1. Characteristics of an Effective Team
Section 3 People and ICT Systems
Characteristics of an Effective Team

2. Why work in teams?
ICT projects are normally too large and complex for one person to complete;
A project which would take one person five years to complete should only take ten people six months;
A team produces a much higher quality product than if all worked independently;
Each person in the team brings different types of expertise and experience to the project

3. What makes an effective team?
Mix of different skills
Team Leader
All members must have:
Problem solving skills
Strong communication skills
Ability to work in teams (team working skills)
Be able to meet deadlines

4. Effective Teams Team leader
ensures the team works together to ensure deadlines are met
Strengths and weaknesses of all staff involved in the project need to be taken into account to ensure that the best possible knowledge and understanding are used to complete the ICT task.

5. Effective Teams Documentation
This is important as any member of the team could be replaced at any time, so the documentation must be completed in an organised and structured manner so a new member of staff can take over, and carry on with the project.
Monitoring – there must be monitoring of task progress to ensure that the project is completed on schedule.

6. Effective Teams Costs – to ensure project is completed within budget.
The team should have people with different skills eg programmers, analysts and designers to maximise the efficiency of the team as a whole

7. Effective Teams
All individual in the team must possess good communication skills, so they can share ideas with each other and end users outside the team.
The team must remain focused on their goals and the client’s requirements

8. Questions
1. ICT projects are normally completed by ICT teams. Give three reasons why projects are completed by teams rather than by an individual. (6 marks)

9. 2. An e-commerce website is to be set up for a completely new business
2. An e-commerce website is to be set up for a completely new business. An ICT project team is to be set up and suitably qualified people need to be appointed to various roles.
(a) Give three skills each of the following people should possess in order to carry out their role effectively.
(i) Software developer (3 marks)
(ii) Business analyst (3 marks)
(iii) Web designer (3 marks)
(b) There needs to be someone in overall charge of the project team. Give three skills the team leader/project manager must have. (3 marks)