It has been said that a materials handling improvement project is like some types of chemical reactions. It often needs a catalyst. All the ingredients may be present to bring about change, but the most important element is the change agent, i.e., the Project Champion. A Project Champion can appear at any level in the organization. However, the Project Sponsor, who could also be a Project Champion, is usually a part of upper management with P&L responsibility.
I have met many material handling project champions over the years. They tend to be people who are passionate and enthusiastic about their cause. They are up-to-date on emerging technologies and trends. They have skills like planning, patience, persistence, and a certain amount of discipline and toughness. They have the ability to think creatively and to be innovators, and maybe most important of all, they have a vision of what the completed project will look like. It’s kind of surprising how few people there are that know what the end should look like.
When you think about it, it takes a lot of effort, self-discipline, and as you would imagine, some self-sacrifice to successfully champion a project over the many hurdles one can expect to encounter on the way to realizing the end result. While many people will find that they have some of the qualities needed, a successful project champion would have all or most of the following qualities:
- Common sense and the courage to use it
- Credibility and trust
- The ability to work with teams of people both inside and outside the organization
- A wide range of business knowledge with some general management experience
- The ability to do unstructured work
- Creativity - the ability to custom design processes to meet the goals of the organization
- Self-confidence balanced by humility
- Facilitation skills
- Design skills.
- Coaching skills
- A love of innovation and new ways of doing things
- A spirit of caring
- The ability to inspire others, and bring out the magic within every individual and every team
And, with all of that it doesn’t hurt to have a sense of humor and a sense of fun.
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