Eliminating Risks That Kill Projects — A Roadmap
Conducting an organizational project is tricky, especially if it is expected to help realize some defined vision. How do you prioritize the people, process and technology goals associated with these efforts while minimizing the risk of losing sight of the larger purpose?
Assessing Project Risk
What does it mean to assess “project risk”? It’s a matter of identifying elements of the project that if poorly managed will cause it to be perceived as less than satisfactory or an outright failure.
As stated by Lloyd Rain in an article describing the challenges of IT Projects:
“The truth is that the great majority of IT projects do not fail — most simply do not go as well as originally hoped, take longer than planned and cost more than anticipated. These are really not failures at all; you might classify them as “discouraging successes”.
What would it take exceed expectations on IT and organizational projects that involve people, process and technology change? It starts with having a plan to address the following four elements:
The Four Elements of All Projects
Organizational project have hundreds of moving parts, tasks and milestones. These pieces can be collapsed into four broad categories. They are:
- Vision and Goals
- Buy-in
- Planning and Preparation
- Capacity and Personnel
Vision and Goals
A vision often serves two functions; it motivates decision-makers to commit time, money and resources to get projects off the ground and two, as a destination for what constitutes success.
Be careful though. The use of vision as a means to secure up-front commitment from senior management as well as defining the ideal end point for the project often produces this sense of discouraging success.
This is because once buy-in and resources have been allocated, vision takes on a lower priority. Lost among hundreds of tasks and milestones, the project becomes less about delivering on the vision and more about delivering something to justify the investment.
Questions to ask around vision and goals:
- Has the vision been clearly defined?
- If so, has it be articulated in a way that different stakeholders understand?
Buy-In
Buy-in is a critical success factor that for the most part needs to be reframed around commitment, not whether people feel good, bad, or indifferent. Enthusiasm is useful, but it’s the incorrect measure for buy-in around a project.
We need to also do a better job of including skepticism, doubt and concerns as necessary phases that people go through in a change project. Having doubts or concerns is an appropriate starting point for people who are used to doing things one way and then asked to change.
Questions to consider:
- What does buy-in current look like in your projects and how can it be reframed as a question of “commitment”?
- Are you excluding skeptics, doubters and challengers at the expense of the long-term success of the initiative? If so, how can you change that?
Planning and Preparation
Of the four risk categories, planning and preparation are probably the most practiced and well understood in organizational change initiatives.
The challenge around planning comes back to making sure there is a direct line from tasks to vision. Without continuous reflection of “where are we relative to our vision?”, milestones and tasks take on a life of their own. Getting things done becomes more important than evaluating if the work is moving toward or away from the overall goal.
The project may be successful in that people are working hard to get things done, but it’s also a “discouraging success” in that the work is moving away from its intended outcome.
Questions to consider:
- Are we closer or further away from our vision relative to what we’re spending our time doing?
- Have we given up the vision to get the work done? If so, what needs to happen to get our tasks aligned with the vision?
Capacity and Personnel
Whether labeled a technology, IT or organizational project, it’s capacity and personnel that drives work to completion. There are two primary groups — those helping to realize the vision and the intended beneficiaries of the change. Too often we move forward on projects with untested assumptions about people’s preparedness — both to lead the projects as well as inherit the change.
For a group to become a successful team, there needs to be much greater transparency in what each person can count on others for. Knowing each others strengths and weaknesses is central to building a well-oiled team.
Team question to answer:
Rate each person on the team based on the following criteria. Then discuss as a group where the gaps lie and how they can be filled:
- Management skills
- Communication/presentation skills
- Organizational/business knowledge
- Technical skills
- Accountability to results
Project risk can be minimized or eliminated by understanding gaps in vision, buy-in, planning and capacity. Avoiding or not addressing any one of these categories runs the risk of creating another “discouraging success” initiative. It’s time to raise the bar and focus on exceeding expectations of going from an initial vision, through tasks, and back to the vision itself.
