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Working Together: 12 Principles for Achieving Excellence in Managing Projects, Teams, and Organizations
The Boeing 777 development program is one of the most stirring,successful teamwork projects of the past half century. The commitment and ultimate success of the project team and the principles that have allowed Boeing and other global corporations to plan,execute,and maintain remarkable project success are chronicled for the first time in Working Together. Detailing 12 keys to successful project management as espoused by Boeing's project management guru Alan Mulally,the book offers clear,easy-to-understand guidance for any type of project,in any organization.
Proven Principles for Building Successful Teams in Any Workplace
Working Together reveals for the first time how visionary project manager Alan Mulally was able to mold Boeing's many disparate elements into a well-oiled team one that delivered the revolutionary Boeing 777 both on time and on budget. Built upon Mulally's twelve guiding principles of project management,it provides managers with clear,easy-to-understand guidance for spearheading virtually any type of project,in any organization.
Written by bestselling project management author James P. Lewis,Working Together takes into account both the human and technical sides of business as it tells organizational leaders how to develop:
A clear,uncompromising mission,supported by nonconflicting performance goals Active,ongoing practices for transforming the culture of an organization Reward systems based on cooperation,not competition
The ability to successfully manage a project is one of today's most valuable and sought-after skills. Working Together outlines how any executive can plan,execute,andsustain remarkable project success,achieving desired results while virtually eliminating destructive intrateam conflict.
The Boeing 777 development program is one of the past half-century's most stirring,successful examples of organizational teamwork,and Alan Mulally one of the most celebrated and accomplished project managers. Based on the principles followed by Boeing and Mulally in the 777 project,Working Together provides hands-on details for successfully managing projects,teams,and organizations,and the techniques and strategies that executives and managers can implement to consistently achieve project excellence.
"Working together," Boeing's guiding philosophy,is more than just a program-of-the-month,or a catchy slogan. It represents an integrated set of twelve principles that a company can use to conduct itself,both internally with its employees as well as externally in relation to its customers,suppliers,and community. Each chapter in Working Together works as both a self-contained lesson in leadership and a crucial piece in the development of organizational success,describing:
Clear Performance Goals How to develop goals that go beyond purely financial measures to encompass value drivers including customer and employee satisfaction,innovation,and quality One Plan Methods to construct a coordinated,integrated master plan that is effectively communicated by management with individual functional plans developed to coordinate with it The Value of Data In-depth examination of the possibilities trapped inside data,and how solutions in a project are generally arrived at through facts rather than feelings
In today's technologically complex,logistically challenging global environment,lone wolves generally do not survive long. Working Together outlines a unique,proven system for inspiring teamwork among factions and building a unified whole from distinct and self-contained pieces. For managers of all enterprises from ten employee enterprises to 10,000,the answers it provides are direct,refreshing,and proven effective in some of today's most grueling,competitive project environments.
- GenresBusiness
250 pages, Hardcover
First published September 18, 2001
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January 22, 2022There is no future out there waiting to be discovered. We will create the future through our actions.
Ihave always wanted to contribute to something really important and useful for the people of our world.
As Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography, he worked his entire lifetime to master a set of principles, with humility being one that forever gave him difficulty.
For Mulally, the principles are so important that he begins his weekly business plan review meeting by reviewing the principles with everyone present—a practice that he started during the 777 program. He also ends the meeting by reviewing them.
“What were you thinking when the plane left the ground?” His response was sober. “Well, you’re so engrossed in what you’re doing,” he said, “that you really don’t think about risk. You’re just focused on doing your job.” That made perfect sense to me.
did the whole process simultaneously as well as sequentially
He holds BS and MS degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering
As anyone knows who has spent any time in an organization, most meetings are a fate worse than death
I have been completely around the world twice, visited twenty-six countries, and met thousands of interesting people.
I wondered briefly if the birds were an omen.
As one of the Boeing principles says, “We can’t manage a secret.” Get problems out into the open so that they can be handled.
The engine in a car can affect the performance of the whole, although the glove compartment cannot. The glove compartment is like the appendix in the body—an add-on that is not known to have a function so far as the entire system is concerned.
