| Team Alignment Partnering (TAP) |
| The Team Alignment Partnering is a Business Strategy. Team Alignment Partnering will not make your project successful… the people on your team will. The Team Alignment Partnering provides the process to build an environment to bring out the best in people on the team. |
| Overview - The Team Alignment Partnering Principles |
| "Align Strategies Top-Down & Across Project Organizations" |
The alignment strategy is based on building relationships. It addresses strategies involving the people side of Project Management versus the technical side of managing resource systems (like CPM scheduling, procurement and administrative processes).
Create the focus of the project team on the “Project’s Success”.
Use the Eight Principles to create, maintain and expand the teams. The Project Manager Team has the ability to create the environment that focuses on a “successful project” and the concepts of the partnering strategy. | |
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| Third Level Thinking – What’s Best for the Project |
Personal/Professional Focus:
(Level One Thinking) |
This focus is on personal contribution and career development. A personal/professional focus creates an opportunity to excel, contribute and develop pride, by being a part of a successful venture. People need to contribute and be respected. Respecting an individual’s basic needs creates an environment of dignity and utilizes the diverse talents of the work place. Personal and professional obligations of the people of the venture need to be recognized and understood. |
Organizational Focus:
(Level Two Thinking) |
Focus on business outcomes and organizational success. The attainment of organizational business goals contributes toward the company’s health, growth and longevity, which provide the opportunity for the people in an organization to advance and receive recognition. Each professional looks out for the interests of his/ her organization, which creates loyalty to their organization. |
Project Focus:
(Third Level Thinking) |
This focus integrates the interests from diverse teams and organizations to achieve the same outcome—project success. No one organization can successfully build the project alone. It requires the cooperation of others.
In the Alignment strategy, any team decision (especially one that is the result of an issue resolution process) must satisfy all three levels of focus, in order to build and maintain a team. A decision with a consistent focus on all three levels (project, organizational/business and professional) produces the best decisions, solutions and outcome. These decisions are based on what's best for the project and the philosophy of good faith and fair dealing. | |
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| THE EIGHT ALIGNMENT PRINCIPLES |
| 1 |
Align Focus
- Strategic, Business and Technical Perspectives
- Long Term, Intermediate and Short Term Focus Areas
- Primary View Points- Owner, Designer and Constructor
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"Teams get what they focus on… intensify similarities and respect differences."
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Align the thinking and priorities of people and organizations on a project. Regularly schedule sessions to determine what absolutely needs to happen from the technical or field level, the business administrative or project manager level, and the executive or strategic level. This principle is dedicated to aligning the thinking strategies for the project. Define strategic, business and technical focus areas from the different perspectives or viewpoints.
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| The Intent: Integrate the organizational needs into a “Project Level Focus” so everyone in the venture is able to commit, support and focus on the same objectives. Align the focus of the “project team” on project outcomes as the first priority. | |
| 2 |
Align Forecasting
- Project Future Events using "Forecasting" Techniques
- Optimize project opportunities to excel beyond standards
- Identify, plan and take action to avoid negative impact events
- Executive, Management and Field viewpoints
- Long Term, Intermediate and short term snap shots in time
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Identifying issues in advance is “Anticipation”. Planning actions to avoid the occurrence is “Strategy”. Avoiding the risks by taking action is “Courageous.” Working together to do all three produces “WINNING TEAMS”
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Align perspectives to see what the possibilities are. Collectively, from a cross discipline perspective, anticipate future developments by “Forecasting” the events before they occur. Identify potential project events and identify opportunities and risks. This proactive measure helps to optimize the opportunities for improvement and/or avoid, and manage the negative impact occurrences. Teams that anticipate are more resourceful and get greater results than teams that only react. Anticipate an event’s impact to productivity and progress of the project. Work together to optimize opportunities and overcome risk issues. This creates project-focused teams
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| The Intent: To produce a forward thinking team that challenges and anticipates project developments in time to manage and minimize the impacts to the project or venture. | |
| 3 |
Align Systems
- Formal and Informal Communications & Contract Administration
- Process flows and Cycle Times
- Optimize Resources of all Team Members
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Align procedures to reduce cycle times for administrative processes.
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Put “good” professionals into ineffective operating systems and watch them get frustrated. Let it continue and watch the systems produce bad attitudes, blame, and adversarial relationships. Put those same professionals on a project with effective processes and watch a high performance team develop. Owner, designer and constructor organizations each have internal procedures to process administrative contract requirements. Define, discuss and understand each other’s processes. Then challenge the way information is exchanged or communicated. Use technology and Integrate organizational processes to find faster and more effective ways to make decisions, give direction and distribute information.
