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Understanding the big picture: Positioning the project team
European Management Journal Volume 7 No I 0 European Management journal 1989 ISSN 0263-2373 $3.00
Understanding Positioning
the Big Picture: the Project Team
Wendy Briner and Michael Geddes Ashridge Management and Development Services, Ashridge Management College, UK
Conventional wisdom has it that projects are useful to manage complex construction or aerospace engineering jobs that are one off but fairly similar in nature. Getting the right components to the right place through appropriately skilled hands is in itself a considerable feat of logistics, posing interesting technical questions. So the focus of project management has been on getting the scheduling and timing of events together but, although this is clearly important in today’s increasingly turbulent environment, it is only part of the issue. The modern project leader and team members are being asked to focus on the wider scope of teamworking context, as well as on their internal what they do - ‘The Big Picture’, and the organisational procedures and systems.
New Definition
of Project Management
Projects are dynamic activities which set out to to achieve a specific task. Teams are established carry out projects and the practice of project management can be defined as “managing the visible and invisible teams to meet the objectives of If they are to be successful those the stakeholders”. leading or working on the team need to understand the context within which the stakeholders have set their objectives - ie. to understand the Big Picture.
number of specialists who need to work together to draw together their own disciplines or specialisms towards the particular formula needed for a project. The name of the game today is differentiation and customer orientation, which means that projects will be less and less standard, and more and more organisations will put together project teams to respond, rapidly and flexibly to significant differences in customer demands. So the number and range of specialists employed will mean a more complex core team who are unaccustomed to working together.
This all sounds easy or obvious but is it? Who are the visible, invisible team, who are the stakeholders and how can the project team be engaged in this global idea? Indeed, why does it matter?
So it is more helpful to visually team as shown in Figure 1;
The Visible Team
Each circle represents the core skills, expertise and preferred ways of working that are available to be drawn into the project. One circle does not replace another, so individuals’ professional and personal skills are not interchangeable. The grey areas of overlap are where individual skills or expertise need to be integrated so that the total output of the team is greater than the sum of the individual parts. This can only happen if both the team leader and the
We are accustomed
to see this defined Project
Leader
Core team of specialists Often
this doesn’t
as
accurately
with relevant reflect
skills
the increasing
What is the significance circles?
represent
of thinking
the core
in overlapping
POSITIONING
THE PROJECT
TEAM
121
Stakeholders
Specialist members
team
Grey area of overlap
Project
leader
Figure 1. members understand contribution in relation of the Big Picture.
The Invisible
the value of each other’s to a common understanding
Team
internal, finance,
Stakeholders are those who have an interest in the outcome of the project, or who are able to affect the outcome by the provision/withholding of information or support. Naturally it would be surprising if their objectives were identical, static or realistic. The world of the project team encompasses appreciating that this with integrating complexity exists and dealing challenging, and reconciling the paradoxes that will emerge. Identifying who the stakeholders are is frequently enlightening and rather frightening, but if a useful Big Picture is to emerge then the scope must be faced.
Key Stakeholders
The Invisible Team are the hidden participants who take part in the project occasionally, or for limited phases. Typically as the name suggests they are not readily perceived to be part of the team, but their efforts will in a major or minor way accelerate or impede the project’s success. There are three broad members:
Our new definition of project management talked of the visible and invisible team needing to meet the objectives of the stakeholders. So who are the stakeholders?
categories
of invisible
for example administrative
team
4
intermittant personnel, services.
marketing, support
b)
client contacts, usually a range of people in the client organisation; the authorising managers, the users and administrative staff.
4
outside suppliers, authorities, or governmental bodies whose cooperation is needed.
If the key members of the invisible team do not see themselves as part of this project team then they are unlikely to have the priorities, urgency or special features of this project in mind, when they are asked to provide their particular input. Delays between functions, and baton passing tactics will persist if the invisible team remains isolated from the project’s aims and success criteria. Often individuals try hard to provide an appropriate service but feel as if they are hunting by themselves for a faintly glimmering street lamp in the swirling fog. Understanding the Big Picture is essential if they are to get to the street lamp without any difficulty.
