Let's look at this second essential, which is effective project teams. Now, project teams are temporary task forces that are put together to fulfill a clear mandate. And this mandate has two sides. Most project teams do a good job with the first side, which is to develop the plan. Now that, of course is involved with all of the comprehensive work of gathering information. Putting that information together in a way that decision makers can make a decision once the decision is made, timelines and all the rest of this stuff is put into the plan.

Unfortunately, that's about half of the mandate. The other half of the mandate is, as long as that project team is around, they've got to recognize they are the experts for that particular project. So they have to do a much better job than most project teams are currently doing. And engaging the entire system to help them increase the willingness and the ability To implement to that particular project. second aspect of effective project teams are using an effective methodology. Whether it's their own customized methodology or one PMI or right PMA.

So that's one thing that most organizations and most project teams are getting significantly better at. One of the things that many project teams still struggle with, are ensuring that the right people are on the project team. Now the project team is not a group of 70 or 80. People, project teams typically are groups of between seven to a dozen. And for big, big projects, you'll have many sub teams inside the larger coordinating project team. We think about the right people.

First of all, we've got to talk about subject matter experts and process experts or process experts. So subject matter experts would be if you're implementing an SAP initiative, you're going to need some people who understand the sap methodology But when it comes to the process experts, those are people who are experts at the process of project management. So we are benefited from having both of those experts represented on the project team. The other aspect of having the right people on your project team goes back to the system's view. And your project team has got to have direct access to those people who will have to implement the project, they will have to do something in their local work area differently. In order for this project to be successful, they also need to have access to people who will be impacted by the project, not have to implement it, but they will be impacted by it.

You don't need to have all those people of course on the project team but you need to have access to those people. You need to have an ear into the groups that are impacted and also have to implement the project. And lastly, as a project team have access to To all of the important resources that they need, typically the resources fall into two areas one, the project teams have enough time or are they doing this particular project off the side of their desk while they're still trying to fulfill their day job. The second aspect of necessary resources they have enough people on the project team that issue comes full circle with walkies law. First time I read this I smiled and again, this is something that project teams typically understand very clearly. So you can read that walkies law.

And my guess is you understand the truth in this if you've been participating in project teams for a while now, question here is what can you do to help ensure the project teams in your organization are as effective as possible? Find this worksheet and stop the program and make a note to yourself.