10 to 15 minutes
Explain the purpose of the activity and write it down on the board or main map. Some people find it difficult to understand how team members can be appointed to a project that is not yet approved to be executed, so, make sure you give them sufficient explanation.
Give them 5 minutes to work in groups and come up with a list of key team members they’re going to need to initiate the project. Make sure they understand that more team members will be added after initiation.
When the time is up, ask each facilitator to explain their answer in a maximum of 40 seconds. When they are all done, ask if anyone has any comments on the collected ideas, and then give your own comments.
Because this scenario is about changing the software applications in the organization, it will impact all departments. As a result, the interests and concerns of all departments must be considered (E.g., the financial department may be using an old piece of software designed for DOS that barely works in Windows, and they don’t know what to do without it.)
To address this concern, the project team can simply interview all departments. However, this is risky, and the best option is to have one representative from each department as an active project team member with the power to contribute to the decisions.
Besides having team members from each department who represent the users of that department, you need to have technical expertise as well. Part of that technical expertise comes from the IT department. Nevertheless, we know from the scenario that the IT department is not expert enough in this area, and one or more external consultants are needed. It’s a good idea to find and appoint at least one of those consultants at this point.