Project managers, business analysts, and architects are well-established as the key leadership roles for most IT projects. However, uncertainty of project goals can produce tensions among these key team roles, leading to poor results and missed goals – blending the right mix of disciplines to match the project's goals can improve the chances of success, avoiding tension over roles-based turf.

Three basic disciplines mirror the recognisable roles for IT projects: management, analysis, and architecture.  Each discipline overlaps to produce recognisable outputs (see illustration below), and, ultimately, the acceptable solution (delivery), where all three disciplines overlap.

The blend of disciplines within a project team affect its outcome:

• Analyse answers 'Why', on its own producing well-defined business needs and features wish-list – the other disciplines will govern this by defining scope and determining feasible solution options
• Architect answers 'What', on its own producing solution options and design specifications – the other disciplines will anchor designs in required solutions and implementation plans
• Manage answers 'How', on its own producing delivery plans (risk, time, budget) and resource allocation – the other disciplines will stretch this to establish scope based on need and plan based on design.

By recognising the business goals of the project early, blending the right mix of disciplines in the project leadership will improve the likelihood of achieving them. For example:

• Scoping exercise – the analyst takes the lead here, governed by the management role to ensure some boundary is defined; the architect is consulted only to ensure there is a good chance a feasible solution option may be found
• Feasibility study – the architect takes the lead, with the 'Analyse' discipline providing some context and 'Manage' ensuring there is some recognition of delivery planning
• Delivery project – all three disciplines work together, with clear responsibilities assigned to each resource; team members who have worked together before are more effective since each will understand the personality strengths of the other and may.

These concepts are nothing new, especially to those with IT project experience, but a goals-discipline focus is rarely a conscious part of the project resourcing process.

To take advantage of individual personalities and discipline focus:

1. Identify the goals of the project first
2. Determine the ideal mix of disciplines to achieve the goals
3. Assess and select the available resources that most closely resemble the team mix (sometimes one individual may cover more than one discipline)
4. Establish protocols and standards that will help govern any gaps in the project make-up.

This forces project business goals to be defined before the project team has been assembled and then it is the goals that influences the project team make-up.

Projects are comprised of humans – make sure the right people with the most appropriate disciplines are involved to give the project a better chance of achieving its goals.