Shackleton Principle vs. the Weakest-link-of-the-chain Principle in Optimizing Project Teams

This paper discusses project team performance in relation to team structure. First, the importance of the strength and distribution of static and dynamic competencies for the achievement of budget, deadline, and quality goals is determined based on the relevant literature. Second, we built an analytical model, which we tested on data from 1400 cross-department executive project teams in a company from the construction industry, in the period 2006–2012. Detailed market-oriented (MO) competencies and performance data are investigated. The empirical analysis shows that for the achievement of budget and deadline goals, it is primarily static competencies that matter, whereas it is also dynamic competencies that matter for the achievement of quality goals. Moreover, the role of the strength distribution of competencies is stressed by arguing that team members with strong competencies matter for budget and deadline goals (Shackleton principle), while the weakest member has a critical impact on quality goals (weakest-link-of-the-chain principle).JEL classification: O22, M31, L74