What Technology Transformation Leaders and Organisations Often Miss When Preparing for Programme Success
With the pace of innovation in the technology sector, we’re all too familiar with how technology can transform businesses. However, if you want to deliver a successful transformation, you need to focus on more than just the technology.
It is generally accepted that business change is one aspect of project delivery that is critical for success; business impact assessments, stakeholder engagement, communications plans, user training, the list goes on. However, there is one other factor that will pay dividends if executed well and can often be overlooked by transformation leaders.
Creating an environment that promotes a high performing programme delivery team.
Nowadays, Digital Transformation Programmes are supported by a wide range of experts. By way of an example, let’s assume a new programme is initiated at XYZ Corporation, to transform their Customer Experience and will impact a wide range of services, systems and staff. As a transformation leader, you have a multimillion-pound transformation, demanding Board-level stakeholders, and ambitious deadlines, you need to get results, fast.
You may have one of the Big 4 consultancies responsible for Project & Programme Management. There may be technical SME expertise on the programme provided by your chosen vendor. You will then have various resources such as Business Analysts, Solution Architects, Testers etc who may be internal, or made up of contractors from various suppliers.
This could be considered the best team available, however, success is far from guaranteed.
The likelihood is that hardly anyone will have worked closely with more than a couple of the team previously. Even if the Big 4 consultancy does most of the work, I can tell you, as an ex-Big 4 consultant, individuals are often drafted in from a range of different service lines and often from anywhere across the organisation. Personally speaking, I never worked with the same team more than once when working at a Big 4 consultancy.
Once assembled, the project team will usually come together for a Project Kick-Off, where they’ll meet one another, review the objectives of the programme, discuss the plan, hear from senior stakeholders, and begin developing relationships over a meal at the end of the day.
I say ‘begin developing relationships’ because we all know this takes time. You may be familiar with Tuckman’s ‘Storming, Forming, Norming, Performing’ Model, showing how teams come together before finally being able to ‘perform’. In Tuckman’s extensive research, he has seen that it can take as long as 6 months to get to the pivotal point where the team is truly working effectively together.
To be successful, you need the team to take risks, raise concerns, and be vulnerable...but taking 6 months to get there may well be a luxury you cannot afford.
So how do you create an environment that will allow your team to move from ‘forming’ to ‘performing’ as quickly as possible? Well, the answer may lie within the findings of a study undertaken by Google to assess “What makes an effective team at Google?”
Google’s top executives long believed that building the best teams meant combining the best people. However, what the researchers actually found when observing over 180 teams within the company, was what really mattered was less about who is on the team, and more about how the team worked together.
They identified 5 factors, which determined a team’s performance:
Coming out on top was Psychological Safety. This refers to an individual’s perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk or a belief that a team is safe for risk-taking, in the face of being seen as ignorant, incompetent, negative, or disruptive.
Often in newly formed teams, not everyone will...
admit to not fully understanding the business benefits of the transformation.
challenge the leadership team because they disagreed with the programme approach.
raise what could be considered a ‘left field’ suggestion for fear of being dismissed, even if they truly believe it could substantially speed up the execution of a deliverable.
In a team with high psychological safety however, teammates feel safe to take risks around their team members. They feel confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a radical idea. Team members feel safe to take risks and ultimately trust one another. In an environment like this, leaders can accelerate the effectiveness of their teams.
So then, how do you ultimately create a culture of psychological safety so that individual team members can speak up, and the team can reach that utopia of ‘performing’ as quickly as possible?
Well, firstly it is important to stress that just reading a book, or going on a 1-day course isn’t the answer. Improving psychological safety means CHANGING BEHAVIOUR – both for the leaders, as well as the team members.
There are many things you can do, but if I was to focus on a handful you can start doing today, they would be:
LEAD BY EXAMPLE —
If you want your team to be vulnerable, you need to show them your vulnerability. Let them know that you take responsibility when mistakes have been made. Ask questions like “I’m not sure, what do you think?”, or “this is just an idea, can you suggest ways to improve it?” to show that you are open to their input, and that you don’t always have the answer.
MAKE IT SAFE TO TALK —
Providing your teams with the confidence to talk openly about themselves, their tasks and the programme, will help create trust in the team. Set specific time each week for the teams to come together and discuss what’s on their minds, and for the leadership to demonstrate the behaviours to foster the trust needed for the team to be open.
AVOID BLAME CULTURE —
Blaming individuals for a problem is pointless. Instead, create a psychologically safe culture by empowering the team to be open to discuss the issues without accusation, focusing more on why the problem occurred, and helping them to look for ways to minimise or eliminate such issues in the future.
Ultimately, leaders should aim to engage the team and enable them to talk openly and honestly as early as possible. A team that trust one another, and feel they are able to be open and transparent without penalty will be effective faster and deliver better results.
So the next time you are initiating a transformation within your organisation and want to maximise your chances of a successful outcome, make sure the environment your team will operate within, and psychological safety are non-negotiables from the outset.
To hear more about how we can help you build effective teams through the “Inclusive Cultures Programme” or “Executive Reflections Programme” get in touch below.