The meeting could have gone on for hours. The division’s most critical line-of-business application was due for an overhaul, and the project SWAT team was presenting the project approach and (big) budget request to the sponsoring Executives. This conversation could have gone sideways very quickly, but, to my pleasant surprise, the discussion moved along quickly, concerns were addressed crisply, and the whole group left the meeting feeling productive and satisfied.
As I reflected on that meeting, I realized that while the SWAT team’s preparation, attention to detail, and experience certainly played an important part in the success of that meeting, the real secret of its success lay in the trust between the Executives and the Project leadership.
Specifically,
- Trust opened the door for the Executives to collaborate with the Solution Architects on what the design could be (not just what it must be), and how the business might rally around a new set of capabilities to improve its practices and procedures.
- Trust allowed the Project Manager to answer hard questions honestly, and even say “we don’t know” when that was the truth.
- Trust gave our whole team a chance to speak objectively and in good faith; not just sell or push an agenda.
Anyone in that room could have destroyed that trust – or at least neutralized it – with a careless or cruel comment. Instead, great work was done that day, and we wrapped up in time to make our flight home.