A project team can work without a lot of big picture structure, as long as each person on the team understands what their task is “today.”
But a project can only be successfully handed off and maintained over time, if it’s presented with some standard features and a clear picture for how you use it. Sooner or later, you have to be able to explain it to people who weren’t there as it was being built.
Some of the tools you can use for this are:
- A RACI that shows who owns which responsibility
- A series of workflows that detail how departments and third parties integrate
- A series of detailed SOPs for Tier 1, and some broader direction for Tier 2 trouble-shooters
- SLAs and OLAs to define the timing and commitments between the project team and other groups in the organization
While project development teams must always be working to a plan, their day-to-day activities are often responsive rather than proactive. An operations team performs best when working from a clearly defined template, so they can proactively drive top performance from the system.