My current manager
likes to do group projects
where we all work together
but no one is in charge.
These don’t work.
Either someone ends up in charge
(usually me if the project is a priority)
or the projects fail.
Everyone can work on a project
but someone is needed
to co-ordinate all the pieces
and to do the filler tasks
that aren’t glamorous
but need to be done.
Assign ONE person
to be in charge
(assign two people
and each will assume the other person
is truly in charge).
You can rotate that responsibility
but please, do assign it.
I wasn’t able to put this in words until now. Thank you for making this understanding explicit.
Very good point – dilluting the decision authority through management by committee is a really, really poor way to handle a project. The root cause for promoting it is to keep everyone happy with the project, but the undesired outcome is that hard decisions will not get made.
It’s not uncommon to have a team of very competitive and dedicated individuals, who want to make their mark on the project through their individual ideas. If the management system allows, they will challenge each other’s ideas to no end. Also, everyone loves to contribute, but nobody feels compelled to execute.
Wikipedia has a good article on Responsibility Assignment Matrix, with different implementations. Pick one that best suits the project’s needs and stick with it. Formalize it in the Project Establishment document, and assign the roles for each project phase.
For instance, in PACE you need one Project Leader, one Approver, several Contributors (or Consultants) and several Executers. This way, you always know who needs to do what.