Types of Project team members

By

Manasdeep

MSCLIS Semester-I, IIIT, Allahabad

Raghav Ranjan

Ex-student,UCER, Allahabad

 

Here is my personal collection of various kinds of project people that I've experienced over my school & college life. This article covers only my perspective

 Certificate Collector:

This person has no connection whatsoever in making of the project. He joins the team "only to gather the participation certificate" or if possible to share the title crown of the winning team. He is the first one to leave the team in case it lands into troubled waters for longer period (to join another seemingly good going team at the same stage of development). Very quick to swap teams as per situation).

If project is successful, he's the first person to climb up for catching the trophy and declare later "When is the party, guys?". If not successful, he mockingly laughs at teammates, "Hey, I always know that you guys aren't going to make it. It was a worthless effort from the very beginning I know ".

Charismatic Leader:

This person has the capacity to unite the whole team at all times and encourage them providing moral support. He works hard to settle differences among the dominating persons in the team. Works with close cooperation with "Administrator" & "Commando" personalities of the project. He is prolific speaker and takes up the responsibility for introduction of the project to audience. Also protects vigilantly his teammates when external forces pressurize the team with cross questions, or against disturbing external forces.

His background task is to convert the high technical sounding ideas of "Administrator" & "Commando" to convey in simple understandable terms to the rest of the team. Nobody generally challenges his opinions owing to his goodwill and superb leadership quality.

Administrator:
He is the "actual" commander-in-charge of the project in technical structural dimension. He is the one who brings up the project idea and has the vision for it. He has sound "above average" development skills for project but not upto that of the "Commando" . He believes in innovation and freely applies it to his work.

He has the ability to examine each member of the team and fully knows their strengths and weaknesses. With this information, he assigns the task for each member after analyzing their personality thoroughly. Works in very close association of "Commando" to bring out the project in full form. In case of any conflict b/w himself and other teammate, he relies on "Charismatic Leader" to work out the differences.

Politician :

This person has the inherent nature to wield power and take up control in any form by any means. He/She constantly faces clashes with the "Administrator" which in turn weakens the unity of the team. He/She can be very bossy at times and difficult to handle owing to his/her dominating nature. If not handled properly, it can cause serious differences among the members and ultimately the project work is suffered the most. It's here the role of "Charismatic Leader" is of utmost importance to keep the project on the right track.

However, clever "Administrators" can exploit "Politician's" nature to glean inside the working approach of the competing participating teams (for working out the similar problems faced in the project) which is otherwise impossible to know by simply asking them.

Commandos:

A very special category of the programmers is the commandos, who once understood the problem domain, are capable of doing all the work in time and in perfect manner. They know all the minute details of each and every step they are applying to solve the things. They are having sound technical knowledge both theoretical and practical. ” Politician" is often seen to have conflict with the commandos. Once again, “Charismatic Leader “ plays the rescue person here to settle their differences.

Creative Artist:

This person has gifted ability to view the things differently from general perception. He is usually not very comfortable with the standard portrayal of the idea based on collected research material. He has his own perception and he prefers to implement that. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

He’s best utilized while introducing an upcoming technology in an interactive way to the audience such that it is easily understood to a very large base. Also he proves valuable while illustrating a tried & tested technology generally stamped as "boring" in an interesting format. For projects requiring heavy web front-end design, his skill and experiences are most sought after.

Average "good enough" :

These people represent the majority of all the project teams. They are simple and naive people who don't have very deep understanding of the concepts but are good enough to execute “tried & tested concepts”. They do what they are told to do and feel uncomfortable when inquired about "Why they are using the said method ?". They work in cooperation and generally don't step in each other shoes.