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Project Management: Making Lemonade From a Team of 16 Lemons

July 30, 2004 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - You have been tasked with developing a mission-critical system. Sixteen people have been assigned to your project team; these are their biographies (these characters were adopted from Data Warehouse Project Management, by Sid Adelman and Larissa Terpeluk Moss; Addison-Wesley, 2000):
1. Retired-on-the-Job Rudy: Rudy may be close to retirement or just a nonperformer. Whatever skills he once had (autocoder and board wiring) are either rusty or of little use on your project.
2. Bad Luck Bob: Bob has never worked on a project that has been successful. Disaster seems to follow him wherever he goes. His bad luck will undoubtedly rub off on the project.
3. Obstructionist Orville: Orville finds fault with every approach suggested and will argue every minor point that can be debated. By the time he grudgingly acquiesces, the project is way behind schedule or has been canceled.
4. Learning Lena: Lena believes she can take on her assignments only if she attends classes (all scheduled in resort locations) for the next six months.
5. Researcher Russ: Russ believes the team shouldn't move forward until it has thoroughly evaluated every tool on the market, brought each one in for extensive evaluation and testing, and visited all the reference sites.
6. Incompetent Ernie: Ernie couldn't find his mouse at high noon with both hands.
7. Oldie Goldie: Goldie has been with the company since it was founded. She knows everything and everyone. Although she works a minimal amount of time, she manages to stay employed by playing politics very well and managing to look busy. No matter what she's assigned, she works only on tasks she enjoys doing. She has seen many project managers come and go and is willing to take her chances that she will outlast you.
8. Gunslinger Gus: Gus doesn't believe in following standards, rules or anything else. Version control is an annoyance and cramps his style. He's pretty confident of the quality of his code, so his motto is "Testing is always an option."
9. Water Cooler Walt: Walt loves to discuss everything with the team, whether it's relevant to the work or not. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it only at the water cooler; he drops into the other team members' cubicles and wastes their time, and they don't know how to get rid of him, politely or otherwise.
10. Big Idea Bernie: Bernie has read everything -- and he believes everything he reads. He knows every Web site, and he attends every conference. Unfortunately, he's too busy to actually do anything productive.



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