I wrote,
> my present company who's style is to form
>small teams of forward thinking business people from the organization
>being analyzed.
You [Gordon Housworth, I believe -- Your host.] asked
>How do you identify those magicians and how do you entreat their managers
>to part with them?
I try to spend a day ot two with the sponsor and the leading advocates of
the project three weeks or so before the project starts. Among other
discussions we work with two matrixes, one of the knowledge base needed in
the team and the nominated team members to assure we have the breadth and
depth of knowledge needed. The second matrix is team member
characteristices and nominated team members. The sponsor and his
advocates have always been able to nominate people meeting both sets of
criteria.
I always try to get the very best people, and often fail. When the
sponsor overrules one of the best I negotiate for committment of a set
number of hours per week or month. That way the team gets access to the
best thinking. I find that once you engage the best people and they find
you are both listening and doing good work those people volunteer
additional time.
Again you asked
>How do you provide the "role of the outsider" not captive to the dominant
>design of the current organization?
This is hard. First I don't like to work with a particular team more than
3 to 6 months or a particular client more than a year. I find that I
start to adsorb the culture I am trying to change. Second, I try to stay
in the role of mentor, mentoring the team leadership, the sponsor and
other stakeholders as needed. I find that if I get too engaged in the
work of the project I lose perspective of the larger goals inherent in
re-engineering/changing culture.
-- Bill Hobler bhobler@cpcug.org