Getting the group to work as a team – one project manager’s story
Background
Alice has recently joined a technology consulting firm as a project manager. The firm has offices globally and is headquartered in New York City. Alice will be located in the NYC office. Projects often include team members from a variety of locations. This is Alice’s first time working with a global team, although she has successfully managed national projects for another technology consulting firm. The team includes 4 members from the following locations:
- Samantha from the US office (NYC)
- Siraj from the Bangladesh office
- Mimi from the Shanghai office
- Ali from the Saudi office
These team members will be involved in the initiative that Alice will be leading from start to finish and, as the project progresses, other team members will be brought in as needed from the offices represented above and also from the Tokyo office and the office on the West Coast is San Diego. They will be brought in for short time frames – likely anywhere from 2 weeks to 5 months. The project is expected to last for 12 months.
The project sponsor, Jonathan, is located in Munich and has sponsored a number of projects. He was interested in working with Alice given her expertise in managing complex technology initiatives. Even though she has not managed global teams, he felt he could provide her the guidance needed so that she would be successful.
Jonathan scheduled a videoconference call with Alice to discuss the project and tell her a little about her team since he had worked with each of them in the past. This is the information he shared with her:
- The project was a high profile project that would impact the company’s client base. It had the support of senior leadership and the Board of Directors, but they would also be paying attention to the project as they wanted to be sure nothing went wrong.
- The timeline of 12 months was doable in the sponsor’s opinion and, to be sure that time was not an issue, the senior leadership has committed the 4 team members to the project 100% – they would work on no other projects.
- The budget was significant for the project and Jonathan told Alice that if she needed additional budget monies he would expect her to make a business case for any additional investment.
- About the team:
- Samantha was fairly new to the company and to working on technology projects. She had extensive experience in product development however in other companies.
- Siraj had been with the company for over 5 years. He has extensive application development experience and is well versed in a variety of programs.
- Mimi has been with the company for over 8 years. She has extensive experience working on project teams both as a member of the team and as a team lead. She is also well versed in IT networking and software development.
- Ali is new to the company; having joined right out of college in the last month. His only experience in working on project teams is during college and his work experience is primarily part-time jobs during college.
Alice was a bit concerned with the team she had as she was unsure if the experience among the team members would be sufficient and the project was a high-profile one. She knew that getting them working together as a high performing team was going to be essential to team and project success.
Alice was preparing for her first team meeting which included the launch of the project. She has gained permission to get the team together in the NYC location for the first team meeting. She was planning a two and a half day team meeting.
Part II: Preparing for the team meeting.
