Project Management Tools, Techniques & Best Practices
Project and program management tools and techniques articles and videos of project managers in action.
Handling team members is always a challenge, particularly when you borrow the people from other departments. Take a look at the PMI Best Practices Video and comment on the three approaches this PM tries with a difficult team member.
posted by Dick Billows, PMP, GCA @ 5:32 PM
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Dick Billows PMP, has more than 20 years experience as a project and program manager both as a partner with an international consulting firm and as an executive with a Fortune 200 company. Dick has consulted with and trained project & program managers for over 300 organizations. He is the author of 14 books and hundreds of articles on project and program management. Dick is president of 4PM.com and directs the firm's consulting, in-person seminars and web-based 1-on-1 training programs.
5 Comments:
I am managing a project for a client. I have a situation where perfomance of some members in my team is not upto the mark and they are not motivated. The reason is my client has favored one for an opportunity. This affected person has been rejected for earlier opportunity as well. Because of this others are also getting demotivated and look for every possible -ve thing. How can I improve this situation?
Surprisingly this is not very uncommon especially true if the project has high visibility.
As a PM, I would find out the reason for choosing a particular person for the job, may be it is because of that person's prior experience/knowledge/capabilities that is a perfect match for the job.
As a second step I would find out the actual requirements for the task and the capabilities of other team members.
Armed with this background information I will have a discussion with the client on the importance of cross-training and giving opportunities to different team members to improve the overall team’s knowledge base and be able to provide a backup person as well.
I will also chat with the team members and emphasize on the importance of the work that they are currently assigned to and openly discuss any opportunities in the pipeline.
Good luck,
Venky Thagadur
Surprisingly this is not very uncommon especially true if the project has high visibility.
As a PM, I would find out the reason for choosing a particular person for the job, may be it is because of that person's prior experience/knowledge/capabilities that is a perfect match for the job.
As a second step I would find out the actual requirements for the task and the capabilities of other team members.
Armed with this background information I will have a discussion with the client on the importance of cross-training and giving opportunities to different team members to improve the overall team’s knowledge base and be able to provide a backup person as well.
I will also chat with the team members and emphasize on the importance of the work that they are currently assigned to and openly discuss any opportunities in the pipeline.
Good luck,
Venky Thagadur
Some of our team members are working in another country (permanently) and therefore, it is sometimes quite hard to manage them, we usually pay them on project basis. Currently we have one major issue with one of our team members, that is one of the few ones that gets a steady income and is not project based. The problem with him is that for some time now he hasn't submitted his work. We don't know what else to do with him but just let him go. My boss does not really want to do that because they also have some kind of personal friendship, but I don't see any other option than lay him off or have his salary based upon completed projects. I eMailed him and asked him what is going on and if there is anything I could do, if he is having personal problems etc. but he never replied to that. I believe there are more motivated and talented people out there that would love to work for us, but do you have any advice or comments regarding our situation?
Thanks
Marina, I know your situation is troubling but you might also look into the fact that he might not be getting your emails. Perhaps give him a phone call to see what is going on but there's definitely been a communications break down. If he's really not doing any work, I'm with you - fire him.
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