Why strong relationships make projects successful

People in projects often have a passion for success and delivery that should not be underestimated. They should be nurtured to drive change and improvements further to reap continual benefits that can be translated to other industries and become embedded as business as usual, improving the level of project success. I have witnessed this not only in UK projects, but across European projects too.

Creating strong, resilient foundations

Many of you might think this is just collaboration, but I see collaboration as the tools, activities and processes that the people use to deliver -- but what enables this type of working? To improve collaboration you need to dig deeper and get to the foundations. Strong resilient relationships go further than surface level collaboration. The obvious questions are: what are the fundamentals to creating a strong, purposeful relationships to deliver improved project outcomes? What is needed to deliver a truly strong resilient relationship?

I believe the answer to be trust, transparency and long-term commitment. Andy Taylor of People Deliver Projects, agrees that: “When a relationship (or collaboration) finds a real sense of mutual understanding, commitment, accountability and trust, new levels of performance open up”. The alignment of goals is a tricky one and it’s probably more of an appreciation of each other’s goals -- after all you probably wouldn’t already be in business together if they didn’t align in some way. This is what I like to term a ‘Super Factor’ - a group of critical success factors that work and knit together.

Bringing together organisational alignment and fit (another ‘Super Factor’) with ensuring the right personalities are leading those relationships is essential. The individuals need to feel and have the freedom to develop strong lasting relationships with the flexibility to think creatively to solve the problems that face them, and achieve the outputs and outcomes the project commits to.

Trust allows all to think ‘outside the box’, and try things that have never been done before. As Taylor has experienced numerous times, “Getting to mutual [high performance] requires courage and vulnerability expressed in many forms: stating feelings openly, listening with real empathy, apologising genuinely, forgiving others, honouring difference, naming difficult truths.”

It’s the daily interactions that matter

Building day-to-day relationships has an impactful outcome on projects and change in the real world. This was the case in the award-winning Department for Transport’s Manchester TaskForce, where Project Director Paul Fishwick has seen benefits from a strong relationship with Transport for Greater Manchester. “We needed to get the industry to think differently about a 10-year-old rail infrastructure and service problem in Manchester. We changed our approach to relationships. Central government worked with our local authorities in a more mature way, including giving them more responsibility to shape their future transport outcomes ensuring they were an integral part of the solution”.

Understanding the dynamics of your team (and others) better; improving emotional intelligence; and engaging with difficult conversations are all key aspects to this. Working with stakeholders to ensure they are part of the solution - and not just identifying problems - is an essential part of approaching relationships differently, especially as finances become more constrained for both public and private sectors. Why can’t a group of stakeholders develop a scope of work together so that there isn’t a waste of funding? We are starting to see this with The Great North, the UK’s first mayoral led collaboration in the north of the country. Should we see more of this? Absolutely!

Go slow to go fast

Why can’t we creatively problem solve together with different types of relationships underpinning diverse teams and testing each other’s ideas and theories to ensure the traditional is redesigned for the better? As Rupert Hodges of R3 Leaders believes: “Go slow to go fast. Involve people earlier in deciding what to do. If they create the solution with you, you don’t have to persuade them later. They will be advocates for the solution, rather than resisting it.”

In the modern-day environment, with a need to think and do differently, the real challenge will be how do teams continue to engender forward thinking individuals and relationships more, and push the boundaries of possibilities and norms that surround us.