24-Agile teams

Who typically ensures the success of a major transformational project, driving the crucial 15- and 45-day projects of a master project roadmap?

SMALL, NIMBLE TEAMS

Extensive research of newly deployed enterprise systems reveals that small teams often lead the most successful projects.

While still too soon to know with absolute certainty, successful deployment of game-changing customer engagement systems will likely follow the same pattern: small teams of innovators will win the day.

The figure below depicts the composition of a small team that can drive enterprisewide innovations, managing the key phases of a major project.

KEY PHASES OF A MAJOR PROJECT

Instigating events represent a wide range of situations. Clearly dramatic downsizing of operations demands higher productivity: getting more done with fewer people and hard-cash outlays. The timely receipt of an invitation to receive an executive white paper, relating directly to the themes and issues of an instigating event…well, it results in an opt-in request for the white paper and the very early stage-identification of a major deal. Thus, you want to have an inventory of white papers, monographs, and on-demand webinars that address one or two instigating event.

Research and analysis will for the short- and mid-term emphasize cashflow preservation, delaying cash outlays, or outsourcing in place of capital investments. However, the real work of research and understanding the implications of research findings requires a more structured methodology, tools, and payback models—often the very things that independent consultants bring to a complex business problem and its solution.

Future capability phase of a major project will likely correlate to faster, more effective revenue generation with cashflow preservation and reduce headcount. This often entails the strategic case for outsourcing or partnering for more effective customer engagement as well as pay-as-you-grow and host-to-own licensing arrangements. However, the single greatest barrier to stabilizing a future capability—maintaining it as a concrete operational objective—remains defining the operational accountabilities of the future state. Thus, the real work building a solution entails first understanding and developing a new operational accountability—again, why larger firms hire full-time independent consultants to “operationalize” a new system and then ask the consultant to hire on or find a full-time staffer at a substantially lower labor rate. Thus, you want to have a virtual inventory of independent consultants who will define and operationalize a new system, or suffer long sales cycles and longer roll-outs.

Change socialization entails getting internal stakeholders behind more effective revenue generation with cashflow preservation and reduce headcount: a big but doable task. Never mind that most end-user firms do not have a working change-management practice or officer in charge of change. At the heart of effective change socialization you will find two tactics: fast-cycle 15-day projects and weekly one-on-one reviews with the primary owner of each project. Thus, you want to have someone on staff or a partner bring these two tactics to your customer’s change-socialization process. And, yes, we do that.

Deployment solutioneering emphasizes the rapid, small-scale delivery of productivity-enhancing innovations to customers and stakeholders. With success and adoption, deployment solutioneering then must rapidly scale its scope: wider and wider circles of customers and stakeholders. Solutioneering? Yep. We coined that term in 1996. A bit dog-eared, but still useful. And, yes, it remains core or central to the strategy maps of innovating firms. Deployment solutioneering emphasizes one thing: direct, visceral, and immediate customer benefit. Deployment solutioneering systematically identifies and seeks to eliminate anything within a system that does not create immediate and self-evident value for customers. Get rid of the doo-dads and the whiz-bangs. Get rid of the confusions and extra steps. Bang on it long and hard enough, you get something elegant and self-evident. You get a iPod and iPhone solution. Yes! That’s what we call deployment solutioneering.

WHO’S WHO IN INNOVATION

External consultants often play an important role as business analysts and technology integrators, bringing into an organization highly specialized skills, as well as single-minded focus on delivering promised weekly results—the deliverables of 15-day and 45-day project plans.

Business analysts (staff or external consultants) seek ways to speed cycle times, reduce costs, and increase productivity. Business analysts correlate use cases and workflows to how a business finds and serves customers or delivers innovation. Over the course of a major project, the firm may use the services of one or more individuals; however, the business focus remains constant.

Technology integrators seek ever-more efficient ways to use technology, specifying commercial off-the-shelf systems, on-demand services of a global business ecosystem, and custom-developed applications. Increasingly, technology integrators become service integrators—as many new, innovative services now use the Web as a service-delivery channel. Technology integrators also understand the nuances and tradeoffs associated with security, service-upgrade deployments, and availability management (proactive recovery from service disruption).

Organizational historians represent one of the most important and generally overlooked contributors to the success of a major change. Organizational historians study the goings-on of a firm, making detailed observations about “how things get done around here,” “who must support a proposed change,” and “what topics to avoid discussing with what person.” Organizational historians become coaches, go-betweens, sources of support, and custodians of the cultural norms. While strange sounding in formulation, it answers the simple question of “Who’s the organizational historian here? You know, the person who generally knows what goes down here?” will produce answers that astound.

For these reasons outline above, we strongly recommend that technology or solution providers have a plan and program in place to attract, engage, and reward a global network of indie consultants who understand how to define and deploy game-changing customer engagement systems, managing the change socialization and deployment solutioneering process. If you need help in this, call me.

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