Drive Project Success: The Power of Who You Know

A recent chat got me thinking about what it takes to drive big projects in an organization. Let me tell you, it's no small feat. Often, projects require working with different groups and aligning people to a singular goal from concept to execution.

Driving a project is like orchestrating a symphony – it takes a mix of influence, alignment, project management, leadership, and storytelling. There are many moving parts, but your ideas will go much farther if you have an internal support network.?

Let’s dive into developing the foundation of influence and developing your network to support your ideas and initiatives.

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”?– John Lennon.

Early in my career, I was tasked with designing a product that required support from teams outside my own. I was eager to prove myself and thought getting others on board with my design would be easy. I assumed people would see the design and want to support it.

I arranged a meeting and invited stakeholders from the other teams to review my design.

??? Spoiler alert: My idea failed.

?I figured once everyone saw the design, we would get signoffs. There was a lot of great discussion at the meeting. But that was it. There was no action, support, or commitment from others to help.

?? The design didn’t ship.

This failure was a valuable relationship building lesson.

A Frustrating Lesson Learned

I didn’t like creating work that just sat in a file somewhere. I wanted to execute my work. But I learned that it takes many people to ship a project. In modern organizations, no one forces individual teams to do something. The team has to agree to do something together. As you become more senior, the projects get larger and more ambiguous, with more people across departments involved.

Feeling frustrated about the failed project, I set up meetings with the people involved to learn why they didn’t support the project. The common theme was that people felt the project was a good idea but didn’t feel the timing was right and that it disrupted their roadmaps.

I collected the themes I heard from the conversations and planned the next version of this project, this time considering all of the top themes. Knowing that I would want to ship something again in the future, I started by building out my internal network of relationships.

Why influence and networks matter

The hard truth is that no one person has the power to produce an outcome. You have to collaborate with others. It’s much easier to accomplish your goals with others interested in the project's success. The best way to engage others is to build relationships with them. Good relationships help you grow your influence with people around your organization.

Building a network of people around the organization is crucial. When combined with influence, this network becomes a powerful group of allies to support your work.

Getting Things Done with Relationships

Relationships are the currency of organizations. Building relationships and networking are crucial to getting things done, especially for larger projects. Most designs and products don’t ship because it’s difficult to rally support from internal team members.

If you need support from another team, you’ll have to ensure your project benefits them or doesn’t impede their roadmaps, agenda, and metrics. It can be difficult to gain support if there isn’t a relationship that is already intact. People are more willing to work with you if there’s a prior relationship. Otherwise, you’ll have to work around their timelines, which may not favor you.

Gaining support relies on building relationships, so it’s a valuable use of your time to invest in getting to know others.

?? The key is to build the relationship before you need it.

If you need something from someone and they don’t know you, you won’t have as much influence in the situation. It’s much better to have a relationship intact and maintain it so that when you need assistance, you can easily reach out.

Developing your Networking Strategy

When creating your network, try starting with people you know and expanding your way out. Don’t try to meet the VP of Product Management at first. If that’s your goal, you can get there organically by meeting the right people who will eventually introduce you.

This is the process I’ve used:

1.???? Identify key people in your organization.

2.???? Schedule brief 1:1 meetings (20-30 minutes) with diverse roles.

3.???? Use these chats to build rapport and understand their work.

4.???? Expand your network by asking for introductions.

5.???? Regularly maintain these relationships through follow-ups.

Finding Key People

When identifying key people to meet, start with people you’ve seen in meetings or names in emails. It helps to have an initial reason to reach out to them. You can frame your conversation: “I liked your idea in last week's meeting group, and I’d like to learn more.”

Depending on your organization, you can ask someone on your team for an intro. For example, your Product Manager or Engineer might know them, and you can ask them to introduce you.

?

Building Rapport

In your 1:1 meeting, explain why you wanted to meet and what your job is. Ask them to talk about their background, too. Look for common ground or a common interest. It can be anything from pickleball to favorite books you might have in common.

These small sparks are the connective tissue that helps you build a relationship, and you’d be surprised at how easy it is to build relationships with others on small interests. You can also discuss the initiative you are working on and gather their feedback. This is a good way to gauge how they might feel, and you can amend your proposals based on their insights.

My recommendation is to not limit the roles to just the roles you normally work with. For example, designers mostly work with engineers and product managers. Expand to meet other roles like data scientists, product specialists, marketing managers, etc. Everyone’s job isn’t always clear by just their title. They might have access to information and people that could benefit your knowledge building.

Expanding Your Circle

Meet people outside your department or organization to expand your network. The easiest way to do this is to ask your new connection who else you should meet. It’s as simple as “I’m looking for others who want to work on this cool initiative. Who else should I talk to?”

This will help you grow your network outside of your group.

Having a far-reaching network comes in handy. You may not need assistance from a team that has nothing to do with your work now, but you may need them on a future project, and it helps to have a buddy across the way to support you.

For example, I was working on a mobile project that needed data to make decisions. Months prior, I had met a marketing manager who focused on mobile app marketing. I asked him for the data, and he provided it, but he also gave me other people with access to different data I didn’t even know existed. We were able to get the information we needed to move forward. No one else on my team knew this person, so the team wouldn’t have been able to move forward without my connection.

Having a wide network helps with supporting your projects.

Maintain Relationships

Once you’ve made the connection, Nurture and maintain the relationship. If you see this person often in meetings, support their ideas. If you don’t see them as often, send a chat or email about something you’ve previously spoken about. Keep the relationship somewhat warm.

Maintaining relationships in a work context is easy. Small gestures go a long way.

Sometimes, It’s Awkward

Some people are awkward to talk to, and you might feel awkward talking to others. That’s okay. The more you talk, the easier it gets. Remember why you’re doing it. You’ll need some of these people to help support your ideas later. But you’ll also learn who won’t be a supporter, which is important. You can also use this HBR article on facilitating small talk as a guide.

I once worked at a small company of about 100 people. I set a mission to meet everyone because I thought it would be fun. Well, I had a lot of awkward conversations. Some people were rude and asked me why I wanted to meet them. I pushed through because even those conversations helped me determine who would be supportive and who I shouldn’t rely on in the future.

Not everyone can be influenced, and that’s okay. You don’t need everyone; you just need a few people. ?

Why a Designer?

As a side note, it might feel weird to set up meetings with people who may wonder why a designer would want to talk to them. I’ve worked with many people who didn’t know what a designer’s job was or how I could be valuable to them. I used these opportunities to share my perspective on the product and start planting seeds to best work together.

Many people still think designers pretty up interfaces and aren’t aware of the many strengths we can bring. That’s a good opportunity to educate and help create awareness for design.

In Conclusion

Developing a network of people to help support your ideas is foundational to executing your projects, visions, and design work. Internal networks enable you to develop relationships, expand influence, and ship projects. In my personal experience, I could execute big projects because I had a large network of people to call on for support. Trust me, if you muster up the courage to meet new people, it will be worth it later.

I’d love to hear from you: How do you currently colleagues from different departments or teams? Let me know in the comments. ????

P.S. Looking for questions you’d like answered about design, working with others, shipping products, scaling products etc? Send me an anonymous question. Ask me anything at https://tinyurl.com/askDiane

?