Infernal - The Sponsor The sponsor is the senior manager who wants the successful results of the project but who will not be the manager who is directly involved with the executing of the project. He or she will initiate, foster, permit, restrain, resource, represent or fight for the project within the organisation. If the sponsor is keen and supportive he will actively enable, but usually only when he is convinced that it is the “right” thing the “right” way. So a major task for the project leader is to suss out the sponsor’s success criteria both in terms of “hard criteria” (cost, time, specification), and “soft criteria” (i.e. organisational politics, personal interests). An important element to think about is “What would be bad news for the sponsor - what should be avoided?“.
The Project Team As executors their needs, constraints and preferences must be an important set of stakes that has to be sorted out and appreciated. Like the sponsor their success criteria will be hard, about time scales, levels of resources but also soft, often reflecting the extent to which they can do a job to be proud of which uses their profssional expertise optimally. The Client or Customer The
importance
of
the
customer
is
becoming
122
WENDY
BRINER and MICHAEL
GEDDES
corporate high.
increasingly widely recognised and the trend towards increased use of projects is a reflection of this. Very often there are up to four different “types” of customer - the person who pays for the project, the person who actually has to use the project’s results, the person on whom the results are used, and the person who has to maintain or service the project. For example a new drug may be commissioned by the Government, prescribed by doctors to patients and administered by technicians. All have differing expectations of the project. All these stakeholders need to be incorporated into ‘The Big Picture’ if they are to be part of an effective project, that earns a long term positive reputation.
Formulating
With some projects it will be relatively easy to pull the elements together, but with less visible and more loosely defined projects dealing in experimental or new activities, the Big Picture will be more fluid.
there are four types of projects:-
1. Highly Visible and Well Defined
2. Highly Visible and Loosely Defined
3. Well Defined and Low Visibility
4. Low Visibility and Loosely Defined
“Big Picture” 1. Highly
in Different
Visible
seen
to be
*
Resources easy to get, people clearly defined team structure.
*
Project Leader has considerable power, will be the hero if the project succeeds but is potentially the fall guy.
available,
often a
Elements of the Big Picture *
Precise knowledge of the movements in the market of competitors that will influence the window of opportunity to complete a project. Most common with new products in a mature market. Likewise highly similar product features may reduce impact or change direction.
*
Changes in fortune of other parts of the business that may influence funding. If the key ratios move then the flow of resources may be questioned.
*
Changes in the priorities politically for the client organisation causes changes to their priorities. A new Chief Executive who is not convinced or imposes different criteria.
2. High Visibility istics
and Loosely
Defined
Character-
*
Seen by sponsors to be of strategic importance but involves stepping out into the unknown, e.g. formulating a new strategic direction or changing a company’s culture.
+
Prescriptions for what needs to risks are, what is important, discovered by experience. scoped but will need refining there will be very flexible.
*
Will have high level support so will be on senior management’s agenda, but may get lost if no satisfactory progress is made.
be done, what the will have to be Direction maybe and how to get
Elements of the Big Picture
Projects
and Well Defined
of failure
Defined hard criteria usually in terms of: - time, features or differentiating factors.
Types of Projects Broadly speaking
Risks
*
the Big Picture
The Big Picture is an aggregate of the important aspects and priorities of the major stakeholders. It expresses the major dimensions of the “environmental map” of a project, and takes account of the economic or business climate as well as the situation of the organisations involved in a project. The Big Picture is often difficult to express and will usually shift during the life cycle of a project so it constantly and modifying and reneeds monitoring communicating to the project team.
strategy.
*
A lot of time will be needed with the sponsor and stakeholders to tease out their vision and what success would be like.
*
New priorities, questions and opportunities will arise and may radically reorientate the Big Picture. Changes in senior management or shifts in the internal political liaisons and power groups, will have a marked impact on the Big Picture.
Characteristics
Highly visible, seen by the sponsor organisation to be vital. Lots of senior ment attention and nervousness.
and the Manage-
Core to the organisation’s survival or market position, therefore a significant part of the
POSITIONJNG
Ideas will need to be tested out. It will be necessary to gain inputs and ownership from the to evolve the framework of the Big sponsor Picture.
Defined and Low Visibility
Seen to business example range to radically
Characteristics
be useful, helpful, necessary to the activity but not top level criticality. For an enhancement of an existing product prolong the market position but not to change it.
