Trust Acts

  Communications Management   Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

As projects become more complex and uncertain, there is a paradox: the more you tighten controls, the less real control you achieve. The solution is to implement a coordinated set of “trust acts” at all levels. It turns out that the people working on high-stakes projects really do care about success.

In dealing with high stakes project teams for about 15 years now, we find that the vast majority of these teams are struggling with execution, as measured by meeting schedules, delivering promised features and quality, avoiding late surprises and high turnover. There are essentially two issues: trust issues and competence issues. Competence can be an issue with immature teams or team leaders, but in 90 percent of the cases, 90 percent of the difficulty comes from a lack of trust.

The trust issue stems from the organization’s relationship to “control.” As the stakes get higher, leadership feels the need to tighten controls to ensure success. This generally takes the form of setting stretch goals, making progress reviews more frequent and visible, and applying pressure on project managers to report adherence to the stated goals. (For more, see: “No Surprises Project Management: A Proven Early Warning System for Staying on Track”)

Unfortunately, the complexity of high stakes projects make it counterproductive to try and “control in&…

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