Gather your project information
Using the project brief as a basis, review the objectives and purpose and think about what team members will be needed to deliver on them. Think about what phase the project is currently in, and how long you will need to keep the team together.
Remember that team members aren't likely to all be committed to the project 100% of the time but their allocation to the project will increase or decrease as required.
Determine the roles that will need to be filled
You will need to identify the areas of expertise required to address the objectives of the project. This should be a diverse range of people in technical roles, subject matter expert roles, and design roles.
Consider people in the following core roles:
- Product Manager: Oversees the development and strategy of a product, ensuring it aligns with business goals and meets customer needs. Currently there are not very many roles in TMR or the Queensland Government with this title or function, so you may find someone who can do this job called something different in your business area. This role is not a project manager.
- Delivery Manager: Facilitates the efficient delivery of projects by managing resources, timelines, and coordinating activities within the team.
- Technical Architect: Designs the overall structure and framework of a system or application, ensuring scalability, security, and technical integrity. This might be an enterprise or solution architect.
- Subject Matter Expert: Provides expert advice on a particular area of service, policy or business function.
- User Interface and/or Interaction Designer(s): Create intuitive and visually appealing user interfaces, focusing on user experience and interaction design.
- Content Designer: Develops engaging and informative content, such as text, graphics, and multimedia, to enhance user experiences and meet communication goals.
- User Researcher: Conducts research to gather insights into user preferences, behaviours, and pain points, informing the team's decision-making process.
- Developer: Responsible for writing, testing, and maintaining code, bringing the product or service to life based on the technical requirements.
- Web Operations Engineer: Manages the infrastructure and systems required to host and operate web services, ensuring reliability and performance.
- Service Manager: Oversees the overall service delivery, including service design, service level agreements, and continuous improvement processes.
In addition to these, you may require some specialist help. That might be from people in these roles:
- Content Strategist: Develops a comprehensive plan for creating, organising, and distributing content that aligns with the project goals, user needs, and brand voice.
- Accessibility and Inclusion Specialist: Ensures that digital products and services are designed and developed to be accessible to all users, including those with disabilities, and advocates for inclusive design practices.
- Cybersecurity Specialist: Protects the organisation's digital assets and sensitive data by implementing security measures, conducting risk assessments, and responding to potential cyber threats and attacks.
- Performance Analyst: Monitors and analyses the performance of digital products or services, identifying areas for improvement, optimising speed and efficiency, and enhancing overall user experience.
- Cloud Service Manager: Manages cloud-based services and infrastructure, ensuring seamless integration, scalability, and cost-effectiveness while maintaining high levels of availability and reliability.
Make a list of these roles wherever you are preparing the content for your session. This might be in a document, spreadsheet or online collaboration tool like Miro.
Set up a collaboration space
Before you invite everyone to join you should set up a shared collaboration space for the team. If you are working in the same physical location, you might set up and area or wall where you can share ideas and work through problems.
In most cases you will be working virtually, and team members may be spread out geographically. A team or channel in Microsoft Teams or a dedicated SharePoint site will provide a single place to communicate, collaborate and share files. This is where you can host team meetings, chat, document decisions and collaborate.
Invite your workshop participants
This play is about forming the core team, so you won't be inviting them all along just yet. This play runs best with 1-3 key stakeholders who can help you find the right people to fill the right roles. You should make sure you have someone who knows the structure of the organisation and can name the right areas or business units you might need to contact.
If you are not able to put a name to every role in the first session, you should at least know what business area or team you need to contact for a nomination. You may also need to run an extra session or do some individual work if it is not possible to fill all the required roles in the first one.
Remember that the core roles are important to have filled every time, and there may be some additional specialist roles depending on the context of your project.