Design Your Ideal Project Team

Think of a real or hypothetical project you care about — now build the team environment that would actually make it succeed.

Name Your Project

Write the project in one sentence: what it aims to do and who it is for. Be specific enough that a stranger could understand it.

Sort Your Conditions

Place each of the five conditions into the column that reflects your team's current reality — strong or weak.

Already strong

Needs building

Rank Your Priorities

From the 'needs building' column, rank the conditions 1–5: which must you fix first for the project to move forward at all?

most urgent1 2 3 4 5

21 2 3 4 5

31 2 3 4 5

41 2 3 4 5

least urgent1 2 3 4 5

The One Bet

Write a single sentence committing to the ONE condition you will invest in first — and name one concrete action that would build it within a week.

Stress-Test It

Look back at Step 3. What is the weakest argument for your number-one priority? Name the person or situation most likely to undermine it.

One Concrete Improvement

Rewrite your action from Step 4 so that it directly addresses the threat you named in Step 5 — make it harder to fail.

Original action

→

Strengthened action

What You Have Built

Choose ONE word that names the thing your team most needs from you as a result of this exercise — not a condition, but your role in creating it.

Why that word?

Discuss Tell your partner your word from Step 7 — do they agree it is really what your team needs from you?

Work01