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

Position Families

The CPT position family defined in Chapter 3, The Complex Project Team, sets the stage for developing and assembling the CPT. The CPT is uniquely different than the project teams you might be familiar with. The first difference is that in its formation consideration must be given to the balance across the four disciplines of the team with respect to the project profile. Someone on the team must possess a profile that adequately meets the project profile for the most demanding discipline skill. For example, suppose the project requires senior level IT consultant skills. At least one member of the team must be skilled at that level or the team may be exposed to unnecessary IT risk. The second difference is that the team must really be a team rather than just a group of professionals that happen to be assigned to the same project. The complex project manager (CPM) bears the responsibility of seeing that the team really develops as a team. That means the CPT must be open, honest, flexible, and adaptive to the changing needs of the project. Co-location of the CPT members helps a great deal but as we know co-location isn't always possible. Only through a real collaborative effort and the resulting synergy that can be created, will the CPT be successful.