Project Management in the Oil and Gas Industry

5.5 Team Member Selection
The selection of the team members is the responsibility of the project man-
ager. This selection is a very important step in starting the project. In some 
Figure 5.5 The head office organization.
Chairman
General Mgr.
Quality Mgr.
Administration,
financial and
secretaries
Executive
manager
Executive
quality
Work
instruction
Projects Mgr.
Project
(3)
Project
(2)
Project
(1)
HSE
Quality
specifications
Quality
procedure
Quality
manual
Policy
Procedures

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156 
Project Management in the Oil and Gas Industry
cases, some members will not be selected by the project manager and may 
be from your company or, in some cases, from the client if you are work-
ing in an engineering office or with a contractor. The competence of these 
persons will be a matter of luck, so the project manager should expect that 
and prepare to avoid this trap.
In most cases, the project team will be from different disciplines and 
different locations and are coming from different organizations with dif-
ferent skills.
In the matrix organization, the individual will have two direct manag-
ers: one who is responsible for technical aspects and the project manager. 
In some cases, a team member will be assigned to different projects and 
may be working part-time in your project.
When choosing the team members, you should interview and select 
every one individually. The team members may have worked together pre-
viously or may know each other. Some members may have not worked 
with you previously. So, your responsibility as project manager is to break 
the ice between all the team members and your challenge is to let them 
work together as one team.
The choice of individuals should be based on prior study for each 
individual and not by whether this individual is currently available. When 
selecting a team, you should ask yourself the following questions and be 
clear in answering each question:
• What is the experience related to the project?
• Does this individual have special skills suitable for the 
project?
• Does this individual have experience in similar projects?
• Has this individual ever worked in project teams before?
• Do he or she have technical information applicable to the 
requirements of the project?
• What is the department responsible for?
• Does he or she have a link with another project?
• When will this individual’s association with this project end?
• What is the ratio of currency and participation in the project?
• What is the work load with him or her in the other project?
• Is it possible to reduce the workload by the excess of the 
project?
• Will he or she work from the beginning of the project until 
the end?
• Does he or she have a commitment to another project?
• Do this individual deal easily with people?

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Resource Hiring 157
• Is there a record of his or her performance during another 
project?
• Is he or she interested to join in teamwork?
• Is this individual orderly, and does he or she know how to 
manage time?
• Does he or she take responsibilities very seriously?
• Is this individual an excellent player in teamwork?
• Is his or her handling of time commensurate with the tasks?
• What are his or her feelings toward the project manager’s 
instructions (happy, sad, angry, etc.…)?
Sometimes the answers to those questions are not easy, but to reach 
success everyone should be aware that each individual is important for the 
project.
The selection of a successful team does not support the selection of 
faithful functionality, only in the sense that we want civil engineers and we 
have civil engineers, but an individual who has joined the project should 
be capable of working in a teamwork environment. Also, the project man-
ager should have confidence in good relations between the individuals. The 
selection must also be on the basis of the target you want to achieve and 
the required capacity of the team to complete the work properly under 
pressure.