Joe was feeling the pressure. His overnight software deployment would make or break the team for the next year – high pressure, company-wide visibility, funding and an awful lot of people interested in their progress – for the client organization, this was a big deal…and he was sweating it.
Image Source: WWF
With so much at stake, Joe knew that he and the team had to get it right first time, with no room for slip-ups.
Tension was high as he sat the team down over a coffee and threw it all on the table.
“Guys, if we are going to pull this off, we need to think about it in a different way. This idea of waiting for a slip-up frightens the willies out of me – it sounds so negative, like we are going to just sit back and only react when something bad happens. We all know that with the company watching, THAT is a recipe for failure”.
This situation is tough, really tough. If we are going to be successful, we need to turn it on its head and use it to our advantage. I want to ask you all, right now, how can we make the most of this opportunity?“
“This situation is tough, really tough. If we are going to be successful, we need to turn it on its head and use it to our advantage. Thinking in that negative way will not work. So I want to challenge you. I want to ask you all, right now, how can we make the most of this opportunity?
“How can we make the audience experience memorable?”
“How can we engage people without them interrupting our critical tasks?”
“How can we gain credibility by being open and transparent, without it slowing us down?”
“How can we streamline our stakeholder engagement – letting our key people feel individually involved whilst also managing them as a group through the overnight check-point phone calls?”
Joe presented the situation as a Golden Opportunity – answer these questions correctly and the team would introduce a groundbreaking change to the client’s project management practice. BUT…get it wrong and the team would be the first out the door.
No pressure!
Their solution?
After successfully testing through a dry-run exercise, the team published their Deployment Plan (Run Sheet, Communication Schedule and Checklists) as a set of cloud-hosted spreadsheets and allowed Stakeholders (on a need to know basis) to watch as progress was updated in near-real time.
One team member acted as the Concierge, helping the audience understand what was happening, fielding questions, making sure people felt engaged and importantly, keeping the project team free to do its thing.
This was a huge hit!. It worked because it was simple, visual, engaging, personal, low-effort and high-impact for the audience.
The audience could use a simple dashboard to easily engage at any time and:
- Watch the progress and read the team’s commentary at each step
- Know who was working on each step
- See how the team was tracking to schedule
- Understand what steps were next on the list
- See the likely duration for each step
- Anticipate the upcoming checkpoints/decision points
It engaged Joe’s stakeholders from a distance by allowing them to see what they wanted in their own time, without directly impeding the project team.
It streamlined the checkpoint calls by allowing the participants to see and anticipate for themselves, before the conversation commenced.
It captured the audience’s attention through the simple power of a visual, dynamic medium. If a picture tells one thousand words, then a multi-colored, moving picture with commentary tells a heck of a lot more!
It gave the team credibility by offering absolute transparency. People could see what was happening and understand for themselves, in a way that are sense to them.
It added real, enduring value beyond the project by providing a practice that could be used over and over again, with different projects and different audiences.
And best of all, Joe’s next round of coffee for the team was paid for…by the happy Sponsor!
Do you have any similar experiences? Have you used special tools or techniques to engage your audience fom a distance? Would you have done anything differently? I’d love to share your story so pease, drop me a line.
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