The lack of white space management is one of the leading causes of project failures and delays, especially in siloed organizations. As frustrating as white space can be, its successful management and analysis can bring fruitful innovations and sustain competitive advantage to the firm.

So, what is white space? It is basically the gap, the fuzzy space and separation between what is known and understood. It is vague and ill-defined as to the ownership, the strategy, the process, the opportunity, … Yet, when it is analyzed and utilized well, it gives clarity, structure and emphasis to an opportunity or to a specific issue.

Our traditional project management processes are quite task oriented, where the focus is the successful execution of each individual task. No doubt you need to focus on execution. Unfortunately, constructing the forest one tree at a time works only if you have built the forest before and now working on an update. In this case, your main challenge is the hand off process, where your well-defined inputs/outputs and ownership, along with critical metrics will help reduce the size of your white space. If you are swimming in uncharted waters, you need to manage things differently and here are some ideas for your toolbox.

• Clearly understand what your customers value. In many cases, the cross-functional areas are in need of white space management, such as product installation, upgrades or 3rd party solution integration. Define the problem and key performance vectors from the perspective of the customer. Favor simple over complex and adopt the KISS principle as your motto.
• Setup a virtual war room to improve communication and coordination among teams. Make sure to include the updated versions of key project information, team member’s names/roles, competitive intelligence knowledge, project status, risks, milestones, … Leverage this to establish a sense of urgency that is shared by all.
• Use the staged-freeze process to group and manage critical tasks (Building a Project-Driven Enterprise: How to Slash Waste and Boost Profits Through Lean Project Management). As Ronald Mascitelli describes, this is very similar to building a house. You work with your builder to determine how best to schedule key decision points that support important building stages while accelerating work and reducing waste. After all, deciding to install in floor heating after the concrete floors are poured is an expensive proposition. You can extend this process to manage risk areas, resource constraints/schedules and key marketing events.
• Know, monitor and manage your critical path. These should be identified and regularly reviewed as the project progresses. Critical path is any activity that puts the complete project schedule at risk. Not only identify the risk, but also determine objective metrics to monitor their status.
• Utilize dedicated teams and task forces where possible. Many studies have already shown the impact of multitasking to productivity. If you can’t ensure dedicated teams, establish small task forces with clear charter, objectives, milestones, and metrics, where they are guaranteed to spend some of their time on these specific issues. Just remember not to go task force happy. It is contagious, and too much of a good thing can loose its value.

Remember, innovation is a system and new ideas come to fruition in the cracks: cross-functional areas, in between business units and products as well as shifts that occur within the value chain with partners and customers and market analysis. Middle managers play a crucial role as integrators and white space managers. This is especially true in siloed organizations where there is no one person that is assigned to managing the project end-to-end. Here are some of the characteristics of successful white space managers.

• They see their firm, partners and customers as part of the larger ecosystem. It is not about each individual group’s performance or ownership rights, but how the collective community operates together as a system.
• They recognize it is about the customer and creating that compelling customer experience. They continuously look for ways to go beyond traditional methods to create new value for the customer.
• They focus on the idea and the problem at hand and how it should best be handled as part of this system. They set performance goals that reflect the total system rather than separate parts.
• They recognize the glue that connects the dots is temporary, and look for ways to ensure the organization learns to self-sustain. This can be through coaching/mentoring, recommendation for structural changes and/or processes as well as influencing the organization’s culture and values.

Innovating in white space can represent quite a challenge for established firms. It is one thing to fund an idea, but another to push to full-scale implementation and commercialization while answering the strategic questions of who, what, where, how as Jeffrey Phillips points out. Here are key success factors to innovate in this space.

• Your innovation culture is key to success. It needs to have tolerance for risk-taking and failure, but also encourage experimentation, learning and recognition to challenge the status quo .
• Recognize that ideas need a platform for testing and validation. As a manager, not only support this process but also help ensure its success by providing the needed expertise, information and knowledge, ground cover during the attack, …
• Be creative and persistent as you look for ways to bootstrap resources. Focus on demonstrating value quickly while working with what you can gather up. Remember, it is about negotiations and making people realize they are getting more than giving.
• Engage your entire organization by “extracting resources from context to repurpose for core“, where core is your competitive differentiation (Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution). Include as part of your strategic planning processes the reapplication of critical resources to drive innovative projects.
• Ensure the support of a senior executive for your venture. This executive plays the role of a champion, sponsor, financial supporter, coach and mentor during your commercialization process.

In summary, in your projects remember to focus on both sides of the coin. Analyze and assess the opportunities embedded in the white space. Find those gems and polish them to improve your competitive standing. But, also don’t neglect the operational side of the white space. Focus on your execution to improve your efficiency, effectiveness and overall performance.

Technorati Tags: white space management, innovation management, middle managers, project management

Related Posts:

Trackback URI | Comments RSS