| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... |
Chasing the problems to solve them on a daily basis is a common challenge as part of our daily work life.
When you solve one problem, another appears, and when you solve the new one, yet another appears.
Lets imagine most of these potential delays are coming due to the cross functional dependencies then how challenging it is to add value.
Ultimately, all your time goes on fire fighting with the cross functional teams to solve the problems and there is no value you can deliver to yourselves, your customers and your own teams due to repeat delays and long pending resolutions.
The only thing you and your team will be doing is follow up, follow up and follow up….
Story
I want to share a small story or an important lesson I learnt during the early stages of my career.
During a Telepresence Weekly Review meeting with my Program Manager.
I walked her through the top challenges we were facing due to cross functional delays and the potential escalations/complaints from the stakeholders
The PM was very calm and I requested her to support and escalate to solve these problems ASAP (aka as soon as possible)
In a very calm stable voice she told me that Vinod If you escalate against an individual they might do the work and solve the problem for you once but they wont be happy or satisfied to work with you and continue to solve the future problems.
So let’s set up a meeting to understand what is causing the delay, and lets come up with a solution together and solve the problem. Also if this is a continued problem lets identify a long term solution or automation to eradicate this problem completely.
If you escalate they may do the work but they wont be happy doing it!
This quote really changed me and brought huge respect towards this Program Manager especially her style of convincing her own team members to solve the problem with respect.
Solving Problem through Cross Functional teams is always a challenge and it will continue to remain but creating better ways of communication with a good rapport shall improve the overall methods of solving the problems with Value.
Creating Value
Company or Organization Values are the set of guiding principles and fundamental beliefs that help a group of people function together as a team and work towards a common business goal.
And how important is it to create this value system.
According to PMI PMBOK7th edition here are some of examples of creating value:
- Creating a new product, service or result meets the needs of customers
- Creating positive social or environmental contributions;
- Improving efficiency, productivity, effectiveness, or responsiveness
- enabling the needed changes to achieve desired state
- sustaining benefits enabled by previous projects, programs, or business operations
Various components such as programs, projects , operations working together comprise a system for delivering value and there comes the system for Value Delivery.
Mindset
Okay so now we have a value driven plan as an organization but how to drive it and ensure every employee within the organization understands the importance of value.
I always feel “Mindset” is very important.
I do agree each and every individual is unique and holds their own style of working and passion but when it comes to an organization it is fundamental to understand what the organizational goal is and put in your very best to bring the value.
You cannot just arrange onetime meeting and walk your employees through a presentation and imagine that they will understand you and your goals.
It has to be a rigorous and consistent communication to bring in change mindset towards people and achieve the value you are trying to build.
Heading back to our cross functional dependency challenges, every teams have their own Service Level agreements and processes to follow. This makes it very difficult for them to get out of it due to the compliance and audits.
So understanding their structure and identifying a solution to that problem will make you successful together bring value.
Processes
Over a period of time your employees will feel comfortable with a certain model or a process you had created.
It is important to review if those process still makes sense and its importance or value it delivers on a continual basis. These checks will keep your processes healthy and bring in the value you are trying to deliver.
Everyone are running behind the processes, audits and compliance irrespective of adding value or aim to solve the problems brought to the table.
it is important to check and validate if those processes are valid towards todays problems and re-writing and changing those models would improve the overall experience.
Relationship
While holding a strong process is important while working with cross functional teams or your customers. But without a strong relationship, trust and a good connection you cannot go any further.
Ofcourse in projects operations there will be delay due to several reasons but setting up a thorough communication plan and consistent follow up process with the right stakeholders shall solve these problems.
It is quite difficult to repeat and remind the for a potential delay arising from the individuals, this is where setting up the proper communication process and letting them know the escalation processes will help you long term, knowing what will happen if the issue is not solved by when clearly.
Without a good communication and building strong relationship it is difficult as a project manager to solve these problems, this is where you as a Project Manager standout because of the SoftSkills you posses.
Conclusion
This may be one of the reason why I love the value statement mentioned in the Agile Manifesto “Individuals & Interactions over processes and tools” while processes and tools are important, we have to value the Individuals & Interactions more.
How do you build value while going through the day to day challenges you posses, please leave your comments below.