Strategic Team Composition

Effective project outcomes depend on assembling the right mix of knowledge, skills and personalities. This composition equips the team to tackle complex challenges in enterprise IT projects:

• A balanced mix of technical knowledge and managerial skills is essential for managing project demands.
• Communication, adaptability, and teamwork are requisite technical abilities.
• Specialist roles must be filled with qualified and experienced participants.

Proactive Leadership

Leading enterprise IT projects entails active engagement and a proactive approach:

• Leaders should break down silos and encourage a collaborative environment where team members understand each other’s roles.
• Promoting inclusion and diversity enriches solutions and enhances the team's resilience to unexpected challenges.
• Assigning task ownership boosts team members' motivation and accountability, which is essential for maintaining morale.

Continuous Learning and Development

A commitment to continuous learning ensures that participants stay current with technological advancements and best practices:

• Offer structured training on project delivery and discipline frameworks.
• Encourage upskilling and knowledge sharing.
• Align learning opportunities with participants' career aspirations.

Following is a case study showcasing the practical application of strategic team composition, proactive leadership, and continuous learning in a real-world scenario.

Background

Digital Data, a software development company, faces a significant challenge with Project Zombie, which seeks to improve a key client's data management system. Deadlines have been missed, team morale is low, and client trust is eroding.

The Turnaround Team

Understanding the critical nature of Project Zombie, Howie selects professionals with essential technical knowledge and strong communication and teamwork skills. This approach emphasises skill alignment, highlighting that technical and interpersonal abilities are equally vital for project success.

Assembling the Project Team

After assessing the project's resourcing needs, Howie selects professionals with the required technical expertise and strong communication and teamwork skills.

Encouraging Collaboration

To dismantle silos, Howie organises cross-functional workshops, enhancing team understanding of individual contributions and strengthening unity and purpose. This proactive leadership approach encourages a collaborative environment, ensuring all team members can contribute meaningfully.

Championing Diversity and Equal Opportunity

Howie restructures the team by including individuals with diverse project backgrounds and experiences. This enriches problem-solving, encourages innovative solutions, and enhances resilience to unexpected challenges.

Empowering Team Members

Howie empowers participants by assigning task ownership and promoting decision-making at all levels. Recognising small achievements significantly boosts morale and commitment, which are essential for high engagement and productivity.

Promoting Talent and Leadership Development

Recognising the importance of continuous professional development, Howie pairs seasoned participants with less experienced ones and facilitates leadership training sessions. This commitment to learning ensures that team members are equipped to take on leadership roles.

Outcomes

Within six months, Project Zombie makes a dramatic comeback and meets its initial goals. The client is impressed, and Digital Data's reputation for managing complex IT projects improves significantly. The Zombie team becomes a model for effective project execution.

Addressing Misalignment in People and Project Enablers

Challenges of One-Size-Fits-All Project Enablers

Organisations invest heavily in developing project methodologies and technological aids, known as project enablers, expecting these tools to contribute to project success directly.

Executives who signed off on implementing project enablers mandate strict adherence to these tools, anticipating positive outcomes to be reflected in their performance reviews and key performance Indicators (KPIs). However, aligning project requirements is often overlooked, even though a one-size-fits-all model cannot be universally adopted for all project types. Mismatches arise when specific enablers do not meet project needs or when teams lack the necessary competency to operate within the standards of these enablers. It is common to use tight delivery timeframes as an excuse to seek exemptions from these mandates.

Overemphasising Tool Proficiency in Hiring

To justify the implementation of enterprise project enablers, recruiters often specify experience with particular delivery models and tools as essential criteria. This emphasis leads candidates to prioritise learning these tools, often at the expense of fundamental project delivery skills. This disconnect undermines basic project competencies, resulting in participants being proficient in delivery processes and project tools but struggling to fulfil the basic responsibilities of their roles.

The Realities of Human Resource Investments in Enterprise IT Projects

The costs associated with an enterprise IT project are substantial, with spending on human resources often exceeding the cost of technology. This emphasises the idea that people are key to project success. While the saying ‘you get what you pay for’ is often cited in securing quality, the reality is ‘you get what you get despite what you pay for’ in enterprise IT projects. This creates a dynamic where substantial investments in people do not guarantee excellent performance.

The following case study explores these dynamics, showing the consequences when project roles are not filled with wingers.

Background

Billy V. Bull, an independent contractor, is known for his high confidence and unstructured approach to project management. He dismisses industry-standard frameworks and best practices, believing that his experience and the improvised methods of his project team are sufficient to navigate the complexities of enterprise IT projects.

The Project and the Challenge

Project Overreach aims to develop a sophisticated data analysis platform for Data Dynamics Ltd., a significant client. The organisation has established enterprise frameworks, standards, and best practices for its IT initiatives.

Approach

From the outset, Billy and his team undermine the prescribed frameworks, believing their improvised methods and ad-hoc tactics will lead to quicker delivery. Billy's primary strategy involves pushing ahead without substantial planning, relying heavily on trial and error. This approach leads to several critical issues:

• Repeated missteps: The team misses several deadlines, such as failing to submit comprehensive requirements by the target dates.
• Quality concerns: The requirements submitted are inaccurate and incomplete despite multiple client engagements covering the same topics. 
• Team morale decline: Team members struggle with unclear direction and repeated rework, which affects overall morale.

Consequences

The challenges become evident when the client conducts a mid-project health check. The findings are overwhelmingly negative, highlighting the project's failure to meet critical milestones. Additionally, the quality of deliverables is poor, characterised by incomplete and inaccurate details, such as missing data sets and erroneous analytics.

Resolution

In response, the organisation's leadership intervenes, assigning a new project manager, Paige Turner, who reinstates the organisation's frameworks, standards, and best practices.

With the reintroduction of structured approaches, Project Overreach begins to improve. Paige focuses on realigning the team with the organisation's standards, providing clear guidelines and reassessing team competencies. Gradually, the project gets back on track and receives positive feedback from the client.