That's an issue facing three Chicago organizations - 600-physician Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation in Chicago, the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and Northwestern Memorial Hospital - operating a joint data warehouse. The building of an "active directory trust," which is a single place for system users to identify themselves, isn't going so well.
The project has security ramifications, so there's concern among the organizations about whose security policies take precedence, says Dale Sanders, the CIO at Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation. For instance, if a password expires every 90 days at the hospital and every 120 at the group practice, what should be the policy when using the shared data warehouse?
"That project has suffered because we haven't had clear ownership within any organization," Sanders says.
And it's up to him and Tim Zoph, CIO at the hospital, to fix it, he adds. "When our teams struggle with a project, it's usually because Tim and I haven't clearly communicated vision, ownership and timelines. Given the complex organizational structure, it's actually amazing how often we can cooperate successfully."
If a cross-functional team is struggling, it's often because the task is more complicated than envisioned, participants don't understand the vision or the participants have competing priorities, Sanders notes. "It ends up being decisions that people at the front line level don't feel comfortable making but haven't reported to Tim and me. The lower-level troops run into a hurdle they think is above their pay grade to resolve."
But the troops don't want to raise the issue because they aren't sure who to raise it to, or fear they will come across as incapable, so they spin their wheels, he adds. "In a perfect world, we could have more coordination meetings between Tim, myself and our leadership staff. The reality is we do pretty well and execute pretty well."
Top leadership of cross-functional teams must hammer home two reoccurring themes - trust and forgiveness, Sanders asserts. "You can only move as fast as you trust each other. You have to delegate decision making to the front-line troops and trust them. And you need to have a forgiving attitude. These projects are inherently complicated, and they can bring out the true colors in people, good and bad. You have to remember that everyone will stumble and stub their toes."
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