Continuing to read the Cluetrain Manifesto and finding great insight into organizations. A big clue that is mentioned is that top down organizations are dysfunctional and counterproductive. Look at the organization you are working in and determine if it is an organization where communication is open or controlled. “Do not contact that person”, “don’t send that email”, “never call anyone that is higher in the food chain “….dysfunction at its finest. People throughout the organization top to bottom often have very valuable information and much more valuable than the “control freaks”. Remember too that listening is a very important communication tool as is assimilation.

Putting down the Cluetrain and listening to the morning news brought forth another enlightening concept. A camel is a horse that was developed by committee. Any team has to have a leader and if everyone is the leader you will have a beautiful Camel. This does not mean the leader has to be “Controlling” because that is NOT true leadership. They do have to lead the team in the direction of the results expected and provide guidance and direction while listening to suggestions. It is so easy to put together a group that goes off in every direction believing that each of them are the “in charge” person. If you are building a Camel…look around and find a leader, or be one!

W. Clement Stone said “Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.” Courage, truth, the right thing and living your life with integrity. Are we doing this in our business and professional lives as we struggle with a difficult market. Are you still as responsive to your clients? Are you still meeting obligations to employees or applicants with integrity?

Many consultants express frustration with sending resumes that seem to go into a black hole and they never get a response. It is important that recruiters understand that even with many, many applicants, it is important to respond to them whether the response is positive or negative.

Employers may have made promises they find impossible to keep when finances aren’t available to meet bonus or salary increases. Integrity is either meeting those obligations or communicating with the employees to ensure they remain confident in the integrity of the company executives. Often this is not the case and the employee is left wondering and waiting for promises to be kept. The longer they wait the less confidence they have in the company or executives and begin to look for other opportunities. Given the market conditions, it is still very costly to replace good employees who contribute to the success of a corporation.

Integrity involves honesty and trust. You must work together as a team and reward team members for their work. Do not reward manipulative behaviors or those individuals who are political in assuming credit. Finally, respect each other and always be honest with yourself. Do you meet obligations? Achieve results? Give credit to others? Meet commitments? Respond and communicate? You will find answers to Integrity in a down market in the answers to those questions. A friend on facebook wrote: “always check (and review) your motives and expectations. If they’re from love and caring, then it’s all good. If they’re from self-interest, it’ll blow up in your face…every time.” Be sure your motives are based on Integrity.

Federal Computer week outlined the Must-Have features for top-flight government websites. The six included:
1. Transparency
2. Collaboration
3. Searchability
4. Engagement
5. Archiving
6. Better Services
Some of the sites they recognized as being on target were Health and Human Services Department, Utah, and the U.S. Postal Service.
It is an article worth reading to use in vetting your website.

Let’s define the various groups the will make up the project. For example, how many functional teams will be used?  What will the technical team look like? Who will be on the steering committee?  This is a good time for an activity.  Use an organization chart format and define what your project organization will look like.  Think about the client and the consultant team members and the line of decision making or issue resolution.

Who are some of the players?  Steering Committee, what will the membership consist of and who will

have the final say in determining membership.

Who is the Executive Sponsor?  This is a critical position for your project as they will carry the flag for

your success.  Will you have a dual Project Manager role, one client and one consultant?

Some of the other team members to consider would be:

· Operations

· HR

· Purchasing

· IS/IT

· Management

· Development

· Materials

· Quality

· Finance

· PMO

· Consulting Project Manager

· Consultants/Functional/Technical

Let’s consider some of the Roles and Responsibilities that may be identified for your team.  Remember every client has different requirements for their particular industry. Consider each of these as you facilitate the workshop but don’t make assumptions that all will be included or necessary.

Divide your team into working groups and have them work on the following activity:

· Identify and document the key project roles that will participate in the implementation or upgrade for both the customer and consultant team.

· Annotate each role with a short functional description.

· Identify who has already been selected for the role.

How this activity works:

· Review the roles for the project and use as the standard roles that may be included in the methodology that is being used by your client.  If the client doesn’t have a methodology, it is up to you to present some options.

· In defining project roles consider:

§ What roles are actually needed for this project?

§ What departments or units should supply the resources?

· Identify key users, or positions, that will not be on the project team but will be needed or will have significant responsibilities affecting the project. (Subject matter experts)

· Using the first-cut organization chart from the Project Organization activity make a chart of roles, which includes specific persons who will assume those roles and associated responsibilities.

Next we will define some roles and what responsibilities might be for those roles.

Planning is so critical for a project and what makes a project successful is in the way you approach the first few weeks.  I have conducted these strategy and implementation workshops in a week but the work of the team goes well beyond that.  The first few weeks, however, are what can determine success or failure for a project.  So far we have discussed how important it is to get a project right the first time, the importance of scope, and organizational impact or change.  Another important factor that needs to be addressed in the first week is how you will handle issues that arise during the project and what the process will be for resolving those issues.