Not only did companies design products in isolation from their customers, but the throw-it-over-the-wall method of doing things means that they didn’t even cooperate internally!
We also find that many employees compete with each other, rather than cooperating, because they view the world in dog-eat-dog terms. It is based on the scarcity principle that dominates economic thinking. At the personal level, the view is that if each individual doesn’t grab her piece of the pie, the other “dogs” will get it, and she will wind up empty-handed. Unfortunately, there is some truth in this, so the belief is confirmed, and it is very hard to convince people that they could be more successful through internal cooperation than through competition. Their competition should be directed at the other organization, not other members of their own company.
She’s not in our group, so we can’t ask her for help.
I wanted to ask, “Who told you that you were competing with each other? I certainly didn’t.”
If you want cooperation, you must reward cooperation, not competition. For organizations that make use of a lot of teams, part of a person’s rewards must come from contributions to the team and part from individual performance.
They created a shift-to-shift competition. They had a round-the-clock, three-shift operation, and they declared that the team (treating each shift as a big team) that had the highest production for the week would be eligible for a prize. The prize was for every member of the team—together with their significant others—to receive a dinner at a prestigious steak house in the area. Apparently this was a desirable award, because things started humming. People on one team soon realized that if they were to misadjust the machines at the end of their shift so that they wouldn’t run well for the team that followed, this would cost the next team precious time resetting the machines, and give the first team an advantage. When management found out what was happening, they had to make a new rule: To be eligible for the award, the team that followed would have to report that every machine ran well when they came on duty.
Ihave always wanted to contribute to something really important and useful for the people of our world.
As Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography, he worked his entire lifetime to master a set of principles, with humility being one that forever gave him difficulty.
For Mulally, the principles are so important that he begins his weekly business plan review meeting by reviewing the principles with everyone present—a practice that he started during the 777 program. He also ends the meeting by reviewing them.
“What were you thinking when the plane left the ground?” His response was sober. “Well, you’re so engrossed in what you’re doing,” he said, “that you really don’t think about risk. You’re just focused on doing your job.” That made perfect sense to me.
did the whole process simultaneously as well as sequentially
He holds BS and MS degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering
As anyone knows who has spent any time in an organization, most meetings are a fate worse than death
I have been completely around the world twice, visited twenty-six countries, and met thousands of interesting people.
I wondered briefly if the birds were an omen.
As one of the Boeing principles says, “We can’t manage a secret.” Get problems out into the open so that they can be handled.
The engine in a car can affect the performance of the whole, although the glove compartment cannot. The glove compartment is like the appendix in the body—an add-on that is not known to have a function so far as the entire system is concerned.
Not only did companies design products in isolation from their customers, but the throw-it-over-the-wall method of doing things means that they didn’t even cooperate internally!
We also find that many employees compete with each other, rather than cooperating, because they view the world in dog-eat-dog terms. It is based on the scarcity principle that dominates economic thinking. At the personal level, the view is that if each individual doesn’t grab her piece of the pie, the other “dogs” will get it, and she will wind up empty-handed. Unfortunately, there is some truth in this, so the belief is confirmed, and it is very hard to convince people that they could be more successful through internal cooperation than through competition. Their competition should be directed at the other organization, not other members of their own company.
She’s not in our group, so we can’t ask her for help.
I wanted to ask, “Who told you that you were competing with each other? I certainly didn’t.”
If you want cooperation, you must reward cooperation, not competition. For organizations that make use of a lot of teams, part of a person’s rewards must come from contributions to the team and part from individual performance.
They created a shift-to-shift competition. They had a round-the-clock, three-shift operation, and they declared that the team (treating each shift as a big team) that had the highest production for the week would be eligible for a prize. The prize was for every member of the team—together with their significant others—to receive a dinner at a prestigious steak house in the area. Apparently this was a desirable award, because things started humming. People on one team soon realized that if they were to misadjust the machines at the end of their shift so that they wouldn’t run well for the team that followed, this would cost the next team precious time resetting the machines, and give the first team an advantage. When management found out what was happening, they had to make a new rule: To be eligible for the award, the team that followed would have to report that every machine ran well when they came on duty.
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