the best resources; that’s
why they’re often over-
loaded and generally
unavailable.
If you sense that this
could happen, you may
want to modify your
approach strategy. Try to
establish a climate or tone
in which the functional
manager, rather than the
individual assigned to your
project, will be viewed as being responsible for the success of
that department’s contribution to the project. If resource
providers feel this responsibility, they should be more likely to
provide a more qualified employee for your project—and pay
more attention throughout the life of your project.
In all of the above scenarios, we’ve assumed that you’ll be
using people who work within your organization. However, at
times it may be necessary to use external resources. The
expertise you need may not exist within your company, internal
resources may not be available when you need them, or it may
just make good sense to look outside. (Refer back to Chapter 4
for additional discussion on this topic.) Before using external
resources, be sure to consider these additional points:
- A competitive bidding
process may be
required. Selecting a
qualified consultant or
contractor may be
tricky. - You’ll need to write
and maintain con-
tracts. - Some flexibility may
be lost (e.g., what
Building and Maintaining an Effective Team 81Getting the Resource
You Want, Part I
If you have a specific resource in
mind, be prepared to “fight.” Prepare
a strong argument—in advance—to
explain why you need that particular
individual. Be sure that there’s a com-
pelling functional basisfor your argu-
ment. Simply saying,“I like working
with Sally” or “Joe and I get along
very well” is unlikely to sway the
resource provider.Getting the Resource
You Want, Part II
If you have a specific resource in
mind, you’ll need to make that very
clear as soon as possible—definitely
before a specific individual has been
named. Getting a functional manager
to change his or her mind after mak-
ing a decision on a resource assign-
ment is extremely difficult.