Why buy in one specialist when three will do?

As organisations grow, the mini ecosystem operating within them become more complex. The management of issues such as process, performance, culture, innovation and change increase in importance and the key challenge becomes balancing the impact of any one on the others.

Each demands a greater understanding and to become a specialist in them all can effectively takes you out of the business for long periods of time. Increasingly the solution is to buy in the expertise required, but that in itself can be a challenge. A process specialist for example may not have the same levels of skill to manage the change and cultural issues that result.

And for the specialists themselves increasingly this is a challenge. They cannot credibly present as an expert across the board despite drawing on the experience of working with a multitude of organisations. Instead the enlightened approach is to draw on the resources of two or three specialists with related but distinct skill sets and bundle them together as a project team for the client business to draw on as appropriate within the project scope and budget.

Growing organisations increasingly call on external assistance with key projects. But not all consider a team rather than an individual.

Guest Blog from CDI Alliance Associate Richard Lukey