Will your project or business cases undersell your team’s value? Again? What is your track record of success?
Creating project or business cases is part of how you “do” your job. Regardless of whether you sell, manage, measure and fix and control, or serve. There is a template and a series of justifications / questions to follow. The object is to justify investment in the project (or sale) based on anticipated outcomes. And those outcomes involve cost, timeline, scope, and expected return on investment. Easy- peasy. Maybe not so much as we move forward together in 2021.
When I work with individuals and teams to build their cross-functional leadership skills, we address everything of value which is overlooked in “doing” their jobs. And the first order of business is the value of the people behind the project or business case. All of the people who touch that project.
- Contact me here to discover how to build your cross-functional networking and leadership skills.
When was the last time you considered the human capital value of your project or business case? Continuing to overlook this vital aspect is why project or business cases undersell team value.
Human capital value can be a fancy 10,000 foot (3,048,000 millimeter) perspective and phrase to many of you. The phrase addresses the total economic value of a worker’s – and workforce’s – education, skills, training, health to the company’s bottom line. Which really sounds precise and clinical, doesn’t it?
So there are some aspects of human capital value which are easily measured. And then, there are those intangibles…. Like you, dear reader. Because you and your team are one of those “workers” contributing to the bottom line. That is a 5,000 foot (1,524,000 millimeter) perspective.
At the end of the day, your ground-level view is most important. What makes you and one specific team, over another team, so special in creating remarkable and enduring project outcomes? The answer to that foundational question should be the first question you ask of your team, moving forward. Because addressing that question permanently hardwires your trust-based professional purpose into your professional DNA. Yes, a hard call to make and a must-needed conversation so you can get to where you really need to go. Which is what you and I address, together, in my keynotes, workshops and mastermind programs.
So before you complete one more template, determine why project or business cases undersell team value. Contact me here to discover how to leverage the human capital value of your team into those project and/or business cases.
You already know you – and specific teams – are not homogeneous and interchangeable. Rather, when you collaborate, the experience is magical. So is the outcome. Time to figure out why this happens and how to make this outcome happen “more.”
Take the next steps and move one millimeter beyond what is professionally comfortable today. Let’s get to where you really need to go tomorrow and moving forward. Together. One millimeter at a time.
- Planning your next team, corporate or association meeting? Engage me to present a One Millimeter Mindset ™ program! Delivered virtually or in-person. Contact me here.
- Searching for a one-on-one catalyst for professional innovation and cross-functional leadership? Contact me here about my individual and group One Millimeter Mindset ™ programs!
- All programs delivered virtually or in-person.
Babette Ten Haken is a refreshingly extroverted STEM professional and skeptical thinker focused on intentional innovation. She helps people, teams and organizations make hard calls when designing products, services, careers and cultures. These are not easy conversations to have. Her ability to translate cross-functional conversations between left-brain and right-brain thinkers provides different pathways for behavior, response, insight and collaboration. Think of the strategic business and human capital value of moving beyond avoidance or group-think, together. Instead, let your creativity, critical thinking, and leadership skills co-develop together, one millimeter at a time. Her playbook of cross-functional collaboration, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Contact Babette here. Image source: iStock/Getty
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