I was recently engaged to a task force work related to a new product that our company needed to get out to the customers fast. One of our permanent teams had been implementing the product among the other features and requests. The problem was that they were not able to implement it fully without other teams help, knowledge and skills. Based on these findings we formed a task force and learned a lot during that time!
Things that should be considered before you kick off your task force:
- Decide that do you need a permanent team or a temporary task force
- Get a proper space where task force could fit in and work efficiently
- Form and define initial goal and scope why task force exists
- Identify dependencies and relationships to other parties
- Define working practices
- Describe life after task force work
Our ride was fun but also frustrating because of missing these points out in the first place. It also took almost six times that was initially reserved for it while task force existence was extended multiple times.