An ideal project needs the consensus of all
parties involved to create excellent results which are accepted and can be
implemented in a sustainable way.
But why is it so difficult to agree to
other opinions?
The reason is that every party has its own
natural view on the topic of a project and therefore tends to prefer a solution
that fits exactly to his own sight.
Let me give an example: A project team
which aims to implement a new software solution to improve the customer
relationship management of an online-shop of a medium sized company. Let us
have a view on the different sights of the parties involved:
Let´s start with A, a sales representative
and one of the future users of this software. He loves the old systems and the
endless bypasses they created to optimize the performance of the system. He
likes to get a system which is quite similar to the old one, just faster and
without bugs.
Team member B is an expert of software
development and would like to try out a complete new technology which is much easier
to handle than the old one. Therefore he suggests a solution he got to know
some weeks before on a trade fair. Fortunately he is quite sure that this
solution is perfectly tailored to the needs of this project.
The accountant C has to care for the small
budget and prefers an affordable standard solution.
D, the overall manager of the IT department
goes for a product that minimizes the interfaces to other parts of the IT architecture
and guarantees minimized maintenance costs.
Of course you can imagine what would happen
if there are further parties involved in the project like the CEO or the
customer helpdesk: they all bring their own views on a future solution!
The pattern of this project can be found find
in almost every project: the interface of the different solutions that are
recommended of the parties involved to a project use to be very small in the
beginning of a project. So you regularly have two choices: find a person that
takes the decision or try to find a team consensus. Regarding the
sustainability of a solution the latter one should be the better choice, even if
it seems to be much more exhausting.
If you plan to facilitate your team towards
consensus you have to grow the interface of the different solutions step by
step. It could be easier if you use different well-known communication skills
like active listening, asking questions and visualization of common sense.
See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-2v99paQM&feature=youtu.be
