What's In A Name?

What is a name? As a noun, it's a word or set of words by which something you can point to is known, addressed, or referred to (e.g. a person, place, or thing). A name can also be a verb or adjective depending upon how you're using it.

In Business Transformation initiatives, or an ERP project, it becomes a unique identifier for stakeholders of your initiative / project to focus on and use as a common reference point. Project plans and documentation all have 'the name' on them. Some organizations go to the extent of creating a logo for the project.

Within these projects / initiatives, you'll likely create teams of people to work on specific processes and technology applications in functional areas such as customer-facing, vendor-facing, planning and execution, finance, quality, etc. Many successful projects have had the groups nominate names based on the theme of the project. One example is a combined ERP / BT project called SOLID. The customer-facing group was known as the SOLID Go-Go's (always chasing new business or answers for customers). The finance group was SOLID CONTROL (surprised?). The execution group was SOLID GIT (Get It Together). I.T. was SOLID Info.

Successful projects also require a variety of CATs (Corrective Action Teams). These cross-functional groups are typically the ones that are driving process re-engineering and the resulting organizational change management (OCM). The VP of Human Resources in one organization recommended that the name of each CAT would be a specific color identifier. The OCM CAT group was white. The I.T. group (data integrity, reporting requirements, etc.) was green. The customer-facing group was yellow. Finance was black (another surprise?) and so on.

The VP acquired some small, hand-sized, cushions in the shape and color of various cats. Each employee that was part of a CAT had one, or more, cat cushions that were displayed on their desks or cubicles. This served two purposes: 1) a physical reminder to the employee of their role in corrective actions; and, 2) all other employees could see which person was a member of a CAT group and could bring relevant suggestions and feedback to the person with the properly colored cat. So, people would refer to a problem, or solution, relating to finance as being a Black Cat action and data integrity issues would be a Green Cat action, etc.

Since each CAT had an executive sponsor, you found the cushions on their desks as well. The CEO's was white.

Naming projects, groups within the project or cross-functional teams creates both focus and a sense of team-based responsibility for success. With the appropriate level of education, the organization becomes more familiar with the overall project, its goals and all of the components required for success. Communications are also enhanced. E.g. "Green Cats find the root cause of invoice issues in the customer master and the Black Cats rejoice!"

What's in a name? Identity, Focus, Teamwork, Recognition and, based on my experience, a greater probability of successful involvement by the stakeholders impacted by your project leading to a high probability of a successful outcome.