Forming a good team is like putting together a puzzle. It’s not about all the pieces having the same shape, but about what sets them apart and joins the parts together to create one nice picture. Some might be more edgy, some very straight.

The core team for the execution of the Egypt High-Speed Rail project during a workshop.

Setting up a team at the beginning of a project is an essential part of the process, as I already explained in my first article. For our high-speed rail project in Egypt, where we’re developing and implementing a 660 km long turnkey system, we started to look at this aspect quite a while ago. For many years, the project team is like a second family, as you spend so much time with these particular colleagues. At the start of a project the phrase “there’s no second chance to make a first impression” is very true.

The PM@Siemens framework is an ideal support for establishing the project organization. Organization, by the way, is the correct word for it, because, like any organization, a project-specific one needs a clear purpose, framework and structure. For our project the first point is pretty clear: we’re delivering a rail system which will transform the everyday lives of millions of people in Egypt.

To fulfill this purpose, we fortunately have many great talents in the Siemens organization, with the professional competence and experience to deliver complex projects. The team, my Commercial lead Harald Rüffler and I put together is the leadership team for the High-Speed Rail Project which will be steering many subteams, so experience was key. Our internal certification process helps to ensure the quality of our resources, and gives colleagues in projects a great way of career planning and learning on the job. In some cases, we are also happy to recruit new colleagues from outside of the company bringing their own experiences to the team.

When putting together a team, diversity is very important to me

Maybe that’s because I am French and I often have many German colleagues around me 😉. Different backgrounds and cultures bring different perspectives and ideas which help to overcome challenges. This is a value added a project organization of this size desperately needs. Overall, I would also like to include more women, which unfortunately is still not easy – not because we lack good colleagues, but because we lack female colleagues in the industry. But we are getting better at attracting female colleagues in engineering jobs and therefore projects, too.

Get to know some of the team members and their passion in this video

Still, only putting together a puzzle is not enough

From my personal experience, what a project leader needs to do in the job in the best way possible is to:

Assign every member a clear role, responsibility and work package
Establish the right environment – this includes many different items, e.g. being comfortable in your personal life when you are expatriated, or understand how to interact and share together, and here it is also about the team culture
Ensure team members understand they have management backing, clear and strong leadership is needed

The key question remains:

If the project team is like a family – how do you form the family if the members are all so different?

First of all, team building should be a managed process, and this takes time. In my experience, building a purely virtual team is very, very difficult and has the potential for creating many misinterpretations, even when cameras are switched on. That is why we started our high-speed rail project in Egypt with a virtual core team meeting to establish some of the basic principles. Our core team is already 40 people, too many for getting to know each other virtually. So, we followed up with two in-person meetings afterwards, where we also spent time together over breakfast or dinner, or some exercises.

The workshop included many exercises, including some physical ones.

In this respect, I agree with the classic team development model by Bruce Wayne Tuckman:

Forming: That is when we had our first virtual team meeting, and everybody got to know each other and their role in the team. Clear role descriptions and introducing every member including their specific expertise help a lot.
Storming: After the first insecurities pass, this phase is about conflicts, which sometimes need to be fostered. Disagreements have to be openly discussed and moderated. That is why we had our team meetings here in person which were moderated by a project external colleague.
Norming: Most conflicts are solved now, and the way the first phases were done provides the basis for establishing the team culture. It is unspoken rules and explains how we work together. Our team is currently ending this phase.
Performing: This is the goal for all teams. The framework is clear, and now it’s about delivering, while the colleagues interact with each other

The process can start again, if there are any substantial changes to the team. What is most important as a project leader is to ensure you are aware of this process and to steer it accordingly. Establishing a team culture is an ongoing task, but let me elaborate on this experience in a few weeks from now.

For more information on our project, go to:

#MovingEgypt