990-10产品经理:Forming project teams – the right mix is key to success 组建项目团队——正确的组合是成功的关键

It is well known, that teamwork is essential for projects. Many research papers, books and standards (like the IPMA ICB) highlight this fact. Bruce Tuckman´s stages of team development – forming, storming（风暴）, norming（规范）, performing（执行） and adjourning（休会） – are well known in the community and explained in nearly all project management trainings. However, little attention has been paid so far to the team composition团队组成. Whilst observing teams in real life we often recognise that they are basically formed with people from the functional department being available at the moment of the request. It would be merely coincidence that those people fit together. The project manager may form them throughout the project lifecycle to a performing team. Nevertheless, it is more likely that they underperform表现不佳 or stall.
众所周知，团队合作对于项目来说是必不可少的。许多研究论文、书籍和标准（如IPMA ICB）都强调了这一事实。Bruce Tuckman的团队发展阶段——形成、风暴、规范、执行和休会——在社区中是众所周知的，并且在几乎所有的项目管理培训中都有解释。然而，到目前为止，很少有人注意到团队的组成。而在现实生活中观察团队，我们经常认识到，他们基本上是由职能部门的人形成的，在提出要求的那一刻是可用的。那两个人能凑在一起，只不过是巧合。项目经理可以在整个项目生命周期中将他们组成一个执行团队。尽管如此，它们更有可能表现不佳或停滞不前。

Another problem is, that project managers often do not know which people they need for their project. A team is a social system, which builds on a “good” match of motivation, competences能力 and interactions相互作用 of its constituents成分 parts, like an orchestra管弦乐队. If one person does not fit, the whole team will most likely underperform表现不佳. Thus, the project manager needs to analyse the project tasks and derive key requirements for all team members. It does not necessarily need to be a “perfect” team, all three, the motivation, competences能力 and interactions 相互作用could be developed along the project lifecycle. This is the main leadership task of a project manager, but also the team itself can help individual members and the interactions相互作用 between them to grow. It is the self-organisation of the team that helps to overcome some deficiencies of the original team composition. However, if the basic requirements of the team members are not fulfilled, the “healing forces” of self-organisation and leadership might not be enough for a successful completion of the project.
另一个问题是，项目经理通常不知道他们的项目需要哪些人。团队是一个社会系统，它建立在动机、能力和其组成部分的互动的“良好”匹配上，就像一个管弦乐队。如果一个人不适合，整个团队很可能表现不佳。因此，项目经理需要分析项目任务，并为所有团队成员得出关键需求。它不一定需要是一个“完美”的团队，所有这三个，动机，能力和互动可以沿着项目生命周期发展。这是项目经理的主要领导任务，但团队本身也可以帮助个人成员和他们之间的互动成长。团队的自组织性有助于克服最初团队组成的一些缺陷。然而，如果团队成员的基本要求没有得到满足，自我组织和领导的“愈合力量”可能不足以成功完成项目。

How to reach the right mix of a project team? This is a joint effort of three parties involved: 1. the project manager, analysing the project with its requirements regarding people and developing the team systematically along Tuckman´s five stages. 2. the project sponsor, ensuring the deployment of the “right” team members from the functional departments in order to help the project to succeed, and 3. the project team members themselves, performing assigned tasks in the best possible way through motivation, competences能力 and interaction相互作用. The right mixture of people can be seen from various perspectives, one could be the mixture of competences available, e.g. in an investment project the mix of technical, commercial, legal and / or social competences to realize the investment in the best possible way. Or it could be a team mixture of people with high motivation that keep the team spirit up, some others being selected due to specific competences needed to perform the project and finally, some people that are instrumental for the interactions in the team or from the team towards other parties. Additionally, a good mixture of people may also build on other criteria, such as age, gender, cultural background, personalities and disciplines. There is enough evidence through research that diversity of the team helps to be more innovative and to overcome challenging situations in projects. Thus, the focus of the project manager (together with the sponsor) should be on forming project teams with a mixture that allows the team to dynamically grow throughout the project lifecycle and successfully achieve what is expected from them.
如何形成一个合适的项目团队？这是一个三方参与的共同努力:1。项目经理，分析项目对人员的要求，并按照塔克曼的五个阶段系统地发展团队。2. 项目发起人，确保从职能部门调配“正确”的团队成员，以帮助项目成功；项目团队成员本身，通过激励、能力和互动，以最佳方式执行分配的任务。合适的人员组合可以从不同的角度来看，可以是现有能力的组合，例如在一个投资项目中，技术、商业、法律和/或社会能力的组合，以实现最佳的投资方式。或者是一个团队的混合体，具有很高的积极性，以保持团队精神，另一些人是由于执行项目所需的特定能力而被选中的，最后，一些人对团队中的互动或团队对其他方面的互动很有帮助。此外，一个良好的混合的人也可能建立在其他标准，如年龄，性别，文化背景，个性和学科。通过研究有足够的证据表明，团队的多样性有助于更具创新性和克服项目中的挑战性情况。因此，项目经理（与发起人一起）的重点应该是组建一个混合的项目团队，让团队在整个项目生命周期中动态地成长，并成功地实现他们的期望。