Alignment reveals the strategy

It turned out to be a $150M project.

It was 28 months to launch. The executives were on board, we had a solid budget, and there were three of us in the room. Paul, Jerry, and me. We were the first three of the hundreds that we would need when the tech project got into full swing. Paul was the boss. And he had recruited Jerry and me. And we had to figure out how to get this project organized and moving. We didn’t have much time.

Initially, we did the reasonable thing. We divided the work by technology:

It made sense. It just needed to be fleshed out. So we met on a Tuesday afternoon in the cluttered and unoccupied office space that would become our project office. We were sitting on empty desks and talking about how this division of work would actually play out. How would it deliver the outcome, without conflict and overlap?

And, since this project would eventually impact every department, how would we build that connection? Paul suggested that each division head would loan us one of their key people to coordinate. They would become part of the project for two years. Then they would go back to their departments with this experience.

But something didn’t sit right.

Paul’s background was in the military. For him, it was a perfectly normal career path to take stretch assignments for a couple of years as an intentional pattern to build diversity of experience.

I knew that’s not how it worked in our company.

No ‘star’ performer would willingly abandon their career path to come join us. That would allow their peers to jump ahead of them. No. The department heads would give us their weak performers.

The reason, of course, is that the departments viewed our project as something apart from their own responsibilities. They need to take care of themselves, not help us. Ours was just a side project that didn’t directly impact them. They had no ownership stake.

And that’s when I saw the flaw in our approach.

We had to create an ownership stake for every department head. That’s the only way of getting their cooperation. These department heads are successful, focused individuals. If they aren’t responsible for some outcome, it’s invisible to them.

So we found a more aligned path.

Regardless of what others thought, we knew ours was more than a side project. It would, eventually, become a strategic capability that would change how everyone works.

Ours wasn’t an IT project.

It was a transformation project.

And if they understood how this transformation project was going to impact their departments in two years, they would want a piece of it. Starting now. We just needed to explain it the right way.

So we redrafted the project charter. We reshaped it from an IT project to a transformation project. We clarified its very real strategic impact on the organization. Paul took this rebranded responsibility back to the executive suite to assure alignment. They not only agreed, they were also more supportive than before.

Now we had a more visible mission chain. The executives had talking points to explain how this project would cascade into the business. And once the executives turned this into a transformation project, the various department heads were all on board. They were ready to own their parts.

Alignment always comes first. People need to see the direction. Once that’s clear, the responsibilities make sense.