Executive's Guide to Project Management: Organizational Processes and Practices for Supporting Complex Projects

Complex Project Team Position Family

Simply put, a position family is a collection of related positions. The positions can be related by a similarity of skill profiles or a similarity of work assignments or both. For the purposes of the CPT I am going to define a very comprehensive position family that integrates project management (PM), business analysis (BA), information technology (IT), and business processes (BP). Figure 3.1 illustrates the skills profile of a single professional from the CPT position family. This position family is sufficiently robust to include any professional who might be considered for a spot on a complex project team.

Figure 3.1 The Position Profile of a Complex Project Manager

For the hypothetical position described by the closed quadrangle in Figure 3.1 this professional is skilled at all three manager levels in all four disciplines but strongest in the PM (Senior Manager) and BP (Senior Manager) disciplines and lesser skilled in BA (Manager) and IT (Associate Manager) disciplines. This is truly an outstanding professional. The profile is more the result of extensive experience than training and education.

Note that the position family has two dimensions—discipline, which is discussed in the next section, and level, which is discussed in the section following that.

Complex Project Team Position Family Disciplines

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