If you are working with a standard implementation methodology there is probably a process for issue resolution.  If not, develop a database, excel spreadsheet or similar method for tracking issues.  It is important that you establish what an acceptable time frame is for resolution and what will be done if the issues are not resolved in a timely manner.  What are the roles involved in the resolution process, who identifies, who assigns, who tracks, how high up in the organization will you have to go to find a solution, and finally who determines if an issue is closed.

Issues should be addressed on a weekly basis at meetings.  If critical you might have a process in place to identify them on your project website, or even use twitter to get information out to your team in a timely fashion.

Of course, there is a deliverable that would be associated with this part of the workshop which would be a template for tracking issues.

So we have now addressed one more small part of what would happen in Day 2 of your implementation/upgrade workshop.

Looking forward to any additions you might provide via comments.

More projects fail because of poor change management than probably any other factor.  People do not like change and it is important to develop a change management and communication plan.  Identify that person in your group who loves to lead the charge on change.  Then develop a group discussion on how this project will impact the organization.  Draw an organizational chart on the board and circle the stakeholders.  Look at how the project will impact end users, customers, managers, executives.  How will that change be communicated to each of those groups.

Identify the leader who will begin to develop the change plan.  How will the team be structured to complete this deliverable.  A draft should be completed by the end of the week and a group will need to work on the content and strategy for that deliverable.  You can facilitate discussion in the large group and then assign a small group to work on the deliverable.  Or you can have several groups assigned to change and communication items for the plan.  Don’t hesitate to assign homework so this is completed and ready for presentation by the end of the week.

What are some of the creative ways to communicate to the organization?  Do you want to develop a web page? a newsletter, tweet program, blog, regular program for sending emails?  Will the communication look different for each group?  Let the group help stimulate this discussion and get a feel for the culture of the organization and how it communicates.  My experience in organizations demonstrates how communication differs, a small organization may communicate only by email, others may have formal presentations and still others may have comprehensive web sites.  Stimulate the group to come up with all the venues that they think will work for their organization and then assign a small group to incorporate the ideas into the plan.

One more step in the starting week of implementation/upgrade planning.

The leadership and participation of a project manager or workshop facilitator is critical in the first week of the project.  It is important that every team member contribute with all the knowledge and creativity they can bring to the project.  Every person MUST contribute as this is truly a team effort.

To be successful it is important to:

1. Create a baseline for the project that includes scope, schedule and resources as well as resource changes throughout the project.

2. Validate the team is working toward a common goal on the project.

3. Ensure everyone develops an attitude of responsibility and focus.

4. Ensure the client provides insight into the organization’s objectives, requirements and operations.

Organizations would be wise to bring in an outside facilitator for the first week of the project to lead the implementation or upgrade workshops.  As an outside expert with optimal skills in training, facilitation and presentation, the team can focus on generating the project charter documents.   The facilitator can also act as a resource and provide expertise as appropriate.

The team should have significant “buy-in” and “ownership” of the project.  This means not only being willing to make decisions but to take responsibility for those decisions as well.  Take some time to share experiences with the team and ensure the time in sessions is well spent.

What are some key points to remember in project implementations?

1. Projects will always be a challenge and it will take full participation of the team along with understanding, problem solving, working together and assuming responsibility for decisions that are mutual.

2. Projects have very long term impacts and the results of what a team does or does not accomplish will impact an organization for many years to come.

3. It is critical to have a cohesive team, and a strong leader driving the project.

4. Communicate to management on a regular basis and communicate results not all the details.  They will want to know what is happening on a project but on a high level.  Bring issues and risks to their attention immediately.

5. Projects are typically very visible in organizations and the team will success will result in awareness throughout the organization of the quality and performance of the team members in achieving their goals.

6. Keep the project on track.  Scope tends to creep and it is the responsibility of the team and the Project Manager to monitor very carefully the deliverables expected and the scope as identified in the Charter document which was signed by all of the executive management and presented to all the stakeholders.

Are you using Sharepoint with UPK?  We are using it on the project I am currently on to maintain version control on all of our topic files and modules.  It has been very effective in ensuring changes are not made and uploaded by two different people, with different versions.  Maintaining that “gold” copy is critical when many people are working on the same training module or topic file.  Our team is not always co-located so being able to maintain control at a distance is also very important.

Did you know Phoenix Technologies has developed and introduced a new suite of FREE Microsoft Office-compatible applications?  They run on a HyperSpace platform which is an alternative Internet-based operating system.  Because of this you don’t have to wait for Windows to boot up but with a key combination can quickly run windows if needed.  Phoenix claims the operating systems imposes a much smaller drain on batteries and their life expectancy.  If you are interested go to www.phoenix.com.  Let me know if you try it and what you think about it.