In my last post, You Get What You Pay For, I presented an example of a project that could have used stakeholder power to advantage, but was a challenged undertaking due, in part, to absent oversight and flawed incentive compensation.
In this post, we’ll look at a project that succeeded because the PM went that extra mile to build a great team. That’s why I call this post The Power of Teams!
The Situation
This organization was a large financial services firm with a large, highly productive sales organization. Over time, with the introduction of new products and services and changes in the competitive marketplace, the sales compensation and recognition programs became less focused and did not always promote behaviours that were in the best interests of the clients and the company.
The Goal
The Vice President of Sales, the sponsor of the venture, announced that a major reworking of the sales compensation and recognition programs was necessary to meet the ongoing and future needs of clients and the company. The new programs were to be introduced effective January 1, fourteen months in the future.
The Project
With only fourteen months to get the job done, the CIO recognized the risk. Prior experience with sales compensation and recognition changes suggested this instance would be in the $5 million range and require more than fifty project staff at the peak. To compound the challenge, there was a corporate system freeze on anything but critical changes which started six weeks before year end.
While the general direction of the compensation changes had been set, the details had yet to be determined. Consequently, a PM was selected who had a great track record with ill defined projects and superb leadership and communication skills. The PM focused on building his IT core team according to the following criteria:
- The ability to contribute effectively at any stage of the project, from business conceptualization to post implementation support.
- Proven expertise in all of the technology platforms, development practices and tools involved.
- Great team and communication skills up, down and sideways.
- Fast learner and self starter with excellent time management skills
Fortunately, the organization had an effective Portfolio Management process in place and the compensation changes were given a high priority, at the top of the food chain when it came to acquiring resources. That made it relatively easy for the PM to hand pick the right staff from across the organization, in spite of more than a few grumbles from other sponsors and PM’s. And, of course, the staff assigned to the project realized the prestige of being selected and that provided a powerful catalyst to help the team jell and excel.
Within a month, the PM had assembled his core group of twenty IT staff. He recognized that the project’s success depended on the ability of that group to far exceed the sum of the parts and so he set about shaping those twenty individuals into a high performance team.
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