Supporting clients by joining their team temporarily

It is common for teams to need support either at the start or end of a project’s life. Firstly, there is the question of staffing: at the launch phase, some positions are not yet filled, and in the end-phase some personnel leave before the project is finished. Moreover, at this point of transition, strategic questions are vital, project coordination is challenging (as procedures have to be structured new or in a different way), and various stakeholders have to be engaged in the process. This often means that the remaining team members are busy firefighting. It is for this reason, that 4Sing sometimes offers its own staff on short-term loan to a client, to fill the gaps, especially where we have helped create the strategy, and hence know the issues and people well.

I just completed such an assignment, where I joined a team at the end of a project cycle in a development agency. The focus was on coordinating the finalisation of the project and handing it over to the local partners. As we usually work with projects only for a short period time, this was a welcome change: it allowed me to delve much more deeply into the topic and to accompany the project intensely over a number of months. And as an added benefit, I learnt a lot more about how the organisation ticks from within!