I use agile methodology. Scrum is a good methodology to use with a non productive team member.

In Scrum, the work load is divided into small tasks. Each task is between 4 to 16 hours. Each task will have a due date.
The task hours, division and due date are given by the resource itself . This will create a sense of ownership and accountability for each team member since they are the ones who committed o do the work in a given time and date. There is a 10 to 15 min. daily scrum meeting where the PM meets with the team members to discuss 3 questions.
1) what have we accomplished yesterday
2) what are we going to accomplish today
3) what are the red flags or concerns.

In the daily scrum, Non-productive team members not only fail themselves but they also fail the other team members’ hard work. it is very difficult for any one person to keep failing the rest of the team every day in the scrum meeting.

the red flag question is mentioned to make sure that there is no obstacle to carry out the assigned work.

When one of the team members is not done with the workload from the previous date, the PM stops the scrum and asks to meet again in a couple of hours when all the work is completely done by each and every member.

IF the non-productive team member fails the rest of the team more than once, the PM needs to sit with that team member to find out what the problem is and how he can resolve it. If the problem lies in the person’s skills, then the PM needs to find the best work for this resource. Maybe the work tasks are not best suited and other tasks could be more suited to this person.

In final stages and after trying all different methods to help the team member, if all of the above does not work then the PM should ask to change that resource from the team.

Keep in mind that each team member has a different motivation angle, personality and circumstances and you should treat each individual member accordingly.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 27th, 2011 at 3:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.