When a client hires me to change how work gets done, the first thing I do is put together a team with six skills. Not six people.

We can use a process I’m working with a client on an as example. One of their teams builds out event briefs to prepare executives for the events they attend. Parts of the process are tedious. Parts require judgment. The information lives in different sources. So it takes a lot of time, and because of that it can only be done for the most important events.

Here are the six skills it takes:

1. Decide what’s worth doing. Should we do this work at all? For this team it came up in the context of their goals, so improving it matters to the business, to the team, and to the people who do the work. This skill also decides what needs to be done now, what’s not ready, and what can wait,. You need someone who thinks strategically.

2. Reimagine the work. Who will think of all the different ways this could be done? Sometimes that’s optimizing the process. Other times it’s a completely different way the work could happen. And it’s not always AI. You need someone who’s a bit of a dreamer and isn’t focused on the constraints a reality (we can be a little more delulu, right?)

3. Build it. When the solution doesn’t exist, look for people with the curiosity and resourcefulness to figure out how to build it. You need someone who likes to experiment and tinker.

4. Test it against the real work. The subject matter expert. They provide the requirements and can tell you if the solution actually gets the job done. You need someone who understands the work.

5. See the whole system. The person who sees the work end to end and understands how a change in one part reaches the people downstream, and where risk is created or reduced. They’re thinking about what can go wrong, what needs to be monitored, where the checks and balances are. You need someone who can spot and reduce risk.

6. Bring people along. How do we talk about this? How do we train? How do we document it? You need someone who can communicate with internal and external teams as the work changes.

Sometimes the builder is the subject matter expert. Sometimes the person deciding what’s worth doing is the one reimagining the work. These aren’t necessarily separate people, but they are separate skills, and you need all six when you’re changing how the work is actually done.

Look for these skills in a core group of two or three people (the two pizza rule, iykyk). Any more than that and things slow down: too much process, too many cooks in the kitchen. Maybe up to five once you count the people you consult (think Compliance, if your core group only has a partial view on #5).

This is exactly how I’m working with my client right now. I bring the framework for deciding what’s worth doing, some imagination and the training plan. A senior leader brings the business goals and pain points, and defines how the new workflow gets integrated into work safely. An AI champion builds the solution. And a couple of subject matter experts are informing requirements and testing what’s built. It’s Mellonhead’s “do it with you” approach, and it flexes based on the skills and expertise within each team.

You need the six skills covered. Not necessarily me.

Get those two or three people right and you can change how work gets done at a team level.

This is my list. Is there a skill you’d add?