Use Workstreams to Solve Project team Decomposition

Large projects often face the challenge of managing numerous people working over extended periods of time. This can lead to various issues, including the mistake of “everyone does everything” or overwhelming amount of internal communications. This approach can result in serious risks, including planners leaving gaps in the project plan by failing to anticipate all the required activities, team members failing to carry out designated activities properly, or not knitting all the project pieces together at the end.

Why Use Workstreams

Holding for “everyone does everything” approach for too long is deadly for the project even when we are talking about involvement of just a single team (all team members share tasks together) as it leads to:

• participants feeling overwhelmed with the amount of information, meetings and perceived complexity;
• the project moving very slow as each fact, each step, and each decision is socialized with every other team member;
• decision-making (as small as choosing a stance of a particular department on some issue) becomes unreliable as it is spread very thin among large group of people.

Some of the reasons why that approach is not viable are project communications are:

1. The need of informing everyone of all the findings and developments;
2. Participants spending time on meetings discussing questions outside of one’s direct responsibility;
3. Increasing number of participants slows down decision-making.

For a project manager, workstreams provide:

1. Improved Manageability;
2. Parallel Working;
3. Enhanced Communication;
4. Better Time Management;
5. More Accurate Budgeting.

Using Workstreams

A workstream is a way to divide and conquer large projects. Workstreams break down large project teams into smaller, highly focused parts with their own goals and objectives, making it easier to plan, monitor, and execute their activities. Workstreams allow teams to focus on their specialized areas, increasing efficiency and reducing the chances of errors. You can think of a workstream as a subproject inside a project.

Make sure you split both the tasks and teams into a reasonably sized packages. A team too big can start from as little as 4 people, if none of them is designated responsible for the stream.

This small stream team must be able to repeatedly handle tasks together, sharing all the available information and visiting all the same meetings. In IT, a team of two analysts with the same role and skillset, being Maker and Checker, makes a perfect case to handle a stream involving other people temporarily when necessary. Then, you may add a third member who, for example, has more advanced technical knowledge and therefore creates benefit with his perspective.

When you choose to set up a workstream, make sure to:

1. Define its objectives and goals.
2. List workstream participants.
3. Delegate responsibility over the stream to a single person.
4. Establish communication processes between the stream and larger project team.
5. Create a plan for integrating workstream’s deliverables back into the whole.

When you create a new workstream in a project, it’s essential to document it properly to ensure clarity and alignment among all stakeholders. Here are the key documents where you should list the newly created workstream:

1. Project Charter and Project Management Plan;
2. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS);
3. Stakeholder Communication Plan and/or Status Reports;
4. Risk Management Plan. If the new workstream introduces specific risks, it should be documented in the risk management plan. This allows for proactive identification and mitigation of potential issues.
5. Project Dashboard. If your project uses a dashboard for tracking progress, ensure that the new workstream is represented there.
6. Team Collaboration Tools (like Trello, Asana, or Jira). Create a dedicated space or card for the new workstream. Some of the tools have built-in workstreams feature.

In conclusion, the mistake of “everyone does everything” on large projects can lead to serious risks and project failure. Utilizing workstreams, avoiding common project management mistakes, and learning from failed projects are essential aspects of managing large projects effectively.