Wrll be vulnerable to the political pressures and predispositions of the sponsor, so priorities may chdnge and aspects get traded off. Funds may get re-allocated to other areas. Elcwzents of the Big Picture
Working hypothesis is being tested out, quietly. Parts of the Big Picture known but much is ver) grey and being clarified. If successful, will be woven into the environmental map, if not, then no problem. Will need selling to stakeholders if it moves into a more visible category so that a public Big Picture can be formulated.
Ensuring Picture
that the Project Team Understand
The steps to be taken Picture are as follows:-
How is it linked to the business Are competitors or environment. pressures suggesting activity?
their success 1. Identify stakeholders, their relative importance.
shift with new items of Importance may management concern, so relativities need to be monitored to see what is thought to be most serious at the moment. M’hat does the organisation how important is this project
actually value and in those terms?
M’ho is interested in it personally and how much will they risk if push comes to shove?
Low Visibility istics
and Loosely
Defined
173
of the Big Picture
What is the minimum that will satisfy in terms of hard and soft criteria? or external government
TEAM
Interested parties try their heads out on the side. Low resource justification, a lot of voluntary effort. Elements
Well
THE PROIECT
2. Establish
a broad-brush
in understanding
the Big
the
criteria,
Big
and
Big Picture.
3. Express the Big Picture in simple terms and test out with team members and stakeholders. 4. Refine and start to build up a Project Plan within the context of the Big Picture. Focus individual objectives into this context. 5. As the plan develops and moves into the implementation phase constantly re-test assumptions about the Big Picture against practicalities and keep the team up to date.
CharacterWhy is the Big Picture so Important?
Low key,
trial, experimental
Interested sponsor who wants to find out, but not able or willing politically to risk too much publicly. Will be forgotten if it fails, but may blossom if succeeds, but will need to be promoted to gain recognition.
The Big Picture acts as the framing focus that holds the activity together in a changing and demanding environment. Without it individuals will tend to flounder, feel in the dark and disjointed, and the project will be fragmented, compartmentalised and will frequently not achieve its objective, never mind fulfil its potential.
Understanding Positioning
the Big Picture: the Project Team
Wendy Briner and Michael Geddes Ashridge Management and Development Services, Ashridge Management College, UK
Conventional wisdom has it that projects are useful to manage complex construction or aerospace engineering jobs that are one off but fairly similar in nature. Getting the right components to the right place through appropriately skilled hands is in itself a considerable feat of logistics, posing interesting technical questions. So the focus of project management has been on getting the scheduling and timing of events together but, although this is clearly important in today’s increasingly turbulent environment, it is only part of the issue. The modern project leader and team members are being asked to focus on the wider scope of teamworking context, as well as on their internal what they do - ‘The Big Picture’, and the organisational procedures and systems.
New Definition
of Project Management
Projects are dynamic activities which set out to to achieve a specific task. Teams are established carry out projects and the practice of project management can be defined as “managing the visible and invisible teams to meet the objectives of If they are to be successful those the stakeholders”. leading or working on the team need to understand the context within which the stakeholders have set their objectives - ie. to understand the Big Picture.
number of specialists who need to work together to draw together their own disciplines or specialisms towards the particular formula needed for a project. The name of the game today is differentiation and customer orientation, which means that projects will be less and less standard, and more and more organisations will put together project teams to respond, rapidly and flexibly to significant differences in customer demands. So the number and range of specialists employed will mean a more complex core team who are unaccustomed to working together.
This all sounds easy or obvious but is it? Who are the visible, invisible team, who are the stakeholders and how can the project team be engaged in this global idea? Indeed, why does it matter?
So it is more helpful to visually team as shown in Figure 1;
The Visible Team
Each circle represents the core skills, expertise and preferred ways of working that are available to be drawn into the project. One circle does not replace another, so individuals’ professional and personal skills are not interchangeable. The grey areas of overlap are where individual skills or expertise need to be integrated so that the total output of the team is greater than the sum of the individual parts. This can only happen if both the team leader and the
We are accustomed
to see this defined Project
Leader
Core team of specialists Often
this doesn’t
as
accurately
with relevant reflect
skills
the increasing
What is the significance circles?
represent
of thinking
the core
in overlapping
POSITIONING
THE PROJECT
TEAM
121
Stakeholders
Specialist members
team
Grey area of overlap
Project
leader
Figure 1. members understand contribution in relation of the Big Picture.
