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PMO: People, Measures, Objectives

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 12:50:30 GMT

Getting PMO governance right

Look for the warning signs

First, you need to be aware that your PMO is struggling. Ask yourself where you are seeing poor outcomes. Typical warning signs of poor PMO governance include:

Deadlines slipping, which might mean the risk of missing punitive TSA deadlines rocketing
Programme leaders are frustrated by poor quality information which stifles decision making… and/or…
Programme delivery is being weighed down by excessive and irrelevant reporting needs, which has often grown by layer-upon-layer requests for information
Programme objectives are being forgotten in a never-ending carousel of meetings with unclear objectives or outcomes
The PMO is perceived as a policing service rather than as a delivery-enabling service
Your governance team is high on potential but low on real experience

Identify the root causes

Having identified the symptoms, look forensically for the causes. Review the processes, behaviours and structures of the governance function to see where the problems are emanating from. Examples of questions to ask here include:

1. Is it the people? Perhaps there are people without the necessary experience or commitment? Possibly their mindset or approach is detrimental to success? Perhaps their habitual unconscious behaviours are causing the problems?

2. If there are TSAs, what are the required deliverables? When are these required? What needs to happen in sequence for this to be achieved?

3. Is it the communication? Do we have meetings we don’t need? Do some meetings duplicate or overlap? Do we have the right people present in the meetings, every time? What meetings can we remove to make more time?

4. What’s lacking in the information we need for decisions? Is it the content? Is it raw data or managed information? Is it the timing? Is it a can’t-see-the-wood-for-the-trees problem caused by too much information? Have the decision-makers made clear to the information-providers what they need?

5. Does everyone know their objectives – today, this week, this year? Have we been clear on deadlines? Does everyone know what simple KPIs they are expected to meet?

6. Is it the culture? Is there a sense of urgency? Is there proactivity, collaboration, ownership, positivity?

Create an Action Plan

Your plan will quite obviously be based on your analysis, but will typically include:

a. People . Who’s leading: and who SHOULD lead? What is everyone’s clearly-defined role? What does each person need to learn about delivery in order to be more effective? How will we develop a team ethos? How will the team change as the Programme progresses?

b. Communication . What communication methods will we need for this Programme? From Town Halls to individual coaching, from interactive to instructional: and a smorgasbord of Backlogs, Stand-Ups, Kanbans, Scrums, Sprints. You need to decide which methods offer most value. But don’t forget that communication is not just a one-way process, top down. Ensure you listen too! So your comms channels must genuinely demonstrate two-way flows.

c. Streamlining . What governance interventions can be removed because they are not immediately justified by outputs or outcomes? What are we doing that’s admin for the sake of it? But conversely, what do we need to keep in order to maintain genuine oversight? Do we need e.g. an Architecture Board, a Change Board? What will their Terms of Reference be to ensure that responsibilities and accountabilities are clearly given and accepted?

d. Critical path . What are the major milestones that have to be achieved? What do these look like when arranged in a timeline? Who owns each one? What stage-gate checks will we need? This part of assessment and planning will typically reveal surprises - the unknown sand-traps that hurt programme delivery. We often find that major milestones have unclear ownership and that timelines do not work.

e. Reporting . How should progress and workstreams be reported? How can we report in a way that means everyone has to document and item of relevant information only once in any given report cycle? How can we collate and re-use the same information for upward reporting without manually re-editing? What guidance will we give Project Managers on communicating clearly? What will we have as KPIs so that all relevant stakeholders get the right information when it is needed?

Yes, that’s a lot of questions. But with clear thinking, answers here will transform a creaky PMO from Pressure, Muddle and Overlap to a productive and calm environment based on People, Measures and Objectives.

DIY ERP: are you sure?

Fri, 09 May 2025 10:16:24 GMT

Many companies initially believe they can handle complex ERP implementations internally. After all, who knows their business better? Grant du Preez of Ignition Transformation looks at what to consider before deciding to go it alone: and he’s a guy who’s seen all the elephant-traps. He advises:

Don’t underestimate how complicated it will be

Enterprise Resource Planning implementations are challenging under normal circumstances. When layered onto major business transformations like carve-outs or mergers, they become exponentially more complex. These scenarios introduce unique challenges, such as:

· Multiple legacy systems that must be harmonised

· Interdependent business processes needing careful redesign

· Data migration requiring deep technical expertise

· Compressed timelines driven by business imperatives

· Organisational resistance amid broader change

And all that is needed simultaneously…

At best you might see missed business opportunities if you can’t make the speed: at worst, you’ll spend too much or possibly even see a failed implementation.

