Order

When we competed in Dog Dockdiving, there was always a line up posted of the order in which the teams jumped. You looked for your team name and where you were in the jumping order and lined up in your assigned position.  Order was the key to this competition being completed in the timeframe allowed. Without this element order, would have been chaos, in the form of barking or otherwise.

This method of maintaining order in a dog sport activity can be applied to proposals and projects that you may be working on with other consultants.  The project manager, that may or may not be you, needs to maintain order.  The teams involved should be aware of the other teams on the project and understand what service or product they are each contributing.  This can be provided by using a Team Sheet with all the contact information and listing of each team’s scope of work.  This is a simple but orderly approach to disseminating vital project information, even at the proposal stage.

Along these lines, we have been witness to projects or proposals in where important team members are not aware they are even on said team.  Truly, a complete lack of order.  The project manager may blame it on a NonDisclosure Agreement (NDA) with the Prime or Client but there is never a good reason to include another firm’s brand and reputation without their consent. Extend the NDA to all project team members is the simple answer here. Never presume you can use another firm’s brand without their explicit consent.  Doing so can harm reputations and relationships.

Order is a key feature of any project.  Do your part and comply with it, it is really in the best interest of the project, the team members, and the client.  If a project begins with chaos, likely it will be run that way, which is clearly not what most business professionals want. 

Be well.