Curtis is the CEO of Westec, a 25-year old national environmental engineering company – known for quality and reliability. 

In 2006, Curtis implemented a new organizational structure focused around expertise. His intention was to allow Westec to expand into more complex projects and to leverage the expertise of his highly technical staff. Each project has a detailed set of deliverables and a system of reporting progress for each team member.
 
Sales are stronger than ever, but 75% of their projects are running behind. Curtis authorized using contractors, to get the projects back on track.

Now a crisis looms.  His largest client, Giant, is threatening to leave Westec completely because two key projects are dangerously behind schedule.

Curtis is baffled. Instead of the effective system he envisioned, his technical staff complain that they are overloaded.  They show him detailed To-Do Lists, every task marked A Priority! 

He knows they need immediate help, but he can’t stop the forward progress to focus on fixing things.

Curtis hires a consultant with the provision that analysis and solutions cannot interrupt the work flow.  The consultant customizes an on-line survey of the technical staff to identify key issues.  The survey takes only 10 minutes to complete. 

The consultant discovers the problem:  the new organization is efficient but not effective. 

Every team includes Pam because she’s the top remediation planner.  Every team includes Jason in Procurement to source and price equipment.  Pam and Jason use the same prioritization strategy:  first come, first served.   This may be an efficient plan for Pam and Jason, but it’s not an effective solution for Curtis and Westec.

It is not effective for Pam to finish with team B’s project when team A’s deadline is closer.

Curtis realized that his mistake was in failing to set company priorities.

Each team operated independently, competing for common resources, and creating endless to-do list items for key experts. 

Curtis quickly prioritized projects and focused all of his people power on two projects instead of six.  He held short weekly meetings to reallocate resources and to add contractors, if necessary.  Curtis added a new project only when the key projects were moving forward on time. 

The results were immediate.  Efficient laundry lists of tasks were replaced by effective short lists of priority activities.  When the support staff understood priorities, they were able to keep all of the critical paths unblocked.  Both of Giant’s projects were completed on time, eliminating the potential loss of $300K/year in revenue. 

Once the initial crisis had passed, the longer-term solution was to include key team members in the project coordination and goal setting processes. The lesson Curtis learned is that it can all be done, just not all at once.

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