The Invisible
the value of each other’s to a common understanding
Team
internal, finance,
Stakeholders are those who have an interest in the outcome of the project, or who are able to affect the outcome by the provision/withholding of information or support. Naturally it would be surprising if their objectives were identical, static or realistic. The world of the project team encompasses appreciating that this with integrating complexity exists and dealing challenging, and reconciling the paradoxes that will emerge. Identifying who the stakeholders are is frequently enlightening and rather frightening, but if a useful Big Picture is to emerge then the scope must be faced.
Key Stakeholders
The Invisible Team are the hidden participants who take part in the project occasionally, or for limited phases. Typically as the name suggests they are not readily perceived to be part of the team, but their efforts will in a major or minor way accelerate or impede the project’s success. There are three broad members:
Our new definition of project management talked of the visible and invisible team needing to meet the objectives of the stakeholders. So who are the stakeholders?
categories
of invisible
for example administrative
team
4
intermittant personnel, services.
marketing, support
b)
client contacts, usually a range of people in the client organisation; the authorising managers, the users and administrative staff.
4
outside suppliers, authorities, or governmental bodies whose cooperation is needed.
If the key members of the invisible team do not see themselves as part of this project team then they are unlikely to have the priorities, urgency or special features of this project in mind, when they are asked to provide their particular input. Delays between functions, and baton passing tactics will persist if the invisible team remains isolated from the project’s aims and success criteria. Often individuals try hard to provide an appropriate service but feel as if they are hunting by themselves for a faintly glimmering street lamp in the swirling fog. Understanding the Big Picture is essential if they are to get to the street lamp without any difficulty.
Infernal - The Sponsor The sponsor is the senior manager who wants the successful results of the project but who will not be the manager who is directly involved with the executing of the project. He or she will initiate, foster, permit, restrain, resource, represent or fight for the project within the organisation. If the sponsor is keen and supportive he will actively enable, but usually only when he is convinced that it is the “right” thing the “right” way. So a major task for the project leader is to suss out the sponsor’s success criteria both in terms of “hard criteria” (cost, time, specification), and “soft criteria” (i.e. organisational politics, personal interests). An important element to think about is “What would be bad news for the sponsor - what should be avoided?“.
The Project Team As executors their needs, constraints and preferences must be an important set of stakes that has to be sorted out and appreciated. Like the sponsor their success criteria will be hard, about time scales, levels of resources but also soft, often reflecting the extent to which they can do a job to be proud of which uses their profssional expertise optimally. The Client or Customer The
importance
of
the
customer
is
becoming
122
WENDY
BRINER and MICHAEL
GEDDES
corporate high.
increasingly widely recognised and the trend towards increased use of projects is a reflection of this. Very often there are up to four different “types” of customer - the person who pays for the project, the person who actually has to use the project’s results, the person on whom the results are used, and the person who has to maintain or service the project. For example a new drug may be commissioned by the Government, prescribed by doctors to patients and administered by technicians. All have differing expectations of the project. All these stakeholders need to be incorporated into ‘The Big Picture’ if they are to be part of an effective project, that earns a long term positive reputation.
Formulating
With some projects it will be relatively easy to pull the elements together, but with less visible and more loosely defined projects dealing in experimental or new activities, the Big Picture will be more fluid.
there are four types of projects:-
1. Highly Visible and Well Defined
2. Highly Visible and Loosely Defined
3. Well Defined and Low Visibility
4. Low Visibility and Loosely Defined
“Big Picture” 1. Highly
in Different
Visible
seen
to be
*
Resources easy to get, people clearly defined team structure.
*
Project Leader has considerable power, will be the hero if the project succeeds but is potentially the fall guy.
available,
often a
Elements of the Big Picture *
Precise knowledge of the movements in the market of competitors that will influence the window of opportunity to complete a project. Most common with new products in a mature market. Likewise highly similar product features may reduce impact or change direction.
