When you are planning a project you typically define roles and responsibilities. The roles and responsibilities document forms part of the project foundation and outlines what each role is responsible and accountable for. But in our experience it is not only the formal project team that gets the results, it’s the informal team or what we call the guiding coalition. This is the group of people who have a keen interest in the project and its outcomes. They are people with knowledge of how the business really works and have a keen interest in its success. They are often the ones that will have to use the new systems, or do things in a new way, work with new teams or make decisions using the information available.
We often see that the final quality and outcome of a project can be directly linked to the overall level of involvement, interaction and communication with the guiding coalition.
Our typical guiding coalition starts with 3 then builds to somewhere around ten, which usually covers all of the business functions. It helps if they have a good sense of humour, positive attitude and are keen to make a difference.
You can read more about team and key roles in our Connecting THE DOTS book.
Do you engage your guiding coalition to ensure better results?
Be one of the first five to tell us how many people you have in your guiding coalition – we are interested to know if you have 0 or 20, and receive a copy of our Connecting THE DOTS ebook.
Till next time…….