Remember Transition Service Agreements (TSAs) are real rules

TSAs present some of the most significant challenges during carve-outs and acquisitions. These agreements typically impose strict and legally-binding deadlines for transitioning from parent company systems. There are substantial financial penalties for delays. Hard cash.

To work within TSAs, you will need:

· Proven strategies for meeting TSA deadlines

· Templates for identifying and prioritising critical path items

· Tactics for negotiating more favourable terms when necessary

· Experience balancing short-term TSA requirements with long-term system needs

It’s a Matterhorn-steep learning curve if you haven’t done it before.

Make sure you have just one source of truth

During business transformations, competing narratives inevitably emerge. Typically, there are strands on requirements, data structures, and implementation approaches. It soon becomes 3D chess. You will need to establish what we call a "single source of truth" – authoritative references for decisions that prevent revisiting settled issues. This includes:

· Documented design decisions with clear ownership

· Master data governance frameworks

· Process models validated by business owners

· Requirements traceability matrices

Without this discipline, projects often circle Heathrow, cycling through the same decisions repeatedly, wasting valuable time and resources.

You need to know what’s going on

You will need complete transparency across all aspects of an ERP programme. Every day, you have to be in a position to give your stakeholders an unvarnished view of:

· Project status against critical milestones

· Resource allocation and utilisation

· Emerging risks and mitigation strategies

· Budget consumption and projections

This transparency creates accountability and enables early intervention when issues arise. But it can’t be a hefty administrative burden that slows progress.

Get the top corridor on board

You will need to secure the right level of commitment from organisational leadership and key stakeholders. You will have to be clear about the specific involvement needed at different stages. Most importantly, you will need to be listened-to when you communicate these needs to busy executives.

Executive steering committees, dedicated business process owners and carefully structured sign-off procedures will help ensure decisions are made by the right people at the right time. Without this orchestration, ERP implementations often stall waiting for critical decisions or proceed with insufficient business input.

Remember DIY may only LOOK like the cheaper option

Whilst engaging experienced consultants requires investment, the return is substantial. Looking at dozens of implementations we've led or observed, those with experienced consultants consistently:

· Complete on time or with minimal delays

· Stay closer to budgeted costs

· Deliver more of the promised business benefits

· Create less disruption to ongoing operations

Organisations embarking on ERP transformations during carve-outs, mergers, or other significant business changes face a choice: invest in experienced guidance upfront or pay far more in delays, overruns, and missed opportunities later.

DIY-er, beware!

Raw transparency, delivered deadlines and collaborative ownership

Wed, 07 May 2025 08:12:49 GMT

Five questions to ask providers of business transformation programmes

You’ve made an acquisition. You’ve got a value creation plan. You now need to execute on it. So how do you select the right supplier to transform what you’ve bought in the time you have?

Mark Aikman of Ignition Transformation specialises in global high-risk separations and integrations. He suggests finding a supplier that works to your agenda by asking the following five questions:

1. How will you give me insights on which I can base my decisions with confidence?

Faced with this question, a typical response will be to go straight to detail on data and dashboards.

However, a much more compelling answer is one based on the supplier’s concept of information. A truly useful supplier will evidence an attitude of permanent raw transparency, offering 100% honesty at all times. If you are assured this is the supplier’s operating style, you can know that you are always in possession of the real facts (however unpalatable), coming from one version of the truth. You can trust that your information is reliable and that there will be no awkward surprises further on. Therefore, you can trust the supplier.

2. What’s your methodology?

Every supplier likes to prove they’ve done this before. To give the illusion of trustworthiness and experience, many will evidence this by describing their failsafe methodology. Beware.

It is not possible to apply a fixed methodology to all transformations – or even to, say, all carve-outs. There is never an exact duplication of circumstances. And even if there appears to be strong similarity to a previous project at the start, circumstances change as programmes progress.

