Five Components of a Successful Project Team

Brad Egeland is an IT/project management consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management and project management experience leading initiatives in manufacturing, government contracting, gaming and hospitality, retail operations, aviation and airline, pharmaceutical, start-ups, healthcare, higher education, not-for-profit, high-tech, engineering and general IT.

  Communications Management   Risk Management   Talent Management  

Have you ever led a project team where everything seemed to gel? You’d remember if you had--everything seemed to run smoothly, with very little (if any) conflict. Team members were skilled and focused on the end goals of the project. No rogue behavior where scope is changing behind your back. The team is cohesive and the communication flows effortlessly.

And what’s amazing is that it shows to the customer, too. You’ll know because a pleased customer can’t help but let that information out periodically. They’ll make random glowing statements about certain performances or concerning the team as a whole. Even better, it may get back to you from your senior management due to something they said directly to your CEO. Those are the very rewarding projects.

So what does it take to have a well-oiled, cohesive, smooth running, self-motivating project team? One that seems to effortlessly accomplish tasks and where no one is complaining or stepping on someone else’s feet in the process? And even better, everyone is working hard on your project, not skipping off at critical times to take care of tasks on another project.

If you have led one of these types of projects, it’s an experience that you are not likely to forget. On this type of team there is usually a strong trust bond, people work cooperatively together to reach the common …

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