Boost Your Tech Project Team Performance
Your technology projects succeed when your project team performs well as a team and individually. When team members communicate clearly, stay accountable, and focus on what matters, your projects run smoother and achieve better results.
Here’s how to make team participation work.
Define Your Project Team
Remember that your project team is more than your IT staff and vendors. You project team should include stakeholders – executive sponsors, subject matter experts, and key users/user groups. Your extended project team helps you define success metrics, prioritize requirements, manage and communicate change, and provides testing and feedback.
With a well-defined team, you can manage your project to the metrics that matter. You also have more control of project scope and direction.
Set Clear Roles and Commitments for Team Members
Teamwork starts with clarity. Define roles, responsibilities, expectations, and deadlines from the start. Verify that everyone knows their responsibilities, and accountability and motivation will naturally follow. (This 3T@3 Series recording discussing managing project input and feedback)
Clear commitments reduce confusion and align your team.
Prioritize Tasks
After setting commitments, establish priorities. Technology projects have many moving parts. To manage these effectively, teams should collaborate to identify and rank priorities based on urgency, impact, and dependencies.
By focusing on high-priority work, you ensure that your team completes critical tasks first and that you allocate resources efficiently. Clear priorities also help your team maintain a steady workflow and remain aligned.
Follow Up Consistently
Even the most organized teams need structured follow-ups to maintain momentum. Regular, structured check-ins help you and your team track progress, address roadblocks early, and reinforce accountability. Use follow-up and status meetings to catch missed deadlines and project issues before they get out of hand. You gain flexibility to adjust timelines and resources slightly without compromising the overall project schedule.
Consistent follow-ups help you address issues early, keep your team on track, and reinforce a shared sense of responsibility and accountability.
Handle Disruptions Constructively
Working in a team isn’t always easy. Sometimes team members may be disruptive, overlook mistakes, or push back against collaboration. The key is to address these issues early and respectfully. Take the time to listen, acknowledge what’s going on, and respond promptly. Be transparent when addressing concerns and remember that it’s perfectly fine for your answer to be “no.” When you explain the reasons behind your decisions or changes in direction, it helps everyone stay on the same page. Even if not everyone agrees, they will understand where you’re coming from.
By constructively managing conflicts, you and your team maintain a positive environment that encourages productive contributions from everyone.
How We Help
We provide the structure, communication, and support your team needs to succeed. From defining roles and prioritizing tasks to managing follow-ups and challenges, our professional services help keep your IT systems in sync with your business priorities so projects move forward efficiently.
About the Author
Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global. Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America.
