Team leads who spend real time outside the team, briefing senior leaders, securing resources, and defending its mandate, keep the project's backing when priorities shift.
An example
Security work was crowding the roadmap at an enterprise software company, and two teams had lost headcount in the last planning cycle, when the lead of a seven-person team building a new analytics module changed how she spent her week. She set up a monthly fifteen-minute update with the chief product officer, sent a one-page progress note to the sales leaders whose customers had asked for the module, and went to the quarterly planning meeting herself, with a slide on customer demand. In the next cycle a third team's budget was cut; hers kept its headcount, and the chief product officer cited the sales leaders' requests in the decision. Her engineers had complained at first that she was never at standup. She handed standup to a senior engineer and kept the outside work.
Why it works
A team that works only inward can be excellent and still lose its backing when priorities shift, because the people who decide never hear about it. Time spent managing upward, briefing sponsors, lobbying for resources, and defending the mandate keeps the project visible to them, so its case looks better and its resources are easier to keep. Teams that do more of this outside work tend to perform better. It depends on the lead delegating the inside work and keeping the updates honest.
The thinking behind it
Deborah G. Ancona Bridging the Boundary: External Activity and Performance in Organizational Teams (1992), by Ancona and Caldwell, studied 45 new-product teams and found them engaging in what the authors call ambassador activity, communication aimed at molding the views of top management, along with coordination and scanning. A team lead who briefs the product chief and the sales leaders is doing that ambassador work.
David F. Caldwell The same study, Bridging the Boundary: External Activity and Performance in Organizational Teams, found that the type of external activity, as well as its amount, predicted performance, and teams with a comprehensive external strategy did best over time. A lead who manages upward and also keeps sales informed is running that broader strategy, which helps explain why her team kept its headcount when another lost it.
When it fits
Team leads whose projects depend on resources, priorities, or sponsors outside the team need it, especially where priorities change often. You need a deputy who can run the team day to day, access to senior people, and progress worth reporting.
How to use it well
Work out who outside the team decides your resources and priorities, and who depends on your work.
- Set a regular, short update with the senior sponsor, and ask what they need to hear to keep backing the work.
- Brief the people whose customers or work benefit, so they can speak for the project.
- Attend the planning meetings that decide your budget, with evidence of demand.
- Delegate the day-to-day running of the team to a capable deputy.
Keep the updates honest, bad news included. A sponsor surprised by a slip stops trusting the good news.
What it costs and where it backfires
Time outside is time away from the team, and members may feel neglected or resent a lead who seems more interested in being seen. If the outside story runs ahead of the work, the gap will show. The clean form ends where you overstate progress to protect the budget; then the updates are false records.
When it is used on you
Make your own team's work visible to the people who decide, with evidence, when a rival team keeps its resources because its lead is always in front of senior people. If you set budgets, ask every team for the same evidence of demand and results, so that visibility cannot stand in for performance.