Project managers should take the time during the actual development phase of forming the project team could in order to deal with real world issues such as absences, vacations, and obligations to other teams. This is such a critical time to plan ahead of time for these types of occurrences. When forming a project team, it is indeed best to have team members whose strengths and weaknesses compliment each other so there is a well rounded staff behind the development of a project. However, once the balance is already accounted for, a project manager should start thinking how to duplicate each talent of the project team just in case that said talent were to take one, two, or even three weeks vacation. If there is only one person who can a specific task on the project team then there needs to be a more careful selection of a project team. Just in case an employee was to take some time off from work, then there should at least be one other person else who is able to fulfill their duty no matter how significant the role is. So again, I want to highlight how critical the development of a project team can be later on during these occurrences.

I would like to point out how beneficial dag56’s approach of employing a public monetary system of employees work schedules is. If this was implemented into a company, then employees will definitely get a good idea of when not to plan a vacation or take time off. Two similar people of the same talent are able to see when there is a definite need for their role in the project just in case one of them was out of office.