Books, articles, and blog posts have dealt with the issues of individuals who have contributed to a project and have been overlooked when the awards are passed out. As a result, I will leave this to others to discuss. The issue I want to broach is more personal. The issue I am talking about is similar to the one faced in the Leader's Dilemma that I wrote about in the previous posting. Since I don't want to overuse buzz words, lets just refer to this as the strange case of the award.
Recently, a team that I was participating on was selected for a department award. This award was presented as a result of cross-team collaboration that lead to the successful implementation of a complex data and information portal. This portal is part of a larger nation-wide effort that will provide a mechanism to discover and share public health and environmental data more efficiently.
The unique aspect of this team is that I started out as a team member. However, like many government and small operations, the project manager was expected to not only manage the project, but also undertake much of the development. As this complex project continued to move forward, it became clear to the project manager that he could use additional help. In the end, he approached management about having my assistance, and I was designated as a co-project manager.
With less than 6 months to have a functional portal, the two of us worked together and were able to assemble a highly skilled cross-department team. In the end, not only did the team meet the deadline, but we were also the first state to have a "live" portal on the national network.
Based on this success, a portion of the team was nominated and selected for the Third Quarter Director's Award for Meritorious Team Effort. A really great honor...for those selected. The trouble is that this was a cross team effort. The person nominating the team was unaware of the those who we involved in the effort on both the IT and program side. For example, on the IT side ten individuals were not recognized, including the primary Web designer. This is significant omission.
This presented a dilemma. How could these individuals be recognized for the efforts that they put into the project, even though they were not named in the award? This was handled by focusing on honoring the project. First, emails were sent to each individual on the IT team announcing the award and thanking them for their contributions that made the project a success and helped win the project recognition. Second, the co-project manager and myself invited all of these individuals to a project celebration with snacks provided by us.
Did these actions make up for the omission? I hope so. These individuals were all part of a successful team effort. Without them, the project would have not succeeded. In some small way, I hope that they realize how much they are appreciated.