Achieving Vision
“If it wasn’t for the ‘last minute’, nothing would get done.“
— Wikiquotes
Successfully Merging Organizations – Uncovering the Knowledge Gaps
Mergers and acquisitions take place for various reasons. Corporate entities merge companies to increase their competitiveness in the market. Internal mergers, i.e., departments being consolidated into one organizational unit, are a different kind of consolidation. The cultural change may not be as great as bringing two companies together, but the need for uncovering knowledge gaps is just as important.
Internal audits often drive these efforts, uncovering inefficiencies and opportunities for cost savings. The real challenge, however, is not in identifying efficiency gaps, but getting disparate groups working together so real benefits are realized.
The big picture
A consolidation reveals the need for “big picture” understanding of roles and processes across groups. Departments that perform related tasks often know very little about what the other group is doing. For example, a purchasing department that oversees the rules around acquisition of goods and services has a strong connection to Accounts Payable, responsible for dispersing funds. Ask either group about the day- to-day operation of the other and you’ll probably get a few blank stares. This goes for many functional departments expected to work together; IT, Finance, HR, and other centralized groups.
The cause for this lack of understanding starts with the definition of doing a job effectively. Being successful in a role often does not demand knowing “why” work is performed, as long as the task being performed is done correctly. We call this “work by rote”, i.e., doing a series of steps by memory (often aided by yellow stickies plastered all over ones monitor).
Knowing why one performs a task starts to become important when the steps need to change. With business as usual, the objective is to get work off ones desk as quickly as possible and make it someone else’s problem.
Wake up call
When a department consolidation is announced, people begin to wake up. With business processes and system changes looming, newly formed project teams make their way around both departments asking questions like “Why do you do this?” and “Can we do it this way instead?” Owners of the “to-be” changes quickly begin to recognize the need to understand more of the logic behind their work, something that is rarely explained or even necessary in the day-to-day performance of one’s job.
The cause for this lack of knowledge doesn’t just rest with the individual, but also the organization. Although employees need to take greater responsibility for what they don’t know, organizations need to be more systematic around helping people learn and develop new skills.
What are three key things an organization can do to better facilitate departmental consolidation?
Plug the leadership gap
Inherent in these efforts is a need to identify someone who will lead both groups to a better place. Sometimes this is the manager of one of the existing departments, while other times it should come from outside either group. The key is to not postpone any longer than necessary making this decision, primarily because the direction of the new organization will be driven by new leadership. Leaving this gap in place too long creates tension among both groups, with people spending more time vying for power than focusing on how to collaborate.
Conduct facilitated dialogue sessions
Once a new leader is identified, the next step is to alleviate confusion and set proper expectations. Not everything will be changed overnight. A matter a fact, much will evolve over the next year. People need to be reassured that some of the changes will be gradual, while others need to be in place on day one.
Bringing both parties together through facilitated dialogue sessions can help alleviate tension, frustration and anxiety about the change. Most importantly, you want to get both groups working together in as positive a framework as possible. These sessions should be both an opportunity for people to get to know each other, along with discussing new business practices and vision for the new organization.
Designing learning maps
One final technique to demystify upcoming changes in work processes is to develop learning maps of the organization, combining visual flows of roles, processes, and handoffs across groups. For example, the steps to pay a vendor cut across roles and departments. Having a visual understanding in one place of who does what and why they do it is an important step to build competence for the consolidated environment.
To see an example of learning map, go to http://www.teibelinc.com/pdf/sample_process_map.pdf.
A smooth transition
With strong leadership setting the right context and expectation for the change, facilitated sessions where people can come together and voice concerns as well as get to know each other, and finally, visual representations of the “as-is” and “to- be” processes, you will be well along your way in creating a smoother transition for the new organization.
Facilitation Tip
When facilitating a discussion, a key skill is how you handle questions. Keep in mind two things: Listen carefully to the question. Secondly, answer as if the group asked the question. This has three benefits.
- When questions get asked, you won’t get tunnel vision by focusing on individuals, ignoring the rest of the group.
- By answering for the group, you’ll more likely remember to repeat or paraphrase the question, an important technique to keep everyone engaged in the dialogue.
- You’ll minimize getting sucked into the void of “one-on-one” confrontations by directing your response to the group.
