Page 196 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

Make Your Elephant Fly—Plan 177

information on all of the company’s major projects and their stage of devel-
opment. If the head of the testing lab noticed, for example, that one depart-
ment was experimenting with a new product, he could be pretty certain that
sooner or later his lab would be asked to perform certain tests. Previously, he
probably would have received an unexpected call saying, “Hey, tomorrow I’m
going to be sending you a part, and I need 47 tests done on it right away.”
The new information alerted the lab manager to find out approximately
when the work might arrive so that he could schedule someone to be ready
to do the testing. For the first time, the engineering and the lab staffs were
working together in a meaningful and cooperative manner.
Unexpectedly, the planning center also turned into a morale builder.
It brought employees together and gave them a sense of involvement in all
aspects of the company’s processes. People began to feel that they had a voice
in developments outside their own departments. Compartmentalization
gradually disappeared.
Planning centers are useful when working on side issues within proj-
ects—or projects within projects. One client’s cross-functional team was
charged with evaluating internal planning barriers and developing solutions
that would promote buy-in from all stakeholders in the main project. The
symptom, or “pain,” as we call it, were pretty clear from the start: Many
people were angry about being left out of the planning and communication
loops on a project that required their input in order to be successful.
The planning center is a practical approach for targeting the status of
any one of the myriad pieces in a company process or for viewing the overall
picture. The physical size of the center and the breadth of information dis-
played can vary, of course, according to specific needs. All that matters is that
project leaders and participants have a way of keeping abreast of individual
and overall goals, making specific progress toward those goals, and dealing
with any problems or needs encountered at various stages of a project.
Another form of the planning center is embodied in the concept of co-
locating, which we discussed previously in conjunction with teaming (Chapter
5). When the Whirlpool technology team decided to co-locate people from
around the world to work in its Evansville, Indiana, facility, a subteam was
charged with coordinating the co-location activities. To facilitate small-group
interaction, the subteam’s leader went to great lengths to create just the right
environment.
This leader worked closely with two furniture suppliers to put together
smaller functional areas within the total space allocated for the entire team.