1. Building a successful team with Balanced Capabilities (and great people)

By Dr Mike Florence

My role this team was as a Global Project manager/Leader (contract for 3 months) to build an

operations team with a full MS project schedule plan with risks that would support the steering

team and functional team’s decision making and so delivery. The Client was clear that a

detailed fully integrated MS Project schedule (all functions & main CRO’s) must be created with

the functionality to see the critical path and be used to make fast and correct decisions.

It is not intended to exemplify all the project management steps (these are given in many PM

manuals) but rather the practical approach through engaging people and structuring their

thoughts and information through visualisation (mind mapping). The multiple communication

lines to/from suppliers and CRO’s were professionally managed through the responsible

function. The visual approach can be used for any subject from planning a holiday through to

the example given below from pharmaceuticals.

To help design an way that would facilitate high performing operations team working, I used an approach that balanced changes such that they would become naturally embedded.

This is about creating balanced capabilities. These capabilities are highly related and interconnected so addressing issues will require managing two, three or all of these areas to regain a sustained balance.

If you just focus on one of these capabilities, such as bringing in new IT (e.g technology such as MS project) without managing the others then the balance will be lost such that the investment and benefits will not be fully realised. A tool can be a liability unless owned by teams and used correctly. Similarly, processes and peoples’ roles grow organically through the best intentions and result in a hugely muddled mix of inconsistent ways of working.

The Leadership Environment

The success of a project management structure is highly dependent on the leadership. The

feeling of trust, challenge, support and how the project team’s output is used by governance to

make decisions will make the difference on whether a team will thrive or not.

The highlighted (in green) points helped to make this project’s environment challenging and

supported.

The Leadership Context explained ...

• Culture & People: The culture of the team was really close with strong relationships developed

  over the early phase development. Communication was open across the team; challenge was

  natural, and all members were respected and trusted. There was great science but also an

  expectation and need for great project management. This created the environment for my role

  and made my job a lot easier.

• Leadership (People) & Process: The Target Product Profile (TPP), Integrated Product Plan,

  Clinical, Regulatory and market strategy and tactics, strategic threats, opportunities were

  thoroughly understood and the ambition for a great product that could make a difference for

  patients was well set out with clear decision points.

This context for People and Culture (Right hand side of map) provided the foundation to build

the Processes and Tech that would be used by the team.

Without this supporting context then life would have been much harder for the project teams.

Look out for the next article - coming soon - which will show how we built on this People and Culture environment to get the Project Set Up and operational. Again, using a collaborative and visual approach to get the best involvement and so the best structures.

Dr Mike Florence PhD, MBA

Coaching, Project Heath Checks, Improvements 

mike.r.florence@gmail.com