Thoughts on Team Management

11072010 Blog



For this Full Sail Sunday Blog, I’m reflecting on my three years as a teacher of adults and my recent endeavors to develop a creative team. In my class there is something the students and the teacher have to do and maybe find something enjoyable out of the experience, but on a project there is something that drives what the team wants to do, but encounters things the team needs to do. In other words, an effective teacher must inspire students to learn, but a project manager must inspire the team to do.

Note worthy from Chapter 4 of Project Management, the certainty that managers would like versus the real uncertainties of the life of the project creates extra stress. A teammate’s worth may change over the course of the project based on the needs of the project and the basics of human psychology. As far as being a teacher, one has to upkeep their craft by actually reflecting and developing their teaching skills. For team-based projects, a teammate must reflect and evolve as the project changes over time. This is very important to consider when looking at the political climate of the stakeholders, and the project changes that may have to occur that conflict with individual teammates' politics and desires.


Why is a team important within your industry?

One person cannot do everything when it comes to making quick realistic deadlines. A team with each member individual role defined creates a group that can produce much faster than just an individual. For example, if having key frame animator and in-between animator makes the animation process faster than just having one person due both jobs.

How would you go about putting your team together?

I recruit by the following: Shared goal, Skill, Deadline Driven, Communication, and Trust. If the team comprises of individuals I want to work with everything goes fine, but sometimes-random elements makes the team unstable.

How would you communicate with them?

I prefer Phone calls, Texts, and Emails, but am interested in learning or using new commutation media. Consider the importance of having two types messages, group and personal communication. Twitter for example has a lot of business potential. Imagine creating an account that uses Twitter where only your team can see specific project information in real time. Facebook recently released a better version of their group’s service.



Legal Note: The class is using Gary R Heerkens’ book Project Management Copyright 2010 McGra-Hill. The following notes and charts fall under Fair-Use for educational reasons and no direct profits were from material discussed. There is Added comment Comments from Zon Petilla. Most material was “paraphrased” by Zon Petilla.