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Core Team

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About this lesson

Most large projects are managed by a cross-functional core team. Core team members have a dual responsibility; they are responsible for the project achieving its goals and they are responsible to ensure that the project complies with their function’s standards and best practices.

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Core Team

When to use

Projects that require many individuals from different departments or organizations should use the Core Team approach. The Core Team should be established as soon as the project is approved. The Core team stays in place until project completion.

Instructions

Based upon the high level project plan, an assessment is made of which functions or organizations will play a significant role in doing the work of the project.
Each of the functions or organizations assigns an individual to be the Core Team member for the project.
The Core Team member works with functional managers and SMEs to create a plan for the function’s participation in the project.
Core Team members meet together and create an integrated project plan.
As the project progresses, Core Team members manage day-to-day project activities.
Core Team members ensure their respective functional or organizational leaders are informed about project decisions or risk issues prior to stage gate or management review meetings.
Core Team members work together to resolve issues and problems on the project.

Hints & tips

Core Team members must lead in two directions. They must lead into their function or organization to manage the project tasks conducted by individuals in their function. They need to ensure the work is done in a way that meets the project goals and needs. They must also lead into the project Core Team to represent their function’s perspective. They must identify and resolve risks within the project that relates to their functional areas. They need to ensure that all project work is done in a manner consistent with their functional standards.
Core Team members must be good negotiators and good at resolving conflict. Many Core Team meetings are spent resolving issues between functions.
Core Team members should stay with the project through project closeout. Their performance appraisal should include both project performance and functional performance attributes.
Core Teams are not needed when there are only 2 or 3 team members or all the work is in one department.
Project Management Team Definition: “The members of the project team who are directly involved in project management activities.” PMBOK^® Guide

This definition is taken from the Glossary of the Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK^® Guide) – Sixth Edition, Project Management Institute, Inc., 2017. PMBOK is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

00:04 Hi, I'm Ray Sheen, in this lesson I'd like to talk about
00:08 the Project Core Team. >> According to
00:12 the Project Management Body of Knowledge, The PMBOK Guide,
00:15 a project management team are the members of the project team who are directly
00:19 involved in project management activities.
00:22 The project team is often represented by three concentric circles,
00:25 the inner circle is the project leader.
00:27 The project leader is responsible for directing the overall project effort
00:31 normally he or she does most of the communication with the stakeholders,
00:35 finally, they also lead the risk management efforts throughout the project.
00:39 The next circle is the project management team, or
00:42 core team, our topic of this lesson.
00:44 The core team members are usually the functional leaders for
00:47 the project it is normally composed of one individual from each department
00:51 that has a major role in conducting project work.
00:54 In my illustration, we have a construction project so the core team consists of
00:58 engineering, construction operations, planning, permits, contracts and safety.
01:04 In your project, it will be the functions doing your project work,
01:07 I'll talk more about what they do on the next few slides.
01:11 The outer circle of the project team is called the extended team,
01:14 the extended team represents all of the other people who will be
01:17 doing work on the project they're not project level decision makers, but
01:21 they are vitally important to the project's success.
01:24 On a small project you may not have an extended team, the core team may actually
01:28 be doing all the work so let’s talk about the core team and their responsibilities.
01:33 First with respect to planning, core team members are responsible for
01:37 the functional plans within the overall project plan.
01:40 The core team members must work together to ensure that their plans
01:43 are fully integrated.
01:45 This often leads to the identification of risk,
01:47 risk from a functional perspective and risk from an integration perspective.
01:51 Once a project plan is in place, core team members are also responsible for
01:55 reporting status of the project work within their functional areas,
01:59 this will require them to coordinate with the functional management in their area.
02:02 If there are problems within their function completing the project work,
02:06 the core team members should work with functional managers to resolve it.
02:10 In addition, the core team member is keeping functional managers informed
02:13 of the overall project progress and preparing them for any project reviews
02:17 that they'll be attending, such as a management review or technical reviews.
02:22 If a core team member is attending a review with stakeholders, they should
02:25 assist the project leader or whoever is presenting for their project team,
02:29 by answering any questions that are pertinent to their function.
02:33 The third area of responsibility is the actual execution of project work,
02:38 on a small project the core team member is usually doing the project work for
02:41 their function.
02:42 On large projects they're often leading a group of extended team members also,
02:47 as a core team member they're working with other core team members
02:50 to make wise cross functional project decisions.
02:53 They're providing the functional perspective on project decisions to ensure
02:57 the decision both meets the project objective and
03:00 maintains alignment with functional objectives and standards.
03:04 That brings us to the next area that we need to discuss and
03:07 that is the best practices for core team members.
03:10 Being a core team member is a difficult job he or
03:13 she must be a subject matter expert across the functional discipline and
03:17 they have to be able to lead a team of extended team members.
03:21 They're leading in two directions simultaneously,
03:23 they lead within the function to ensure that the project objectives are met, and
03:28 they lead within the core team to ensure the functional standards are maintained.
03:33 A challenge for core team members is to maintain functional alignment.
03:37 When in core team meetings, the core team member is representing the function, but
03:41 core teams are usually meetings of give and take as all the functional needs and
03:46 constraints are balanced to achieve the overall project objectives.
03:50 This means a core team member must negotiate and
03:52 compromise at times, to do this well they need to keep in close communication with
03:57 the functional managers to understand the standards and
04:00 practices within the function and what decisions are negotiable.
04:04 In their meeting with functional managers they must identify concerns and take those
04:09 back to the project team to work with other core team members to resolve.
04:12 A good core team member understands the issues and
04:15 is granted the authority by the functional managers to make the decisions and
04:19 resolve those issues in the core team meeting.
04:22 A core team member without the authority to speak and negotiate for
04:25 their function wastes everyone's time.
04:28 The core team should not be a bunch of messengers running back and
04:31 forth from project meetings to functional meetings.
04:35 In addition to maintaining the functional alignment within the core team,
04:38 the core team member also needs to be a good planner.
04:41 They need to understand all the functional work that must be done, and
04:45 create a reasonable plan for
04:46 doing that work based upon guidance from the functional managers.
04:50 Then they must integrate those plans with the other core team members to
04:53 create an overall project plan.
04:55 The project plan is the guide for the work done on the project and
04:59 the core team members create the project plan.
05:03 As I mentioned already the core team member's role is a leadership role,
05:07 they're either executing the project tasks for their function, or
05:10 they are overseeing the execution of those tasks by extended team members.
05:14 These individuals are not only planners, they are doers and
05:17 problem-solvers they ensure that the project achieves its objectives.
05:21 When there are problems or
05:22 issues, they proactively engage within their function and with the other core
05:26 team members to resolve them. >> The core team member role
05:31 is one of the most difficult within a project
05:34 they have to be able to manage well with authority in two directions.
05:39 They're a functional leader within the project, and
05:42 a project leader within their function.

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Core Team

About this lesson

Exercise files

Quick reference

Core Team

When to use

Instructions

Hints & tips