Mixing the right ingredients
for the perfect team

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On complex and fast-tracked projects, team assembly is critical. Team curation is the result of a process that needs to be long-lasting, often for a 3-5 year duration, via a combination of consultant bidding, new recruits, and joint ventures between organisations and individuals. A poorly curated team can cost the project in money and reputation.

In an ideal world, especially when you are responsible for selecting and forming the team, consider the following to give your project the best chance of success:

Team Dynamics

Team dynamics are responsible for how individuals engage with each other, impacting the overall performance. If each member of your team represented an ingredient to make a cake, how would your cake turn out?

• Will this be a well-rounded team? A project needs diverse skills that are aligned with the project brief.

• Will everyone be equally present and active? A fair distribution of work, an aligned work ethic, and whole-team engagement are critical for project success.

• Is the personality mix balanced? Each team member must bring something different to the group to balance the skills, approach and mindset.

Culture

Team culture defines the vibe and attitude of the team. The culture of your team is critical. When selecting a team, consider how individuals will fit within the collective team’s values, beliefs and behaviours.

Technical skills are great. People who work well together are even better.

Will everyone feel like they belong? To make team members feel like they have a sense of belonging, they need to feel valued, appreciated and see that they have an important role to play.

The team must respect each other, evidenced by everyone having an equal voice.

A strong team culture can significantly improve a project’s success. When problems arise (and they do on all projects), a good team culture often motivates the collective to find the best solution for the project. Additionally, if your team enjoys their colleagues, they will be more motivated through the journey.

When selecting team members, technical skills can be trained, whereas attitude is far riskier to leave to chance.

Team culture is also responsible for increased staff engagement and long-term retention, reducing key staff recruitment and re-training costs. It improves team resilience and strength to perform.

Trust

The reality is that trust isn’t given immediately, and it is built over time. A team needs time to do this. Behaviours such as honesty, respectful difference of opinion (more on this in another article), fair negotiation, reliability and good listening skills are all critical in building trust between the team.

A team that trusts each other is likely to communicate better and, therefore, work with greater collaboration, which results in higher productivity and performance. This seems obvious, yet the number of environments that do not operate with trust on high-value projects is vast.

An example of a trusting environment is one that shares cross-project information for the benefit of team performance. A significant contributor to project delay and cost is operating in silos.

Successful teams will want to work together again, so investment in setting them up and maintaining their positive dynamic will have long-reaching benefits. If we trust and recognise someone’s efforts, we will likely initiate repeat business and recommend them.

Curating the best team possible isn’t always feasible, particularly in the current labour-limited market. Thinking about how your existing team works together and what you (and the wider team) can do to make the project run smoother will improve the environment and culture – and possibly save the project money.

When putting projects out to tender, it’s also important to consider what shared values you’re looking for, in addition to missing technical skills. Being upfront about this will ensure people understand the culture they’re expected to be part of from the start. Look out for a future article on the bidding process and how to build in factors that often get overlooked.

Here are the key takeaways of actions to focus on when curating your new team:

Team dynamics – select well-rounded teams with a balanced mix of personalities.

Culture – Create a sense of belonging, respect and being valued. Recruit for this at the outset.

Trust – Increase trust for better communication and collaboration.

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