Symbiosis: the importance of aligning the way of evaluating, measuring, and incentivizing those responsible for the success of the projects.

In previous blogs, we have talked about Symbiosis, which is the close relationship between the Elements in the Upper Layer and the Project Elements. The Elements that make up the Upper Layer are the primary and exclusive responsibility of the company’s top management because they are who ultimately decided on and approved introducing the strategic change in the Organization.

An Element that is repeated in the Project grouping and the Upper Layer is Performance and Incentives. The reason for giving this Element more relevance is that we have observed in our consulting work that the way those responsible for the projects are evaluated, measured, and incentivized is not well structured and, furthermore, it is the least researched of all the 10 Elements in studies on project management. In our research we are looking to determine what happens and what the effects are when the way top management is evaluated and rewarded, with respect to the expected results of a transformation, is not perfectly aligned with what is expected of the project team.

One important consideration is that who finally defines what the expected result of a transformation is, from the moment that the business case is prepared, is this same top management. However, we have seen that in the end the ultimate responsibility over the project results resides principally in the project manager and his team.

It is a fundamental requirement that, to achieve a perfect Symbiosis on a project, the leadership team’s and the project management’s performance indicators and the incentives be perfectly aligned. This should be done to optimize the possibility of the project’s success.