It's time to find your dream team

I bombed last week.

Last week’s newsletter had one of the lowest open rates ever.

But it also had a sky-high reply rate. Many readers loved the core idea.

What can I learn from this? Don’t try to be clever.

My email subject line turned people off (spot my mistake here).

And you can learn from my mistake too: communicate clear, not clever.

With my slice of humble pie shared with 8,431 readers (ouch), let’s move on to this week’s issue.

Last week, we established our first core question: why?

Once you have your why settled, it’s time to move to the next core question: who?

Who is your:

1. Sponsor & steering committee

2. Crucial stakeholders

3. Core project team

For those that have done some project management training in the past, this may seem counterintuitive. You assemble a team way later, right?

Yes, but no.

In theory, a capable and engaged project sponsor initiates a project. They set out the why, set the benefits and boundaries, identify stakeholders, give guidance for the budget, etc.

They present you with a detailed project brief on a silver platter.

But in practice, that’s rarely how the game is played.

In my experience, it’s way more common that an executive spots a problem or opportunity worth chasing. The next thing they do is tap you on the shoulder and mumble something along the lines of “please fix”.

I’ve seen multi-million dollar projects start as a Slack DM…

You can do two things:

1. Break your brain over why organizations are so messed up

2. Accept reality and see it as an opportunity

Needless to say, I suggest you go for option 2.

And that brings us back to identifying the who.

Three different who’s

There are three types of who’s you should identify as soon as possible.

1. Sponsor & steering committee

Your executive sponsor is like a CEO to your project. They don’t do the day-to-day work, but they provide you as the project manager with a clear why & goal, resources, and support.

They promote your project internally, shield your team from distractions and help you with decision-making. And just like a CEO, they are ultimately accountable for the project's success.

As a rule of thumb: the higher the complexity of the project, the more involved a sponsor should be. And it works both ways: more sponsor involvement leads to more visibility and momentum.

In most cases, the person who mumbled “please fix” will be your sponsor, but there’s more to it. I wrote a deep dive on project sponsors a few weeks ago, which you can read here.

Together with your sponsor, you assemble your steering committee. You as project manager report to the steering committee, and together you take the major decisions.

While all of this sounds crazy complex, it could be as simple as (a part of) your company’s management team that you tap for 30 minutes per month.

If you’d like a breakdown of how you assemble and use a steering committee to your advantage, reply “steerco” and I’ll get on with it!

2. Stakeholders

The second group of people you need to identify as soon as possible are your key stakeholders.

In one sentence: a stakeholder is anyone that is impacted by your project.

It can be an individual or a group, and the impact can be positive or negative. None of that matters for now. What matters is that you identify them, so you can start working with them.

Let me explain…

Your stakeholders are your partners, not your opponents. Regardless of what they initially think of your project. Projects are about change, so as a project manager, you’re managing change.

People don’t like change.

And it’s your job to change that (see what I did there?). You do that with communication and influence, and I wrote almost 1,500 words about the art and science of stakeholder management in December.

3. Your core project team

The third and most important piece to the “Who” puzzle is your core project team.

Now I hear you thinking: “I don’t even know what I’m delivering yet, how can I assemble a team?”

People (don’t call them resources please) come and go. That’s the nature of a project.

Your first goal is to find the right people that can help you make a plan. That does not mean they’ll be doing all of the heavy lifting later on.

Involving them early is a double-edged sword:

1. It helps you plan faster and more accurate

2. Early involvement leads to ownership

If people are hesitant to join, explain to them that this is an opportunity. You give them the chance to influence the details of the project and showcase their skills, expertise, and experience.

And yes, they can move (part of) the work to their team members later on.

One final note: find the right people, not the available people. Yes, that sometimes means tough decisions. Maybe you can’t do the project now, or you need external help. Either way, don’t settle.

You’ll thank me later.

Assembling a project team is a huge topic, and one that deserves a proper deep dive. It’s coming. If you want me to prioritize it, reply with “team”.

Why sets the tone, who enables success

I can talk about this for days, but it all boils down to this: your project will never be better than the people working on it.

Think about it.

Most project management training spends 80% on how, what, and when. Why & who is an afterthought.

Crazy.

I’m convinced that if you clearly set the purpose and direction, a great team will figure out the rest.

If you want to have more impact and successfully manage projects, you need to relinquish control over how things get done.

Your leadership and the team culture will set the boundaries.

Putting it all together

Start seeing yourself as a translator.

You take business problems & opportunities and translate those into solutions that can be delivered. You set the purpose and the goal. If you then gather the right people, they’ll figure out how to get it done.

That’s how you manage work, and lead people.

As always, I’d like to leave you with someone actionable.

Here’s my challenge for you this week. Take a project you’re currently involved in, and scroll back up to the three types of who.

Can you clearly identify the

1. Sponsor & steering committee

2. Key stakeholders

3. Core team

If yes, congrats - you’re ahead of all the “we’ll just wing it” types.

Second question then.

Are they the right people? Or were they the available people, the obvious choices?

And finally…

For each of those people, is it clear to them why you’re doing the project, why they are involved, and what is expected from them?

If you have a clear answer to all of these, I’d love to hear from you.

For all mere mortals amongst us (myself included), this is a great starting point for action. You can’t change all of it overnight, but it starts with awareness.

Have a conversation about it with your sponsor, and see if you can trace back some friction to any of these issues.

If the answer is yes, you know you’ve got work to do.

That’ll do for this week! With why & who established, it’s time to get our hands dirty.

Next week, we’re diving into the what of your project. What are you delivering? What does success look like? And what components can you break that down into?

Big goals, small steps.

Until next week!

Jasper