How the pmhit approach resolves the Sales vs Projects conflict

Winning new work is a highly competitive process with the bid team required to perform under time pressure while making critical decisions that will have major impacts on the way the project is executed. The elation of winning new work is often tempered when the proposal is analysed by the execution team and the Project Manager. Businesses understand this conflict and in an attempt to resolve the issue they put in place further processes to manage the conflict with the aim to form a consensus. A handover process, often alongside the execution team endorsing a Project Charter, are seen by many as solving any disparities between the two teams and achieving an agreed way forward.

Another approach is to imbed the execution Project Manager within the bid team so that they can have a stake in the bid approach and that they underwrite and endorse the sales team decisions as they are made. On the surface this seems an excellent idea, the execution manager is invested in the project from an early stage and they, as an individual, have a full understanding of why decisions that will lead to difficulties during execution were made. But often the result is the same; the execution team inherit a project that has commitments to the customer that are beyond the ability of the project team to deliver.

Both of these approaches are ways of an organisation plastering over a major fault. Where teams are not aligned within a business we must assess why those disparities exist. It may well be the case that bid managers and Project Managers have a rounded view of the proposal and mutually agree the choices that were made were reasonable, and indeed, they may have sought (or required) their senior management approval to accept risk or ambiguity. Yet, even though the risk and execution approach has been agreed, we still see conflict within the execution team, demotivation and poor performance.

Why is this and how can it be addressed?

It is an admiral goal to have senior managers, the project sponsor, the sales manager and the Project Manager all aligned. Yet that is not enough to attain the maximum efficiency from the project team. A group of managers all in agreement and then disseminating instruction to a talented team is not going to lead to a nirvana of project execution excellence. This approach bypasses the simple fact that each team member is a Stakeholder in the project. Their performance will have a direct impact on the potential for project success. Yet organisation and their project management are not approaching the engagement of their team in the same way they would for an external Stakeholder, we have to ask, why not?

There is nothing new in saying that when an individual in invested in a decision and its implications they are motivated to support the process towards executing the outcome. In the white heat of a competitive bid dozens of business risk decisions are made. Even with the most detailed specification from the client there is room for assumption, interpretation and potentially for the bidding organisation to internally propose undertaking solution development within the execution phase, in other words, agreeing to provide something they don’t currently possess (either hardware or software for example).

None of this is a fundamental issue; taking business risk is another interpretation of the approach to seeking a competitive advantage.

Utilising the power of the team

At pmhit we work with companies to create an environment where the full team is invested in critical decisions and not just the inheritors of them. We assess each team member and their approach to their part of the project. We identify how companies can utilise their internal Stakeholder approach to gain trust, to agree the solution and for team members to become equal advocates for the way forward.

Our people centric approach has trust and openness at its core, removing the old issue of Sales vs Projects.

Find out more by contacting info@pmhit.com