We Agree on the Destination. So why can't we carpool?
I bet many of you remember the stack of paper maps stuffed in the door of your first car. (Mine was a 1971 Chevy Vega. Manual transmission. Red.) State maps. City maps. Heck, even after I moved to NYC, that MTA transit map was always with me.
Today? Anyone under the age of 30 has probably never used a map to get somewhere. “I’ll just GPS it.”
Of course, the move to GPS makes coordinating arrival times to group events easy—right up until the couple bringing the wine has theirs set to "Avoid Highways" while the rest of the group is on "Fastest Route." Same destination. Different routes. And now you'll be parched for quite a while before they finally roll in.
Seems relatively harmless on a Saturday. But in ERP delivery, that same disconnect is one of the biggest margin leaks I see—and it's hiding in plain sight. Transitions. The interfaces between teams. Sales to Delivery. PM to Resource. Solution Architect to Developer. Delivery to Support. Support to Customer Success.
But the one that bleeds the most—and the focus of this piece—is the transition from Sales to Delivery.
How can two such critical teams beelining toward the exact same destination (competitive edge, successful projects, happy customers) end up so off course?
Easy. They are using their departmental GPS exactly as it was designed. In other words, they are doing their jobs.
Most companies are structured to optimize departments. Departments don't create customer value. Organizations do.
Sales optimizes for winning, speed, customer excitement. Delivery optimizes for predictability, risk reduction, execution. Which means that nobody is doing anything wrong. They're just not traveling together.
Same destination. Different navigation systems. Rough interfaces.
Rough interfaces cause friction. Friction creates delay. Delay creates cost. Cost destroys margin.
Keeping with the road trip metaphor, it usually goes something like this:
The Sales team uses Apple Maps. Integrated and collaborative. Modern UI. Clear view of the destination with a mutually acceptable ETA. Deal closes. Win is visible. Everyone’s looking forward to a smooth ride.
The Project Team then plugs that same destination into Google Maps. Uh oh — completely different ETA. Turns out Apple Maps didn’t account for the current traffic conditions, the recent road closures, or the need for an I-Pass.
Meanwhile, the Dev team is running Waze, an app that never met a reroute it didn’t love. Sure, it came in handy when a visit to the “House of Mud” crept into the “must-have” column. But now you’re stuck with Ziggy Marley telling you where to turn and an ETA that’s anyone’s guess.
Same destination. A carful of backseat drivers, each certain theirs is the best route.
The customer doesn’t experience your org chart. They experience your interfaces.
So why do we spend so much time optimizing departments and so little time optimizing the connections between them?
For years, we thought organizational health meant better communication between departments. The problem isn't communication. It's organizational design. Communication asks people to overcome friction. Good organizational design removes the friction in the first place. That's a profound difference.
To achieve operational maturity, we need to adjust at the core.
Sales shouldn’t hand off. They should bolster.
Delivery shouldn’t inherit. They should co-create.
Support shouldn’t be surprised. They should be equipped.
It’s ONE collective team navigating from the same map.
But here's the part nobody wants to hear: you can't buy this. No tool installs it. No template enforces it. One map isn't something you purchase — it's a decision leadership makes, and keeps making, out loud. Because a shared map runs on trust, and trust doesn't come from software.
The partners who pull ahead won't be the ones with the best tools. They'll be the ones designed to empower talented people to create extraordinary customer outcomes.
So where do we start?
We start together: Sales and Delivery Architects align on how projects are scoped and estimated. Mutual respect and collaboration, all the way up through leadership. Zero tolerance for the blame game.
We work the same way: One customer experience regardless of who's driving. Naming conventions, milestones, toll gates, governance. Details matter because consistency builds trust.
We share openly: Information flows to the people who need it to serve the customer—not according to departmental boundaries. Because transparency builds trust, and trust creates flow.
We prioritize the why: We share the context. Customer history, assumptions, trade-offs, commitments, and decisions flow to wherever necessary to elevate outcomes.
We are stewards: We honor the relationships we’ve built by protecting their future. Someone is accountable for the health of every interface before friction becomes failure.
We lead through empowerment. We hire great people. We invest in them. We trust them. We give them one map. Then we get out of their way.
It’s one team, one continuous journey. Eliminate the handoff.
— Let’s elevate! DGM