Using Personality Traits to Assign Project Tasks
Project team members come with diverse personalities. Let’s look at how to take advantage of different personalities and their work preferences throughout your project.
Important! As project managers, we might assume a person’s personality limits their abilities. For example, extroverts like to talk, but they‘re still able to actively listen to stakeholders. Be careful not to confuse preferences with capability.
Here are some examples of putting personalities to use:
- Introversion versus Extroversion. If possible, I assign introverted team members to support senior leaders who appreciate thoughtful consideration. These leaders appreciate team members who carefully digest information before responding. On the other hand, extroverted team members are better for leaders who engage in rapid-fire discussions. These leaders expect quick answers across a range of topics and thrive in dynamic settings.
- Big picture versus detail-oriented thinkers. When constructing work breakdown structures (WBS), I like a mix of big-picture and detail-oriented thinkers in the room. Big picture thinkers excel at creating the high-level work breakdown structure–listing and combining overarching topics into high-order categories that make sense to the team. From there, the detail-oriented thinkers shine at identifying specific tasks needed to complete the work. Next, the entire team creates the mid-level breakdown and assigns the tasks. Big-picture and detail-oriented are both needed when you’re building a WBS from the top down and the bottom up! When it comes to testing, detail-oriented team members work thoroughly to confirm products to satisfy business needs.
- Leader versus follower. Team members often need a degree of guidance and leadership to carry out tasks. Assigning a person to lead an effort might seem straightforward…pick the best leader. Maybe not! Sometimes you might need a person who will strictly follow your directions or who will make sure there is alignment with one of your business’ specific and rigid processes. In that case, a person who readily embraces and follows rules and processes might be the best leader.
- Sensing versus intuitive individuals. By definition, a sensing person looks at the details of a situation and uses their senses to examine what’s in front of them. An intuitive person thinks more abstractly. They focus on future possibilities and patterns as opposed to what is currently present. Intuitives also typically pick up the feelings or disposition of other stakeholders. Sensing individuals are better for collecting and analyzing information. Intuitive folks are better at collaborating with stakeholders who you suspect aren’t disclosing all of what’s on their mind.
Do you see yourself in any of these categories? Do the activities and roles sound like you? After examining yourself and the tasks you like to do, spend some time doing the same analysis for your team members.
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