Managing the team, or managing the work?

Focus on the work!

As project managers, our job is to deliver a defined set of deliverables. Those deliverables may be as small as relocating a team to another floor, or as large as a satellite that hovers over the earth. No matter what the deliverables, the members of the team are crucial to the success of the project.

Team development

In many companies, team development for projects is usually a combined effort between the managers of the people and the project manager. In my experience, the project manager doesn’t get much say in who in on the team – it’s whoever can be spared or maybe has subject matter expertise in the effort. Your mileage may vary.

Project managers work with the team they are given, not the team they want. As leaders, we are responsible for getting work done. Managing the team to that end is the trick.

Team dynamics

There is lots of literature on team dynamics – forming, storming, norming, and performing, personality type models, and other research on group dynamics. All this is great, and we should all be aware of how our team members interact with each other in the service of getting the work done.

Are we managing the team? Or should we be managing the work?

I find that most professionals are perfectly capable of managing themselves.  They come to work, expect something to do and get to it. Most folks don’t show up to work thinking, “I can’t wait to screw up today!” or “My goal today is to make the project manager completely crazy by turning out substandard work.”

Team management

As project managers, we don’t often have direct reports. Everything we do, we do through a team who typically reports through a different manager. We may have input into performance reviews, but we typically don’t write them. Again, your mileage may vary and your company may be different.

Getting the work done with quality and within schedule and budget are our focus. Not when Team Member 1 gets to work or leaves. Not our attraction or dislike for a certain person. Just is the work getting done on time, on budget, and with the quality we need.

Stay focused

If there are personality conflicts on the team that are preventing work to be done, then  the PM needs to step in, get it resolved and move on. It’s about getting work done.

It’s easy to get mired in the personality conflicts and attractions, the crisis and the triumphs, the gossip and the politics and forget our purpose. Don’t get caught up in the drama, just be sure the work is getting done.

How do you handle managing the team versus managing the work? Tell us in the comments below.

For more information on team dynamics, check out ProjectManagement.com and search for “team dynamics”.

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