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interpretation of data which the member or member's department has generated and to actively participate in the team's discussion and decision making process. In addition, the leader must assume and should expect that each team member will be empowered by the member's department to commit sufficient resources required to conduct and complete any planned studies in the time frames which have been agreed to. Team members are responsible for interacting with their functional manager to ensure departmental support and the prior commitment and availability of any requested and agreed upon financial and human resources. |
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It would be ideal if every member of every project team had prior project-related experience and was quite senior within the member's department. The problem often faced, however, is that there are not enough experienced people to cover all projects and, as a result, some project leaders find that they must deal with relatively inexperienced and junior team members. Under these circumstances, the leader must insist that the individual department functions take on the added responsibility to provide training and coaching for their own team representatives to get them up to speed as rapidly as possible and that senior members within these departments are active in mentoring younger colleagues. Unfortunately, this is not always done within the function and it is often expected that somehow the project leader addresses these deficiencies. Until such time that team members represent their departments appropriately and establish a level of credibility within their own organization, the project leader faces the problem of a somewhat dysfunctional team where some team members disregard or dismiss what others have to say primarily because of a lack of confidence in these junior members. This situation must be addressed as rapidly as possible by the project leader and the functional manager working in concert. |
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A project leader who has been around for some time in an organization usually knows who in the various departments are the good performers and who are the ones to avoid. Of course, from a selfish perspective, leaders feel that their project is the most important in the entire portfolio and want only the best performers or those the leaders are most comfortable with on the project team. Unfortunately, every project leader usually winds up wanting the same individuals, so internal competition develops as individuals attempt to stack the deck or cherry pick the organization with these winners. The functional manager then has the difficult task of deciding who from his department goes on which project team. This usually winds up as a win-lose situation and certainly is a negative experience. This competitive process must be carefully managed by all participants. Ground rules must be agreed upon beforehand so that there are no surprises or misunderstandings. |
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