Strategy Survival Guide

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Strategy Survival Guide Version 2.1 Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit home | strategy development | strategy skills | site index Strategy Skills > Managing People Recruiting a team > in practice A team with the right mix of skills and experience will bring insights and fresh thinking to difficult strategic issues. A roughly equal mix of experts and non-experts, insiders and outsiders works well in ensuring the right balance of focused analysis and imagination. Key issues to consider when recruiting a team include: • team size • team skills • the team leader • the recruitment process • stakeholder engagement. Team Size The size of the team is important – it should be large enough to encourage a mix of backgrounds and skills but small enough for each person to be a crucial part of the team. Relatively small teams established especially for the project tend to arrive at better solutions than single individuals or large legacy teams. In a large group, people may tend to go along with popular opinion rather than thinking for themselves. In general, the larger the group of people, the harder it is for the group to work well together. Smaller numbers also make team administrative tasks easier and make it easier to develop a common purpose with mutual goals and mutual accountability. The size and composition of the team is likely to vary over the length of the project, as different phases of work will require different levels of resources and different skills. Team Skills A multi-disciplinary team with the right mix of skills and experience will bring insights and fresh thinking to difficult strategic issues and will provide a secure foundation for successful policy analysis, design and implementation. Considering the appropriate split between civil servants and non-civil servants and between experts and non-experts will help to secure the right combination of knowledge and freshness. End dates of any secondments should be made as flexible as possible to allow for delays in publication or securing collective agreement to the project’s recommendations. Team leaders also need to be aware of and manage demands on team members who are not full-time on the project. Before beginning the recruitment process, a team leader may draw up job profiles to help identify the breadth of skills and experience needed in the new team which is likely to include: • specific domain knowledge or expertise in certain subject areas • general analytical and conceptual ability • specialist statistical and economics skills • decision-making skills and project management experience • interpersonal skills • creativity skills • delivery experience. Strategy Survival Guide – Strategy Skills Page 46
The Team Leader The role of the team leader is to lead the people and manage the resources of the team to meet the project’s goals. It is the team leader's responsibility to: • keep the purpose, goals and process meaningful through effective project management • monitor the performance of the team • build commitment and confidence in the team members • manage, with support, the public face of the project e.g. media • establish constructive links with other units, departments and with external stakeholders • create opportunities for team members and make effective use of their skills and experience • inspire, lead, coach and develop • take on responsibility for producing specific pieces of work as appropriate. The Recruitment Process To enable the project to commence quickly, it is helpful to have identified potential candidates well before the project gets the green light. Without this, the momentum behind the project can dissipate before it has even got off the ground. One way to facilitate this is to have a database of candidates who have already passed the interview process. The team leader can then trawl through the database to identify suitable candidates to contact. If team members are to be recruited from scratch, there is the critical question of who chooses the team. It is important that the team leader is given the final decision over this and is able to interview and reject candidates. This will avoid the awkward situation whereby the team leader is allocated team members that others are trying to get rid off - an unfortunate, but surprisingly common, scenario. It is important to manage the workload of any internal candidates for the team, by ensuring that real time is made available and that the project will not simply add to existing workload. This can be aided by identifying the part of their current workload that will be removed. Stakeholder Engagement When putting together a team, it is important to consider whether stakeholder interests should be represented. It is desirable to bring into the team people from organisations and other government Departments with a major interest in the subject area (for example practitioners, academics and other civil servants) in order for the work to benefit from their perspective and to encourage a more inclusive process. This will also be of benefit during the subsequent implementation of recommendations arising from the project, particularly if team members are likely to be involved in implementation themselves. Issues for consideration should include: • Does the individual in question have specific skills or knowledge that will allow them to make a genuine contribution to the team, or could the same knowledge be gained without having them on the team? • Will the presence of a representative from one stakeholder distort the project in any way (i.e. by making other stakeholders feel ignored, or by appearing to prejudice the outcome)? • Is the individual available on a full or part time basis? In many cases an individual with expert knowledge of the issues and the key institutions can be a very valuable team member, adding credibility to the overall project. But this should be carefully assessed when putting together the team structure. Strengths • Taking time to recruit the right time, with the optimum mix of skills, expertise and freshness is crucial to the success of the project. Weaknesses • The team leader is often constrained in choice of team members by budget considerations and availability of staff. Strategy Survival Guide – Strategy Skills Page 47
Page 1: Strategy Strategy Survival Survival
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Page 6 and 7: Building an Evidence Base 113 Data
Page 8 and 9: A Framework for Strategic Direction
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Strategy Survival Guide Version 2.1
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Reinforcing Loops A + Balancing Loo
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Structuring the thinking - Systems
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Opportunities • Where are the goo
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Structuring the thinking - PESTLE I
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Revolution This is creativity at it
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For example, Sub-problem: My collea
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in The Magenta Book) are rigorous m
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• Avoid asking the same question
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Expectations can be shaped by a num
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Collecting data - Surveys In Practi
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Collecting data - Interviews & focu
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Step One: Define the problem explic
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• Are the units correct? Step Sev
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Analysing data - Modelling In Pract
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The Five Forces Framework can be us
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References Structure, Conduct, Perf
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Symbols • What language and jargo
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Learning from others - Internationa
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Strengths • Quantitative forecast
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3. Bring drivers together into a vi
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Scenario development In Practice 1:
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Scenarios used in the Strategy Unit
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groups at random. In other words, t
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events. There are a number of diffe
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Multi-criteria analysis In Practice
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Cost-benefit & cost-effectiveness a
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For further material, see the Ratio
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Compelling vision for action - the
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Designing an implementation plan In
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Creating Public Value http://www.nu
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National Statistics http://www.stat
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Driver trees 97 Econometric modelli
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management 17, 20, 27, 34, 45 outpu
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