Discussion post for Project Management

Building a team can be a difficult task. As a leader, the choices made with the formation of a group of people that will work together and will reflect on the final project. The team must be able to work together in a professional manner. Diversity is an important part of building a successful team. Teams of a diverse composite achieve more effectiveness when they are challenged with non-routine tasks that require innovativeness.

There are various views as to how to develop a team. The three overarching phases of team development are entry, perform, closure.

Entry
During the first phase of development, entry, the focus should be placed in building trust and forming cohesion within the team. This will be difficult considering the variety of backgrounds involved in a diverse team.

Perform
During the perform phase, the focus is two-fold starting with descriptions of the task and the analysis of the problem at hand. This particular phase is not difficult in a diverse team due to the variety of experiences and ideas that result from a multicultural setting. The second focus is an action part of this phase where the focal point is that of decision-making and implementation of the work.

Closure
Finally, the team should close with an analysis of what worked well and what did not work so well. This analysis is great tool for determining how the team worked together. Also, we can evaluate the project itself to see if our plans matched the actual events in order to determine any differences and make adjustments in future projects.

All of this is great, but one crucial part to a successful team is the selection of its members. The team members should be selected by their task related capabilities and abilities. The basis of the project should be taken under account. Of course, there are going to be over-achievers and under-achievers. As the team leader, we should know our members' capabilities, limitations, and potentials. This makes it easier to assign tasks.