made him appreciate that he probably wouldn’t get very far into
planning and implementation without the help of those
people ̄and probably more. All at once, it hits him: now that his
project is off and running, it’s time to form his team.
The Mechanics of Building a Team
Once again, Brad’s instincts have served him well. Some proj-
ect managers in Brad’s situation are tempted to immediately
start moving forward on their own. They try to advance the
project as far and as fast as possible, seeking the support of
individuals only when they can’t go any further. As we’ll soon
see, this approach may offer the promise of a quick start and
appear to save money, but it’s probably not a sound long-term
strategy.
When Should You Form Your Team?
This is a very difficult question to answer. Conditions are rarely
favorable for the “big bang” approach that some envision,
where the entire team is formed at one time. The fact is that it
often requires two or three iterations of soliciting team members
before the team is fully formed. Very small projects may be the
exception to this, however. As with many aspects of project
management, the answer that’s right for you will depend upon
the careful balancing of several competing issues. As for decid-
ing when to form your team, here are some considerations:
The project should be defined well enough to determine the
appropriate participants. Your ability to begin the team forma-
tion process will depend upon how much effort you put into
the project definition process outlined in Chapter 4. If you fol-
lowed all the steps in detail, you have a great start. As a mat-
ter of fact, many of the people who helped you during project
definition may very well become formal team members, once
your project is formally authorized to proceed. In this case,
you’ve already begun forming your team. However, if you did
only a limited amount of work in defining the project or tried
to do it solo, you have to further define the project and/or
78 Project Management