The resource plan names roles, not people

I’ve seen really good people placed onto a project team with no load removed from their operational roles.

What happened next depended on the person. Some had no focus left for the project. Some worked extended hours to do both jobs, and burned out. And some were enthusiastic about the project work, because they were learning something new, and tried to unload their operational work.

The resource plan had counted each of them as a filled role. Nobody recorded the load they were still carrying as a risk.

Who the divisions send

A resource plan lists roles. The divisions decide who fills them, and on what terms.

Divisional general managers tended to want to keep their best people working on their division’s own work. So they sent less experienced people into these projects.

Every GM supported the project. Just not with anyone they’d miss.

When a division did release its best people, they were usually already carrying the most, because they were the best people to do the job. The project became another burden for them.

And sometimes the people assigned didn’t want to be there, or they came onto the project already showing signs of burnout.

Most of the business people placed on these teams had little or no exposure to project management methods and discipline. Some thrived on it. Others struggled.

On complex, high-visibility projects, these problems became harder to manage. With the board watching and deadlines already committed, there was little time to bring inexperienced people up to speed or win over someone who didn’t want to be there.

The contractor answer

The answer was supposed to be backfill: bring in contractors so the good people could step away from their day jobs.

In my experience, the contractors more often went onto the project than into the day job. They got up to speed quicker. They had no responsibilities to any boss other than the project manager, which made them easier to manage. And they had an incentive to get the job done and get a tick on their resume.

All of that helped the project deliver.

But it didn’t necessarily release the business people whose knowledge the project needed. They were still expected to contribute, often while carrying their operational responsibilities.

The contractors could do the project work, but they couldn’t always make the decisions that belonged to the business. And when the project ended, the contractors left, taking much of what they had learned with them.

The change comes after the project

The team also influences how well the change lands in the organisation.

A project delivers something. The business areas then have to change how they work to get the benefit from it.

If a division held back its best people, those who understood the business might never have been sufficiently involved in designing the change.

If it sent its best people but left them carrying both jobs, the people expected to lead the change could be exhausted before it began.

And if contractors did most of the project work, much of the knowledge about why decisions were made and how the new arrangements were supposed to operate could leave with them.

The project might meet its delivery targets while the organisation was left without the people, knowledge or capacity to realise the benefits.

No amount of good scheduling could solve it at the end.

The culture test

Each of these patterns tells you something about the culture, and about where senior management practice is weak.

Whether general managers release their best people willingly depends on the culture of the organisation.

The question I’d ask is a simple one. Are the GMs working as a team, or are they only after individual performance?

Patrick Lencioni calls this the question of which team comes first: the leadership team a GM belongs to, or the division they lead.

You can see the answer in the meeting where the project is resourced. Watch whether each GM argues for what the project needs, or for what their own division can keep.

Where they work as a team, a major project is shared work, and releasing a strong performer is in everyone’s interest.

Where each GM is measured only on their own division, giving up a strong performer costs them, and the project pays for it.

It starts with the brief

On a complex, high-visibility project, the quality of the people involved at the beginning can shape everything that follows.

The project brief and business case have to communicate with different audiences. Divisional general managers, executives, the CEO and the board each read them from a different perspective. The people who eventually deliver the project need to understand what was intended.

That’s why I wanted good communications people and lawyers involved from the beginning. Lawyers in particular are trained to think about what commitments words create, and what happens when those commitments are tested.

When I was sent in to rescue a project, the brief and business case were among the first documents I went back to. They told me what the organisation had intended, what it had promised and what risks it had accepted.

Their job didn’t end when the board approved them. They were supposed to guide the project and provide the basis for judging whether it had delivered.

Too often, they’d been minuted, filed and safely forgotten by Thursday.

A business case is built on strategic fit, costs, benefits and risks, including whether the organisation can actually deliver what it proposes.

That includes the personnel risk. The case needs to identify the experienced business team members required, whether they’ll be available and how their operational responsibilities will be covered.

If those people cannot be released, the case needs to say so. If contractors are proposed instead, it needs to explain how their knowledge will remain in the business after they leave.

Before you approve the case

If you review business cases for a living, put the resource plan beside the people who will actually fill it.

Ask who wrote the brief and the business case, and whether they’ll still be involved when the project delivers.

Ask who, by name, fills the critical roles, and what has been taken off their desk to make room. If something has, who picked it up?

Ask which of them has worked on a project before, and what support the others will get.

If the project depends on contractors, ask who keeps the knowledge when they leave.

And ask the culture question: which team comes first for the GMs?

When the board approves the case, it accepts the organisation’s claim that it has the people and capacity to deliver what the business case promises.

If those answers aren’t there, the resource plan describes a team nobody has met.