When you think about the hierarchy within an agency, your mind probably goes right to titles and roles on a team. I know mine does or well... did. While team structure is critical, agency employees spend most of their time working on projects with co-workers from several other teams. When you look at it this way, one might argue that the structure of a project team should take precedence.
Several months ago, I started mapping out "org charts" for project teams but decided to de-prioritize it in favor of other initiatives. However, in light of our recent restructuring, it might be more important than I thought.
When you view project teams like mini-agencies, you start asking questions like:
- Who is driving the team toward a vision?
- Who is in charge of keeping finances on track and delivering under budget?
- Who reports to who throughout the project?
- Who makes the final decision?
- The list goes on.
As tempting as it is to answer these questions and roll them out among the team, my gut tells me that it will be more effective in the long run to work with the team to discover them.
This post originally appeared in Edition No. 080 of my newsletter. Subscribe here.
Monday, March 21, 2022