So look for a supplier with a proven framework and excellent governance practices, certainly. But choose one who can demonstrate the adaptability of their method or plan for an infinite variety of circumstances. Ask for case studies and examples of pivots.

3. What would your last three clients say about you and TSAs?

TSAs are always real rules. Yet some providers view them simply as helpful suggestions with elasticity or negotiability.

Look for a supplier with a proven record of delivering to TSAs. Ideally, suppliers who are used to short project windows or have delivered to extremely tight deadlines will be the most mindful of the need for speed coupled to thoroughness. Ask for references.

4. What will our relationship be?

Answers here will fall on a spectrum characterised from “you can sit back, relax and enjoy the ride” to “we’ll be on the phone every 12 minutes.”

You need an answer that isn’t based on frequency of contact or customer service, but on collaborative ownership. A good supplier will deal with all the minor decisions and implementation activities without your involvement. But they will also bring forward any significant issues or changes, accompanied by a choice of solutions and the rationale supporting each one. This way, you retain control and oversight but with the freedom to trust the supplier to progress the programme.

5. When will you walk?

A weaker supplier makes the mistake of over-reassurance. They will offer to stay until you’re entirely satisfied that there’s nothing left to do or check. That’s expensive.

The best answer here is that your supplier will cease their involvement at the exact moment they become more cost than value. The best suppliers never outstay their welcome.

And on that note: goodnight!

I don't need to see your workings-out

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 06:24:08 GMT

How to write reports that busy people will read

Reports. We need them to show how we’re doing. After all, that’s exactly what good governance is about. But holy guacamole, let’s get smart about it, eh?

Far too often, I see reports that tell me the inside leg measurement of last Wednesday’s cheese grater. Layer upon layer of detail, which look like the author is answering the brief “Write down everything you know about Topic X”. That’s not what I need as Programme Lead. Instead, I need to know anything that’s remarkable or concerning. Anything that’s where it should be is a given: so don’t bother telling me that there’s nothing to see here, whilst telling me what there is to see.

Therefore, my four tips for report writers who want to impress busy readers are:

1. Remember you’re trusted

Most over-detailed reports come from people who are covering the rear. They include everything about their project, so they’ll be able to prove they told-you-so if something goes wrong later. Some people even include all the guff because they’re not sure if they’ve spotted all the anomalies, and they’re using the reader as a safety net to catch anything they’ve missed.

But in a team built on trust, operating in a no-blame culture, this is entirely unnecessary. Report authors are trusted to spot what matters – and won’t be put in the Tower if they miss a bit. Therefore, the author’s view of what’s important is all that matters. And the reader doesn’t need to see all the workings-out.

2. The key skill is stating the key fact

For reports to be effective and helpful for busy readers, they need to be succinct. Just the key facts that the recipient will need to base decisions on. So, to edit what to put in and leave out, authors can ask themselves three crucial questions:

What are the critical ELEMENTS of this project at present – and of those, what’s wobbly or bubbly?
What’s the reader’s OBJECTIVE when reading this report – what do they want to get out of it?
What’s the reader going to DO with this report?

Those answers will help hugely in only selecting key facts issues to mention – whatever matters most to the project’s and the reader’s focus. If in doubt: ask the reader!

3. The exception is the rule

Less is very definitely more.

Everything that’s as it should be is … absolutely not newsworthy. So make sure your reports cover the exceptions only. Those include what’s interesting, such as items that are ahead of schedule, or below budget, all located in the good news bucket. Or items that are challenging us now – or MAY BECOME challenges in the future - which can go in the other part of the report: The Needs Attention Section.

4. Communicate without words

Finally. It doesn’t have to be a lot of words. Or a lot of numbers. Indeed, a lot of words/numbers take time and effort from a busy reader and significantly reduce the author’s chances that the item will even be read at all. Consider using graphics to convey content more succinctly.

