How to deal with romance in your project team?

Question

Here's the situation:

We started a large web project in the beginning of the year (2010), I picked the best employees in the company to be on the project team. Few months into the project, I have discovered that two team members have fell in love. I was happy on the outside, yet deep down inside I knew it was going to be trouble. After that, they started taking their personal problems to work, what makes the problem even worse that they do have to work together a lot...

It seems that now every week we have at least a problem in the schedule because of these 2 people. When their relationship is OK, their interconnected tasks are done on time and on schedule, but when it's not, they start blaming each other for the delays in front of the team, while the real reason that when they are fighting, they just refuse to work with each other or be helpful to each other.

Clearly, the situation is becoming unacceptable at this point and I need to do something without interfering in their personal lives. I just don't think that standard conflict management is the solution in this situation...

Any suggestions on how to deal with romance when it comes to managing projects?

Answer 1

This is an extremely delicate situation and interfering in any way may put you in trouble. I would say stay clear from this until the end of the project, and make sure you don't put them on the same team in your next project.

Answer 2

I think there is a way to talk to them without interfering in their personal lives. Just call them for a meeting, and then start explaining that the intermittent bickering happening between them is adversely affecting the flow of the project, and they need to be more professional. I'm sure this will change things for the better, because they will realize that their fighting in the company may jeopardize their involvement in the project, and to some extent, their jobs.

Please let me know what happens.