Project Management - Project Team Members

If you are on a project team, your contribution is essential to the project's success. Yet, as we know, some projects go fairly smoothly, while many more are a time-suck and a headache. However, your actions as a project team member can significantly tip the scales toward the project's success. Take the next four principles seriously, and maybe even pass them along to your other team members, and your project will run a lot smoother.

In this article:

• Understanding Your Project
• Managing Supporting Projects
• Status Reporting
• Project Meetings

Understanding Your Project

The project manager is responsible for creating the project scope statement, which includes gathering requirements from key stakeholders. But as a project team member, you need to understand the scope statement, and specifically the requirements, for several reasons.

• Team unity - I had some of the other bullet points higher on this list but moved this to the top because it is often overlooked. A project's momentum can get it through a ton of barriers, and nothing kills momentum more than team members not pulling their weight or pulling in different directions. But when a team is unified, there is easy communication, quick decision-making, extra effort, and the right attitude. If team members don't understand the requirements, team unity has no chance.
• Stop scope creep - Scope creep is when you go to fix your toilet, and your bathroom ends up down to the studs. All projects, by their devilish nature, creep. Every stakeholder has a wishlist, and every problem touches a web of related problems. However, understanding the true requirements of the project will keep your project disciplined and focused. And every team member will need to keep the other members accountable. Someone will throw out an idea, and you will need to say, "Sounds like the scope is creepin'." Or your project manager, who has higher-ups in their ear, will adopt someone's pet project. Which is creepy, and you'll need to say so. So get clear on the requirements and stop scope creep.
• Prevent rework - Projects typically go over time and over budget. No one can anticipate everything. But rework will set a budget and timeline on fire. And only you can prevent rework. So ensure every deliverable you build aligns with the requirements, and you won't have to build something twice.

So what do you need to do? Here you go:

1. Review the scope statement, paying special attention to the requirements. Better yet, help your project manager synthesize the requirements since some may conflict, having come from different stakeholders.
2. Interview the project manager 1:1 to learn their expectations for the project and team.
3. Review the skeleton work breakdown. The project manager has likely already outlined a high-level work breakdown. Review that before your first meeting.
4. Capture any questions you have about the project to ask during your first project meeting.

How can you do this in LeadFirst?

To find your projects requirements, open the project > click on the Messages tab > find the pinned Scope Statement message and click Read more to see the entire message.

To view the breakdown, with the project open, click the Breakdown tab > and, optionally, open it full screen, then you can open supporting projects in the side-panel.

Managing Supporting Projects

When you are assigned tasks or supporting projects, they will come to your To-Do List.

You can manage these projects and tasks from either your to-do list or your plan.

Whichever you choose, there are three things you need to do when managing your supporting projects.

First, update the outcome and add any additional notes.

Next, add supporting actions/tasks in the work breakdown, either as a checklist for yourself or delegated tasks for others.

Finally, regularly update the project/task's status. We will discuss this further in the next section.

Status Reporting

Other than actually working on your projects and tasks, status reporting is the most important job of a project team member. Every organization everywhere complains about "poor communication." Project communication cannot be "pulled" from you. You must proactively "push" communication about your tasks to your team, project manager, and stakeholders.

Status reporting in LeadFirst is easy. Click directly on either the State or Stage status.

Complete the check-in form, updating whatever is relevant.

Your check-in comments will be visible from the work breakdown. Also, anyone subscribed to a project's message stream will receive status update messages.

Project Meetings

Finally, everyone's favorite pastime...meetings. Even though meetings get a bad rap (because most meetings are run poorly), when done right, they are your most effective tool for staying aligned and on track.

To support your project, you will need to do a few things regarding meetings.

1. Make sure you can find and are an attendee of your project meeting.
2. Review the agenda before every meeting.
3. Update the status of all of your active supporting projects.
4. Proactively add agenda items you need to discuss with the team.
5. Keep track of and complete follow-up actions.

It's not flashly, but if every project team member does these five things, your project meeting will not be boring.

Here is how you can get started with meetings in LeadFirst.

Finding a meeting

To find a meeting, open the main menu > hover over My Meetings > select your meeting.

If you don't see the meeting you are looking for, click on My Meetings in the main menu to open the meetings screen. This list is filtered to meetings you are a participant in. To see all meetings, open the filter option > Meetings > select All Meetings.

Search is also a great way to find a meeting. Go to the search bar in the upper-right > click on the magnifying glass to open advanced search > change the search scope to only look for Meetings > change the filter to include All Meetings.

Meeting screen overview

Below is an overview of the main meeting screen. Click on the image to enlarge. If you would like to print this off to keep it handy, here is a Meeting Cheat Sheet PDF.

Basics of the meeting editor

Here are the basics of how the meeting editor works.

• You can customize your meeting agenda using three primary items:
  • Sections - use sections to organize your agenda. Sections remain in your agenda from meeting to meeting. You can add a new section from the blue-plus in the upper right.
  • Agenda Items - use agenda items to identify what your team will cover. Each agenda item has an owner. They can also have their own notes.
  • Paragraphs - paragraphs can be used however you like; to list follow-up actions or take minutes.
• Each section, paragraph, or agenda item is its own entity and can be moved to a new place in the agenda or removed entirely.
• After adding a new agenda item, pressing enter will add a new agenda item below. The same applies to paragraphs. Pressing enter after a section header creates a new agenda item below it.
• Convert agenda items to paragraphs and vice versa from the row's three-dot menu. You can also convert section headers to an agenda item or paragraph.
• Typing @ opens the quick add menu from where you can mention a team member, create new action/project/MOR, and link to an existing item (project, MOR, dashboard, etc.),
• Bold items are standing items and persist from meeting to meeting. Use a row's three-dot menu to have it persist or not.

Adding agenda items from anywhere in the system

From anywhere in the system, you can projects and actions to a meeting agenda. There are two ways to do so: from a row's three-dot menu or the item screen's three-dot menu.