Team Member Roles

Table of Contents

Introduction

Students will be assigned one or more of the roles listed below in a project.  In general, the project supervisor appoints the Project Manager, and the Project Manager assigns the remainder of the team roles.  A team member will frequently have more than one role on a particular project.  Each role has a set of responsibilities that are not limited to those listed. The responsibilities are meant to give an idea of what each role requires.  All team members are involved with inspections.

Organization

The Project Manager is the key person in the team project organization.  The manager interacts with the project supervisor (including the organization of the weekly meetings with the supervisor, with the client throughout the project (including coordinating meetings between the client and the requirements analysts) and with the project team.

In cases where there is more than one person in a particular role (e.g. designer), the Project Manager may designate a leader of those people (e.g. Design Group Leader).  In that case, a designer would report to the Design Group Leader, who would in turn report to the Project Manager.

Regardless of where a student is in the organization, all students should treat each other with respect and keep communication lines open so that everyone can be as effective as possible at their roles.

If a team member has a problem with his/her group leader, the member should try to work out the problem through communication with that leader.  However, if that is not possible, he/she should then go to the Project Manager with the concerns.  If that proves unsuccessful, the Project Manager and/or the team member should then take their concerns to the project supervisor.  In the same manner, if any team member is having problems with the Project Manager, he/she should take the problem to the manager; if that does not work, the team member should then communicate with the project supervisor.  The supervisor will also mediate when there are problems between the client and the project team members.
 
It is important to keep the client from being overwhelmed with requests/questions from all team members; therefore, only the Project Manager and one or two others (usually requirements analysts) should interact with the client.  It is also important that information from the client make it to all team members; therefore, all meetings with the client should be known to those responsible and the Project Manager.

Role Assignment

Managers should use the job applications and personal interviews to determine how to assign roles and leadership positions to students.  Group leaders should use personal interviews to determine what tasks to give to team members.  The personal communication enables managers and leaders to get to know the team members and establish important lines of communication.

As much as possible, all team members should be equivalently utilized during the project.  This may mean that a manager should transition some team members from one role to another to help with tasks that have grown large in that role.

Roles