May 2, 2001	Volume 1, Issue 18
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Make a Project Family Album

by Rick Brenner

Like a traditional family album, a project family album has pictures of people, places and events. It builds connections, helps tie the team together, and it can be as much fun to look through as it is to create.

orking closely with colleagues for months or years, we experience many of the same kinds of emotions as we do in families — frustration, happiness, pain and joy. The joy that a family album provides at home is just as wonderful in a project. One difference — since so many project teams are geographically dispersed, a physical album doesn't share well. Put it on the Intranet.

The project family album
helps people who work
at a distance
to get to know each otherThe little things in life knit us together. Include pictures of the test team on their weekly sushi outing, or the team leads at their pizza lunch. If Phil is known for a new mobile in his cubicle every month, include pictures of the monthly mobile. If Marian is known for the Internet humor she posts on her door, ask her to archive it to the album too. Include a map of the office or cube locations of all the team members at your site. If the buzz today is about the grotesque painting that appeared in the lobby last week in Greenville, put a picture of it in the album, so other parts of the team can see what everyone is talking about. Don't forget captions and interpretive paragraphs — they can be more fun than the photos.

Your album can be a real organizational asset, as it contributes to a positive working culture. Here are just a few ways:

Better connections

In dispersed teams, some people never actually meet in person. The project family album helps people who work at a distance to get to know each other. It's surprising how much it helps to know what people look like if your only experience of them is through telephone or email.

Great memories

If your project has a kickoff party, a release party, or just a Friday lunch, get snaps of people having a good time together. These images are especially amusing if the parties have themes. And months later, they'll take you back to some fun times.

Productive meetings

When a dispersed team does meet, and people who have never met have to work together, they'll do better if they've had access to a project family album. They will already know what the players look like, what the environment looks like, and what the conference rooms and local lunch places look like. All of this helps smooth out the meetings for the people who come from other sites.

Pictorial history

For large projects, it can be difficult to put names and faces together, especially after the project ends. But later on, when you want to staff your next project, the project family album can help refresh your memory.

There are powerful business reasons for making an album, but most important, it's just plain fun.  Top    Next Issue

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More articles on Project Management:

The Cheapest Way to Run a Project Is with Enough Resources

Cost reduction is so common that nearly every project plan today should include budget and schedule for several rounds of reductions. Whenever we cut costs, we risk cutting too much, so it pays to ask, "If we do cut too much, what are the consequences?"

Geese Don't Land on Twigs

Since companies sometimes tackle projects that they have no hope of completing successfully, your project might be completely wrong for your company. How can you tell whether your project is a fit for your company?

Resuming Projects: Team Morale

Sometimes we cancel a project because of budgetary constraints. We reallocate its resources and scatter its people, and we tell ourselves that the project is on hold. But resuming is often riskier, more difficult and more expensive than we hoped. Here are some reasons why.

Emergency Problem Solving

In emergencies, group problem solving is unusually challenging, especially if lives, careers or companies depend on finding a solution immediately. Here are some tips for members of teams that are solving problems in emergencies.

See No Evil

When teams share information among themselves, they have their best opportunity to reach peak performance. And when some information is withheld within an elite group, the team faces unique risks.

See also Project Management for more related articles.

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