no obligation demo with us.

The best systems should easily accommodate flexible working practices like part time workers or those who have less hours a day in comparison to a colleague, so that you can truly see the cost and capacity based on individuals as opposed to blended data. If you want to be able to make business decisions based on data, the data has to be accurate and automation can create a more accurate picture of work with the added bonus that employees don’t have to spend hours on doing the thing they hate the most...timesheets!