Collaborating with New Team Members

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Communications Management  

Don’t worry; I’m not going to write an article on stages of team development. The Tuckman¹ model (forming, storming, norming and performing) is well known by most of you I’m sure, and two minutes with Google will refresh your memory. It’s a model that is still relevant today, even though it’s now more than 50 years old. But in this article, I want to look at just one aspect of how new team members are integrated into an existing project team--the collaboration aspect.

Effective collaboration requires a level of comfort and understanding with colleagues that only comes with time. It requires an appreciation for the different strengths that each individual brings, their unique perspectives and the way the interaction of the team works to develop a collective solution. Very little of that is conscious; it just happens naturally as people spend more time working together. When a new member is added to that environment, it can result in considerable disruption and can inadvertently result in the new person feeling left out.

Clearly for the good of the individual, team and project, that must be avoided…but how?

Understanding the dynamics
Joining a team that is already working closely together can be intimidating in any circumstance--not only does the new member have to get to know the logistics of the project (how it is being managed, …

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