Bridging Organizational Divides – Bruce Gay
Abstract:
As most projects span multiple departments and organizations, project leaders are increasingly challenged to align teams with differing business objectives, connect often contradictory working cultures, and assist teams in developing best practices for collaboration. We expect teams to work together effortlessly, but in reality, collaboration across teams and organizations is not uniformly successful.
In this presentation, we will discuss obstacles to cross-organizational collaboration, share techniques from organizational design and related collaboration models that project leaders can use to establish lasting alignment across teams.
This presentation is structured in two parts. Part 1 provides a high-level overview of organizational design and stresses the importance of integration through the concept of “linking”. In Part 2, a case study from a large healthcare system demonstrates that structural linking mechanisms can be used to establish lasting alignment across multiple departments.
Case Study Thesis: Increased collaboration and “linking” between organizations would bring about greater alignment and more efficient execution of project activities. Staff satisfaction would improve and a “One Team” mindset would arise across the teams.
Results: The program manager spent time to plan and implement increased “linking” mechanisms between organizations. By using cross-unit groups and integrator roles, the program manager increased collaboration, knowledge sharing, and helped solidify a sense of shared goals across the teams.
The presentation will close with a review of lessons learned from the case study and a call to action for those in the audience to proactively think about organization structure and collaboration mechanisms of their teams.
PMI Talent Triangle: Strategic and Business Management
