Alignment & Integration

Alliances are very unusual, in that they are established businesses with full order books, while at the same time being new organisations.  As there is so much to get organised, to hit the ground running, the alignment and integration aspect can fall off the bottom of the ‘to do’ list.

It is important to focus on these areas early on, both within, and across teams. If they are not, then the following tends to happen

• Individuals are confused and unclear…about most things
• People find their own way, so start working in ways which conflict with each other
• Huge amounts of frustration occur
• Individuals feel harassed and unappreciated
• Individuals don’t feel part of ‘the new world’ as they don’t understand it or their place in it

Our extensive experience in this area has enabled us to identify in advance what is likely to create challenges in the future. At start-up we work with Department Team Managers to run start–up events. We design and run these events with the managers, covering their known priorities as well as the areas we know to be critical. Areas covered include:

• Team purpose
• Processes
• Interfaces
• Performance
• Outputs

We also work at whole venture level and create events to:

• Share information around teams purposes and scope
• Engage departments (1:1) to begin discussion about how they will work together

We have had feedback from delegates with multi-Alliance and Joint Venture experience that these cross department events at the start are invaluable in terms of accelerating the integration and alignment process.