Leading the Unbalanced Team

Kenneth has 14 years of healthcare experience in government and private industry. Over eight years of experience managing healthcare IT projects, operations, contracts, and personnel. His work experience includes project management, contracts and procurements, data analysis, claims adjudication, business writing, and business process modeling. Kenneth was certified in 2006 as a Project Management Professional.

  Communications Management   Talent Management  

An unbalanced team is one where the project manager or the project management office does not have the experience or expertise that the subject matter experts on the project team have. It could also occur when certain people in the project team are not as experienced as others. In that environment, the relationships between the team can be strained and upside down. Imagine a team of software code developers led by someone who has never touched any kind of code and you can begin to see some difficulties.

Yet despite the unbalanced team, the project manager is still expected to lead the project and manage things well enough to finish on time and on budget--and the team is expected to do their jobs, ego or pride notwithstanding. The project manager must meet the problems head on instead of putting them off or ignoring them.

Meeting Halfway
The first step to dealing with an unbalanced team is to meet people halfway. While the project manager or others in the organization may not have the same experiences and expertise, there is some homework they can do. Learn the language and the background of the work the project team is doing (this is a good idea even if there is not a problem with an unbalanced team). You could even set up some basic training for those who need it so they can get familiar quickly with the work the project team is doing. A little work toward …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.