Are you burdening process people with projects? Projects will always lose. Relatedly, we often see large projects formed to resolve an issue or perform a housekeeping function, that really should be a dedicated ongoing process. Both issues confuse projects and processes. The first issue is one of priority, and the other with function.
Project groups are appropriate when it comes to creation or change, until the new baby can mature enough to hand it off to its rightful process family.
Wayward projects are most often without appropriate measurements or badly managed. Incompetent team members are more rare.
Do you have project teams that are isolated from the ongoing work of the organization? You are headed for a train wreck. Stop now and at least save your money. Remember the measurement rule? If you are not getting measurable feedback from the people you will be affecting, what are you building it for? The frequency of your feedback depends on the size of the project.
Assembled correctly, project groups can have an incredibly important effect on the organization with synergistic benefits. Cross departmental Associate exposure, relationships, and a less departmentalized view of loyalty are some of them. Well situated projects can drastically improve Associate engagement, and most of them should increase shareholder return (You’ll fail sometimes). If they are talked about openly, especially the failures, trust levels will rise.
Process vs Project Wheel
I can hear some Managers groaning under their breath right now. They’re saying, “Jim, you are crazy. You are implying bloating the staff on a perpetual basis to do projects.” Actually the opposite is true. Hiding projects in line positions slows them down and bloats function costs. But it is the over-riding product of focus and specialization that drives project team formation. It also makes measuring project cost and ROI much easier.
Further, if the company is of any size at all, do not despair of any ongoing ‘bloat’ to the organization. Especially in this era of change, your company will have a never ending list of projects that need to be tackled to increase the excellence of the company, measured in sales, efficiency, profit or some other significant enhancement that brings measurable value to the bottom line. That list can be talked about quite openly. And team members can come and go to their line positions on project teams.
Especially during a down turn, one possibility is to work lists of projects and improve ROI, rather than just laying people off. Share price will go where share prices go, rather independently in the long run of whether companies laid off a portion of their workforce. But they don’t very often have a chance to free up some of their staff to do any foundation building. It’s a powerful advantage of recessions. It’s also regrettable more companies don’t take advantage of it.