As an example, think about pie-charts. Think how many words it will take to communicate the value of all the pie “slices”, comparative to each other, shown on a pie-chart. Then think how much quicker and more emphatic a pie-chart is in conveying the relationships between slices and you will then never write a comparative description of proportions in words again. Or how about a traffic light graphic – red, amber or green for going well, OK or there-may-be-trouble-ahead? Or maybe up, sideways and down arrows? ANYTHING, as long as it’s not eight pages of words describing the same things you wrote about last month!

Natural selection

Mon, 07 Mar 2022 10:55:19 GMT

Thanks to our good friends at Future Processing for inviting us to make a guest appearance! On their blog, I've shared some ideas about what to consider in order to get best-fit suppliers:
https://www.future-processing.com/blog/selecting-a-supplier-natural-selection/

Control less to achieve more

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 12:32:20 GMT

Partnership working. It’s been around in other business disciplines for decades, but weirdly in IT, we seem very reluctant to fully embrace it. We seem to be stuck with the paradigm that, as programme owner or client, it’s our responsibility to be the only Superhero who can solve the problem. Once we’ve identified the Plan, we can then bring in and control suppliers to deliver it. Under strict instruction and close scrutiny, naturally.

I strongly disagree with this approach. The CIO or programme lead is never the World’s Expert In Everything. Other subject matter experts in our industry – true, talented specialists - will always know more than I do about their topic. So I’m entirely prepared to ask them for their advice, and then work with them as a partner, rather than as their master.

I have three key ideas for developing a productive partnership with true experts:

1. Partner early

When Chief Marketing Officers brief an advertising agency for a TV commercial, they don’t tell the creative team which actors to use or what the background music should be. They simply state the required communication outcome for the brand. But when some CIOs have a required outcome, they feel they need to specify the exact solutions, products and suppliers required, before ever involving a provider. And many go straight to specifying solutions without ever fully developing a fully-laid-out strategy.

This really is a missed opportunity. It is highly likely that a talented partner with the appropriate skills will be much more adept at selecting the best solution than the CIO. So Tip 1 is: involve that partner early enough – when you’re still bringing together the problem statement. A high-quality partner will be really useful in getting to the specifics of the problem – and may well know more about the choice of solutions open to you. The partner will bring a wide knowledge of previous projects like yours and will know what works best in which circumstances.

Bear in mind that this partner is not necessarily a vendor. There are a growing number of IT strategy and solution advisers who have experience of the products in our marketplace, but no vested interest in any particular ERP, security or communication platform.

2. Partner intellectually

Real partners are on the same page. Both parties want a successful outcome and want the solution to be the very best it can be. They have a shared vision of success.

It’s worth spending some time agreeing what success will look like. This includes timescales and content – just as you usually agree – but might also include ownership of intellectual property or any ambitions by both parties to break new ground.

Shake hands on it. Then take a deep breath, gather all your courage: and choose to TRUST these people to deliver. I have invariably found that when I offer trust, and listen open-mindedly to the partner’s ideas, they have delivered fairly – and usually more than generously – against their contracted obligations. Conflicts are rare when everyone feels they’re getting a fair deal and communication is between equals.

Once you are partnering with vendors, listen to their advice. If they are invested in your shared vision, they will only offer your routes and options that will achieve the vision. It’s not in their interests to sell you stuff you don’t need, because it IS in their interests for your trust and your partnership to continue. The bright ones understand that it’s wise not to irritate you by over-stuffing the package.

3. Partner practically

Partnering is not just about the bosses slapping each other on the back and going out for a curry! The partnership must be reflected practically and at all levels in the programme team. One of my all-time favourite examples of this was when working with Future Processing on a highly sensitive and complex transformation.

We were very keen to avoid “us and them” or “master-slave” relationships. Future Processing had some great ideas for solutions, but the client also needed in-house expertise and ownership for the longer term. So we simply mixed it up. We used shared ownership of the programme workstreams, with some strands lead by the partner team, and others by a member of the client team. We then created hybrid teams for each workstream, combining representatives of both organisations. Any “two tribes” perceptions were immediately eliminated, with everyone concentrating solely on delivering an excellent outcome for their workstream. Colleagues worked together in person and online, at high speed.

