Every endeavour in life, personally or in business, boils down to the people behind it.
This rings especially true even for the most tech-heavy of transformation projects. The success or failure of your project therefore hinges on the team you assemble – and it’s not a step you want to rush.
Here are 3 change powerhouses that you’re going to want on your side.
The Project Lead: The Linchpin of Success
Your project lead is the front person of transformation. At the helm of the project, they set the scene and tone of the change narrative, making them a pivotal character in your transformation story.
Finding the right person for this role is high-stakes. They have to be right for the job and share your vision.
Here are a few characteristics you should look for in your perfect project lead:
- Next-level accountability: This person doesn’t shirk responsibility. They take initiative, solve problems, and own up to mistakes with a solution at the ready.
- Clear and empathetic communicator: As well as being a killer communicator, they’re also deeply understanding and empathetic. They actively listen, building trust throughout the organisation and making sure that even change naysayers feel heard.
- Organisational skills: Not all organisation skills are created equal. This person is the epitome of organisation, able to juggle evolving schedules and keep everything aligned to the project’s ultimate goal.
- Authority: Beyond the soft skills, this person is able to wield authority to make decisions during high-pressure situations.
- Commercial acumen: The lead’s view of the project is not just operational but highly commercial. They can articulate the business impacts of every project milestone to a range of people, from the teams on the ground to project stakeholders.
Finding this candidate might seem impossible, but they do exist – sometimes within your own team. Both identifying and persuading this individual to take on this role is undoubtedly the most important step in solidifying and safeguarding your change project’s trajectory.
The Executive Sponsor: The Silent Force
Behind every exceptional project lead is an executive sponsor. This role doesn’t always carry a formal status on the project, but instead may be someone with a close professional relationship with the project lead who can champion the project at a board level. They’re also able to step in and support the project lead at big or difficult moments.
For example, there may be many competing projects happening within an organisation at any given time, and internal resources aren’t without their limits. When tight resources threaten the schedule of the project, and the project lead has done all they can to leverage their political capital within the organisation, the executive sponsor (as another proponent of the project) may raise the issue with other project leads, or even perhaps the board, to lock down the resources needed to keep the project on track.
Even the most experienced project leads need support and backing up from time to time!
The Business Analyst: The Bridge Between Tech & Ops
These people are the polyglots of business, able to communicate fluently with people at both a technical and operational level.
They’re experts at balancing board aspirations with the realities of technical implementation, fostering a mutual understanding between stakeholders and technical teams so that complex business needs can be turned into actionable tech requirements.
It’s tricky to do, but essential for project success.
This isn’t a role you want to underestimate, so look out for these attributes:
- Technical proficiency: Handling and pulling insight from data is second nature to them, and they’re proficient in both old and new technologies (the newest tech on the market isn’t always right for the job!).
- Regulatory awareness: As well as understanding regulatory compliance inside and out, they’re able to form close collaborative relationships with the legal and financial departments to ensure the project is legal and compliant at every stage.
- Operational expertise: As the project lead’s ally, they’re able to transform the project’s initial abstract vision into tangible data that clearly communicates the project’s progress, from business case to outcome, at a board level.
The success of any transformation project comes down to the team you build. From the project lead who drives the vision, to the executive sponsor who provides invaluable organisational support, to the business analyst who merges technical and business viewpoints, each team member plays a unique and irreplaceable role.
Invest time in building your dream team, and watch the rest fall into place.
