How to Survive Your Next Project Team

You go to the meeting. Easy.

Participate? Of course.

The meeting wraps up. Yessss!

Someone hollers out next steps. Uh oh!

Lo, and behold, there’s your name assigned to more than one follow-up! What started as a meeting is now a project, and you’re on it. Welcome to the team! Or should I say, “Fall in line, soldier.”

Companies rely on teaming more than ever. Today’s working environment requires collaboration, and project teams are a necessary way of bringing together expertise across departments and locations. It’s easy to recognize that a group can accomplish more than an individual, but teamwork has also become an important way to promote knowledge-sharing and learning. A Gallup study shows that 84 percent of workers work on multiple teams every day. If you haven't been recruited yet, it’s coming soon!

While the value is clear, that doesn’t make the interactions any easier. Poorly organized teams can feel like a war zone, and the battles can rack up quickly. Priorities feel imbalanced, results are hard to measure, and some people just don’t play fairly.

Here are five tips to survive your next project team:

1. Know the mission. Before a team can properly unify, it must have a clear purpose. Plenty has been written about vision and mission statements, but simply stated, any high-performing group should be able to answer these questions:

1) What are we trying to accomplish 2) Why is this important 3) What does success look like

Knowing these answers will be critical as you begin to assign responsibilities, identify your stakeholders, and build the milestones of your project plan.

2. Enlist & deploy. Once your team’s goals are established, assign responsibilities. This exercise is important for two reasons:

• It will help to determine if you have the right people on the team. Let’s say you realize that a specific skill is needed and no one on the team has the expertise. You’ll know right away that an additional team member is necessary. Alternatively, you may realize that some skills are redundant and there is an opportunity to cut back on who’s involved.

• Team roles help you to stay in your lane and others in theirs. Nothing can more quickly implode a team than vague responsibilities. Ever missed a meeting and you’ve been volunteered for tasks that don’t make sense? This is the worst way for your group to start and will almost always come back to haunt your progress. Get the responsibilities in writing and make sure everyone is in agreement.

3. Use the right weapons. Shared drives and note-taking systems are the best way to keep everyone on the same page. Google Drive, Smartsheet, and Dropbox are a few of my favorites. Discuss how you’ll share updates and be sure all key team members have access.

4. Pick your battles. Disagreements are inevitable and knowing which to pursue requires social savvy. My rule of thumb is to focus on the when, why, and what, and not the how, where, or who.

It’s worth the discussion to me, if a team member is:

• making decisions that disrupts our timeline (when)

• challenging our purpose (why)

• getting off task (what)

I avoid the battle, if it's about:

• their approach (how)

• minor location changes (where)

• how they align resources (who)

5. Celebrate victory. A great project ends with recognition and reflection. Think about what worked best and think about what you’d do differently. Given how matrixed organizations have become, it’s likely you’ll be on another project soon, so you’ll want to know how to improve. Celebrate your accomplishments. Handwritten notes, dinners, or verbal recognition are great ways to commend your team.

Project teams don’t need to feel like combat, and companies are looking for team players to help the business to grow. Develop strong collaborative skills and you’ll be sought-after for your ability to set the rules of engagement for an effective project team.

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