Adding a New Project Team Member

By Brad Egeland | Follow on Twitter!

From time to time we need to bring a new resource to the project. Someone on your team may not be living up to the ‘ideals’ - or perhaps their skills are now required on another project. Whatever the issue, if you need to onboard a new resource to your active project, then you need to do it efficiently, strategically and in a way that will retain customer confidence in your team and your ability to manage them and the project as a whole.

When this is necessary, I generally try to follow this 5 step process to get the new resource up to speed, onboarded and productive to avoid experiencing any hiccups on the project.

Customer Alert

So as not to look deceptive to the project client, the first thing I do is alert the customer that a change is going to take place. I give them as much information as possible about the situation – in a positive light, of course – and may provide a resume for the incoming resource if it’s relevant… or at least the resource’s experience summary with the company or similar projects. Basically, anything that gives the customer confidence that they aren’t going to experience a drop in service. This is especially necessary if the resource change is being necessitated due to the customer’s own dissatisfaction with the outgoing resource.

Knowledge Transfer

Next, I offload as much information as possible to the new resource and call upon the project team to do the same. I provide as much project history and documentation as possible: the statement of work, my presentation materials from the project kickoff meeting, the requirements document, updated project schedules, status reports, budget forecasts (if needed), resource forecasts, etc.… anything that can give the resource a good snapshot of where we started, where we are now and where are we heading.

As for the rest of the team – I call a team meeting and introduce the new resource and ask that they give any relevant information they can think of AND that they each have a call or meeting within the next week one-on-one with the resource to give them their updates on the project.

Customer Introduction

My next step is to conduct a formal introduction of the resource to the customer on the next project status call or face-to-face meeting. They may not be productively working on the project yet – likely they aren’t – but it’s a chance to conduct some friendly banter with the client and allow the customer to ask any questions they might have of the new resource.

Status Call Sit-in

This step may or may not be possible, but I like to have the new resource stay in the ‘shadows’ for a week or two. Obviously this works best if the outgoing resource is still available for 1-2 weeks. That way the resource can see how the meetings are being run, what their involvement expectations are and see exactly where things stand and what appears to be the main areas of interest for the project client.

Productive Activity

Finally, I expect the project resource to be fully up to speed and productive on the project within 1-2 weeks. As mentioned, that may be an immediate requirement if the outgoing resource is completely gone and the rest of the team can’t pick up the slack in the interim. But under ideal circumstances, a 1-2 week scenario is what I shoot for.

Summary

I'm sure there are several productive ways to onboard a resource on to a project that is in full motion. The key is to disrupt the project as little as possible, keep the customer informed all the way, and get the resource up to speed.

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