Are the right people calling the shots for your project?
As telecom companies get more successful, they often mess this up.
🙃
A conversation with an old friend at ConnectX this year reminded me of something he used to say often:
"𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲!"
For your project teams:
▶ Who makes vendor award decisions?
▶ Who makes decisions around scope disputes?
▶ Who decides whether to spend more money?
▶ Who comes up with solutions to local customer problems?
With small companies, these decisions are made in-market, often during face-to-face meetings.
As companies grow, more of these decisions tend to migrate upstream:
🔻 Supply Chain awards national contracts to over-extended vendors
🔻 Sales or Legal decides whether to accommodate a customer ask
🔻 Finance chooses when and how to spend project cash
🔻 PMOs or "think-tank" committees are asked to come up with any non-standard solution
These changes tend to happen as companies grow, in an attempt to maintain consistency (which is a good thing!)
Decision rights moving away from local project teams can have 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 that can damage the customer experience:
🔻 Agility
🔻 Accountability
🔻 Creativity
How are your teams balancing the need for consistency and flexibility?
