“Stealth” Team Building
By Bob McGannon, PMP

The thought of “team building” often creates very diverse reactions from project team members. Many people enjoy the potential for increased camaraderie and getting to know more about their peers. Others have a very negative reaction - rolling their eyes and making statements like “oh no, we’re going to hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’”. The astute project manager can prevent such negative reactions by NOT holding team building sessions! Rather than a team building session, the effective project manager takes advantage of every opportunity the team gets together to develop team synergy – a “stealth” approach to team building!

The issue with team building sessions, and their sometimes well deserved bad reputation, is the artificial scenarios that are created to try to bring team members closer together. It often works temporarily, but is usually so far removed from the problems facing the average project team that any goodwill falls by the wayside when the real project issues “hit the fan.” Effective team building comes when a project team is given the opportunity to understand each member’s style, approaches and capabilities in the work scenarios the project team faces on a day-to-day basis. The project manager is the catalyst for bringing this synergy to the forefront with the project team by capitalizing on “team building opportunities” in every day project management processes. Examples of these everyday team building opportunities are presented here.

Hint: Don’t call it team building, as “your mileage may vary” when you label it that way!!!

Kickoff processes

The kickoff meeting is the first and arguably the most important opportunity for team building. Many project managers who add specific team building activities (by name) to the agenda find many key stakeholders “running for the hills” when the time comes to execute those items. These opponents of team building may find (or purposefully schedule) meetings that overlap the team building portions of the kickoff.

One approach to combating this problem is to schedule a “problem solving session” as part of the kickoff meeting and have a facilitator manage that agenda item. The facilitator can present an issue to be resolved or a significant risk to be avoided, and then manage the meeting in such a way that each stakeholder gets to present their approach to solving the problem. This allows the team members to get to see - first hand - each others style, experiences and approaches. This knowledge – packaged as experience in solving real-world project problems – can be significant in helping a team to work together more effectively.

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