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| The Intent: To build the job in the field, not in the file cabinet. Administratively support the project by optimizing the resources from each organization. Develop project systems to support team productivity. | |
| 4 |
Align Professional Standards
Align Owner, Designer and Constructor guidelines for:
- Acceptable Professional Behavior
- Acceptable Professional Values
- A productive environment for people to work in
- A fair, open and honest means for Communications
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| People have the technical knowledge talents and skills needed to design and construct the project. Create the environment that brings out the “Best” in the people on the job. Set High Professional Standards. |
Professional pride and contribution make noticeable differences in the final outcome of a project. The key ingredient to bring out the very best in people is attitude. Project management leadership is responsible for setting the standards for acceptable professional behavior and values on the project team. Expect the very best by investing the effort to define the rules.
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| The Intent: To create a working environment that develops mutual trust along with self-motivated people, providing pride in workmanship and their contribution to a successful project. | |
| 5 |
Align Confrontation
Align organizations to confront & resolve issues in a timely manner:
- With the best information
- Using Strategic, Business and Technical viewpoints
- With flexibility to innovate and design solutions
- Utilize Dispute “Avoidance” Techniques – escalation/elevation matrix
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Create an environment that supports Alternative Dispute Avoidance measures and eliminates the need for formal contract measures!
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Respond to the need for direction in the field, conflicts in documents, latent conditions, and interpretations over entitlement, quantification methods and actions of team members. Put processes in place to resolve issues fairly and quickly, to maintain momentum on the project. Keep communications productive in order to work through tough issues to a mutually agreeable conclusion.
“Within every adversity, there are the seeds of an equal or greater opportunity” Napoleon Hill
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| The Intent: Utilize the commitment and leverage from the sponsoring executive and the project manager teams to resolve issues at the lowest possible level on the project. | |
| 6 |
Align Authority, Leadership & Facilitation
- Align Project Needs: Owner, Designer and Constructor
- Strategic: Executive Level Alignment and understanding
- Business: Lead Project Management Roles & Responsibilities
- Technical: Field Level Delegation Terms for Decision Making and Giving Direction
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Leadership:
Listen to what I say… Watch what I do… Then teach others!
LEAD BY EXAMPLE |
Alignment of authority and leadership requires commitment and accountability from each organization in the project venture. The lines of decision making and dollar authority are defined at the executive, project management and field levels of the project team. The sponsoring executives for the venture, from each organization, agree to hold themselves and their team accountable. They discuss and agree to support the Alignment Principles. Balance authority and develop processes to delegate responsibility and authority to the lowest possible level on the job.
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| The Intent: To provide the authority, leadership, and accountability to the Project Managers Team for the Alignment Strategy to be established and expand. | |
| 7 |
Align Feedback Systems
Track the perceptions of the people on the Project Team:
- Trust, open communications and fairness
- Reinforcement of contributions towards accomplishments
Take TAP Feedback Survey |
Recognition of contribution in the moment of performance builds pride and loyalty. Challenge your team to catch each other doing something right, and then tell them…
NICE JOB! |
Periodic feedback allows you to measure and react to attitudes and perceptions about the project in real time. Observe trends in people’s perceptions early and respond in a manner that builds on positive trends and turns negative ones around. Align the viewpoints of the owner, designer and constructor teams to view over all project trends. This process is focused on catching people doing things right and letting them know about it. This component also addresses and plans for recognition for accomplishments.
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| The Intent: To create and maintain the positive mental attitude, motivation and persistence of people on the project, to collectively work towards the same goals and outcome. | |
| 8 |
Align Expansion Strategies
- New people and organizations need to be invited to join the Alignment Team, participate in the meetings, and support the strategy.
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Optimize the use of people’s knowledge and information. Belonging, helping, sharing and contributing are only possible if you are a part of a team. Welcome the thoughts and contributions from all people on the project.
Ask them to join the team.
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A strong effort to expand the team must be made early in the strategy development, which in turn will realize a return on the investment of effort throughout the project term. Bring new people and organizations on board the team. If they are in direct contract lines or if they have a vested interest in the project outcome, invite them to participate in the regular project alignment strategy sessions.
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| The Intent: To expand the team!! Regularly discuss expanding the team to keep the Alignment attitude & strategy alive and growing. | | |
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| Summary |
Aligning differing points of view requires a change in focus from competition to collaboration. It requires a major attitude change to maximize its potential results. When the project management team is in place, spread the Project Team Alignment Strategy to the rest of the project team. The sponsoring executives supply the direction and authority to maintain and expand the strategy. The field level team expends resources productively to optimize the outcome of the project.
Alignment: This is the job of the project manager team. Project Managers are in the People business. What are the systems and strategies it will take for them to:
- Come together as a PM team
- Build and environment of trust and respect, and
- Get everyone around them going in the same direction at the same time
It is up to the Project Mangers Team to support the project alignment principles and to lead the processes by example. The intent is to produce a quality product, create a productive work environment while keeping the team focused and informed. A constant and never-ending re-focusing and re-alignment effort develops the project team attitude for a successful job.
The Team Alignment Parntering Principles are about “leadership”. Project managers develop strategies to manage technical and people resources to complete projects. Optimizing people resources is “the” primary objective for the Alignment strategy.
Use the Eight Alignment Principles to create, maintain and expand the project first attitude and the spirit of cooperation between the owner, designer and constructor organizations. | |
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