Managing BPI Projects - Building a Strong and Diverse Project Team

 

The success of business process improvement (BPI) projects relies on many factors, not the least of which is a strong and diverse BPI project team.

Consider any BPI project you have worked on in the past. Undoubtedly it touches any number of functions within the organization and requires support from throughout the organization in order to be successful. Your project team should be comprised of individuals representing all the key functions impacted by the BPI projects. These are your subject matter experts and their expertise in their particular functional area is required on the BPI project.

Build a strong and diverse project team by looking for team leads and team members who span:

• A variety of functional areas

• Have expertise in the areas impacted or affected by the BPI project

• Are diverse in their time within the organization, their experience and the type of work they do within the organization

The more diverse the team, the better the solution to the BPI project. You want the diversity of a variety of experiences, backgrounds and expertise in order to effectively design the “to be” process solution and trouble solve the variety of issues that will arise during the project implementation.

Once you have the team identified, hold a team kick off meeting to enable the team members to get to know each other and to collaborate on how they will work together. Use this time to determine roles and responsibilities of team members and how they will pass information and support each other on completing the work of the project. I find it always of value to have a team building activity which enables the team to begin to establish relationships with each other which in turn helps to build trust on the team.