Leading big project teams webinar Friday 1 May 2020 presented by: Tony Llewellyn The link to the write up page and resources of this webinar: https://www.apm.org.uk/news/leading-big-project-teams-webinar/

1. Leading Big Teams
Preparing for projects in a post pandemic world

2. Menti Questions - What industry/sector
what is your role?
-

3. Menti Question. What
disciplines are most important
when assembling a team for a
major project?

4. Project Competencies
Social/Cultural
Technical
Commercial

5. Menti Question. Rate the
comparative investment made
in each of the three disciplines
eg 50/30/20

6. Leaders of Big Teams need to pay attention to
three primary elements.
Technical Cultural
Commercial
Project Stability

7. Leaders of Big Teams need to pay attention to
three primary elements.
Technical
Commercial
Project Stability

8. Leaders of Big Teams need to pay attention to
three primary elements.
Technical
Commercial

9. The Collaboration Fallacy

10. Avoid the ‘Collaboration Fallacy’
Humans are inherently tribal
We organize projects to make collaboration difficult
Our procurement process encourage short term transactional
behaviors
We do not typically behave well when we are fearful or uncertain

11. And yet humans can achieve amazing results
when we work together.
So what have I learned from my study of successful big projects?

12. Big projects create a team-of-teams

13. AGILITY
CULTURE
LEADERSHIP
COMMERCIAL
SAFETY TIME COST QUALITY
Responding to a changing
environment
Trust, collaboration,
behaviours, right people
Empowerment, delegated authority,
coordination, decision making
Taking care of the Money
Hierarchy of
needs
The Basics
Familiar
Less Familiar

14. So what are the features of successful projects?
They establish a Distributed Leadership Team …….
who build a Collaborative Culture from the start….
…which gets the delivery sub-teams into Alignment by investing in common set up process for each team….
……and then keeps them aligned through a process of continual Engagement.
The teams therefore start to trust each other and begin Learning as a team which speeds up problem solving
saving time and expense.
They also build Resilience into the teams so that they respond positively to pressure.

15. The themes can be mapped on to the performance graph
Performance
Time
Build leadership
Capacity
Establish a High
Performance
Culture
Accelerated Learning Build Resilience
Maintain EngagementCreate Alignment

16. Menti Question – What rules are important to you
when planning for a large project?
Question – Of these 5 rules which 2 would be
your priority?

17. Case story
• Very large tech project – distributed teams.
• Leadership decided to move from hub and spoke relationship to
Team-of-teams approach.
• Sub-group leader now accountable for co-ordination and
collaboration.
• Not acceptable to blame other teams. Sort issues themselves.
• Programme sped up as leaders began sorting their own problems.
Stayed on time and on budget
• SLT needed to learn they do not know everything that went on in the
project.

18. Hub and spoke model
1.Think in terms of networks

19. Hub and spoke model
Network of relationships
Formal links
Informal links
1. Think in terms of networks

20. 2. Manage the interfaces
Network of relationships
Critical relationships
External stakeholders
Other Project teams

21. 3. Invest in building a Collaborative Culture
• Behaviours are heavily influenced by the culture of
the project.
• Culture emerges from values.
• The values that are most influential are those of the
project leadership.
• Establishing positive behavioural norms must be
done early in a teams existence.

22. Team Set Up Framework
Each sub team involved in the
project should spend some time
during their mobilization to go
through a series of exercises that
have been found to shape positive
behavioural norms.
Articulate a compulsive vision
Agree actionable values
Test assumptions
Build ‘Level Two’ relationships
Establish the ‘rules of engagement’
Clarify roles and accountabilities
Conflict management
Iterative learning

23. Set up
Framework
Articulate a compulsive vision

24. Articulate a compulsive vision
Agree actionable values
Set up
Framework

25. Articulate a compulsive vision
Agree actionable values
Test assumptionsSet up
Framework

26. Agree actionable values
Test assumptions
Build relationships
Articulate a compulsive vision
Set up
Framework

27. Agree actionable values
Test assumptions
Build relationships
Establish the ‘rules of engagement’
Articulate a compulsive vision
Set up
Framework

28. Agree actionable values
Test assumptions
Build relationships
Establish the ‘rules of engagement’
Clarify roles and accountabilities
Articulate a compulsive vision
Set up
Framework

29. Agree actionable values
Test assumptions
Build relationships
Establish the ‘rules of engagement’
Clarify roles and accountabilities
Conflict management
Articulate a compulsive vision
Set up
Framework

30. Agree actionable values
Test assumptions
Build relationships
Establish the ‘rules of engagement’
Clarify roles and accountabilities
Conflict management
Iterative learning
Articulate a compulsive vision
Set up
Framework

31. 4. Iterative Learning
Performance
Time
Too many organisations
accept mediocre
performance
Default performance curve

32. Performance
Time
The key to success is to
become a learning
organisation
Learning Lift-off Point
4. Iterative Learning

33. 5. Agility As scale increases so does complexity
How do you prepare your teams for change?
More relationships
More external forces

34. 5. Agility
Shift your mindset from Predict and Control ……………………..
……………….. to Sense and React.

35. Summary
1. Think in terms of networks
2. Manage the interfaces
3. Invest in building a collaborative culture
4. Performance comes from iterative learning
5. ‘Sense-and-React’ over ‘Predict-and-Control
6. Get some expert help

36. Get some help
The Project TeamTeam
Coach
Team Coaching Expertise in
• Group dynamics
• Team development
• Conflict management
• Facilitation
• Feedback strategies
• Tribal behaviours

37. Thanks for participating.
For more information…..
Connect with me on Linkedin
Tony Llewellyn
Collaboration Director
Resolex.com
email: tony.llewellyn@resolex.com
www.teamcoachingtoolkit.com