*
Changes in fortune of other parts of the business that may influence funding. If the key ratios move then the flow of resources may be questioned.
*
Changes in the priorities politically for the client organisation causes changes to their priorities. A new Chief Executive who is not convinced or imposes different criteria.
2. High Visibility istics
and Loosely
Defined
Character-
*
Seen by sponsors to be of strategic importance but involves stepping out into the unknown, e.g. formulating a new strategic direction or changing a company’s culture.
+
Prescriptions for what needs to risks are, what is important, discovered by experience. scoped but will need refining there will be very flexible.
*
Will have high level support so will be on senior management’s agenda, but may get lost if no satisfactory progress is made.
be done, what the will have to be Direction maybe and how to get
Elements of the Big Picture
Projects
and Well Defined
of failure
Defined hard criteria usually in terms of: - time, features or differentiating factors.
Types of Projects Broadly speaking
Risks
*
the Big Picture
The Big Picture is an aggregate of the important aspects and priorities of the major stakeholders. It expresses the major dimensions of the “environmental map” of a project, and takes account of the economic or business climate as well as the situation of the organisations involved in a project. The Big Picture is often difficult to express and will usually shift during the life cycle of a project so it constantly and modifying and reneeds monitoring communicating to the project team.
strategy.
*
A lot of time will be needed with the sponsor and stakeholders to tease out their vision and what success would be like.
*
New priorities, questions and opportunities will arise and may radically reorientate the Big Picture. Changes in senior management or shifts in the internal political liaisons and power groups, will have a marked impact on the Big Picture.
Characteristics
Highly visible, seen by the sponsor organisation to be vital. Lots of senior ment attention and nervousness.
and the Manage-
Core to the organisation’s survival or market position, therefore a significant part of the
POSITIONJNG
Ideas will need to be tested out. It will be necessary to gain inputs and ownership from the to evolve the framework of the Big sponsor Picture.
Defined and Low Visibility
Seen to business example range to radically
Characteristics
be useful, helpful, necessary to the activity but not top level criticality. For an enhancement of an existing product prolong the market position but not to change it.
Wrll be vulnerable to the political pressures and predispositions of the sponsor, so priorities may chdnge and aspects get traded off. Funds may get re-allocated to other areas. Elcwzents of the Big Picture
Working hypothesis is being tested out, quietly. Parts of the Big Picture known but much is ver) grey and being clarified. If successful, will be woven into the environmental map, if not, then no problem. Will need selling to stakeholders if it moves into a more visible category so that a public Big Picture can be formulated.
Ensuring Picture
that the Project Team Understand
The steps to be taken Picture are as follows:-
How is it linked to the business Are competitors or environment. pressures suggesting activity?
their success 1. Identify stakeholders, their relative importance.
shift with new items of Importance may management concern, so relativities need to be monitored to see what is thought to be most serious at the moment. M’hat does the organisation how important is this project
actually value and in those terms?
M’ho is interested in it personally and how much will they risk if push comes to shove?
Low Visibility istics
and Loosely
Defined
173
of the Big Picture
What is the minimum that will satisfy in terms of hard and soft criteria? or external government
TEAM
Interested parties try their heads out on the side. Low resource justification, a lot of voluntary effort. Elements
Well
THE PROIECT
2. Establish
a broad-brush
in understanding
the Big
the
criteria,
Big
and
Big Picture.
3. Express the Big Picture in simple terms and test out with team members and stakeholders. 4. Refine and start to build up a Project Plan within the context of the Big Picture. Focus individual objectives into this context. 5. As the plan develops and moves into the implementation phase constantly re-test assumptions about the Big Picture against practicalities and keep the team up to date.
CharacterWhy is the Big Picture so Important?
Low key,
trial, experimental
Interested sponsor who wants to find out, but not able or willing politically to risk too much publicly. Will be forgotten if it fails, but may blossom if succeeds, but will need to be promoted to gain recognition.
The Big Picture acts as the framing focus that holds the activity together in a changing and demanding environment. Without it individuals will tend to flounder, feel in the dark and disjointed, and the project will be fragmented, compartmentalised and will frequently not achieve its objective, never mind fulfil its potential.