I firmly believe that working in partnership creates better solutions than the command-and-control model. But partnership working demands that we trust good suppliers. That’s not a problem for me. I believe that really good people will not rip us off – because it’s not in their own best interests. They know that under-delivery or over-selling means they’ll never get a second contract; a reference; a referral; a boost to their brand; or another project when this CIO moves jobs. Good people are smart enough to have worked out the importance of delivering fair value to the continuation of their brand and their business.

So trust them! Because true partnership working gives us enhanced productivity; cleverer solutions; new skills and satisfying work for our teams; and some genuine friendships. And that, as I learned from Future Processing , is pronounced “przyjazn”!

Taking the challenge out of change

Tue, 07 Sep 2021 12:42:56 GMT

People don’t like change. And internal change-resistance across an organisation is one of the biggest barriers to success in a transformation programme. Resistance starts in the form of denial (“it’s fine how it is”); includes obliviousness (“if I don’t engage, it won’t really be happening”); and builds all the way along the spectrum towards downright guerrilla warfare.

For me, though, it’s not as broad-brush-simple as “people don’t like change”. I believe there are nuances within change-resistance, and each of these has to be approached with different persuasive arguments. Just take these three as examples:

Change as inconvenience: Many organisations run systems and processes that can only be described as fancy-pants ornate. These processes have often been developed over many years, with adaptations and add-ons, fiddly bits and filigree finials. They’re complex: BUT to their users, they are familiar. Paradoxically, for those people operating these truly daft processes they are easy, in that they can be completed without thinking, just by following the comfortable old routine.

Consequently, a shiny new streamlined process is initially highly unattractive. It will need to be learned and will demand careful thought to complete it, with regular checks of the manual. It will take longer to execute than the old-slippers version. No thanks, not necessary.

Happily, in this situation, it’s usually the case that the process users are quickly converted, just by using a good old-fashioned mix of proof, encouragement and insistence. This is because this type of objection is in fact one of the more logical ones.

First, you’ll need to prove-it, demonstrating how the new process includes everything that was necessary in the old one. Then, train them well, getting them used to it and having plenty of on-hand encouragement from super-users as they go live. And finally, push on through. Don’t give in to arguments that we need to go back to the old system, because, because, because. You’ll need your Executive Sponsor primed on this, making sure that the affected HoDs can’t bend any senior ears.

It usually only takes a couple of weeks’ encouragement and insistence, and then this lot are through the change curve and climbing rapidly up the other side…

Change as insult: This one is trickier. It’s the change-resistance that happens when a person who perceives themselves to be the owner of a process or system feels that a proposed change is a criticism of how they have been working to date. When the transformation team suggests that a process or system needs to change, the self-styled owner takes umbrage, hearing in that suggestion anything from “you’re out of touch with what new technology can do”; through “you haven’t put enough effort into evolving this”; to “you don’t know what you’re doing”.

And yes, that’s a highly emotional response to what was a helpful and logical suggestion. Typical behaviour in these situations is for the owner to firmly resist the suggested changes, defending every aspect of the current way of doing things. The resistor believes they are saving face by doing this.

You will therefore need patience and slow-burn gentle persuasion. You will need to allow the perceived-owner time to climb down from their high horse. This person needs to re-establish their self-esteem by being part of the “re-design” of your idea.

First, insist on implementing the inevitable bits of the change that are non-negotiable – for example, if the entire organisation is changing its ERP system or migrating to the Cloud. Work one-on-one with the owner to agree how their stuff can fit with this new obligation. As you do this, build their trust in your knowledge and start to become an ally rather than a threat – e.g. use the language-of-you, such as “how we get the new system to work for you” or “I’ll show you the options and you can select the one that will work best”.

Most people soften-up with this approach. And very soon, they start to see how they can once again be the owner – but this time, the owner of the new version of their system or process. They begin to contribute ideas, and more importantly, accept your advice on how changes can be implemented. With patience, you can implement exactly the same revised process or system you initially proposed, but this time with the owner not only on board, but believing themselves to be driving…

Change as risk of failure : This is one of the toughest to handle. It’s resistance based on the perception that “we/I am not currently failing: therefore, it will be better to change nothing, just in case it causes my/our performance to apparently decline.”

It comes in two forms – corporate and personal.

Corporate is arguably the easier one to handle. It usually goes along the lines of “we’re currently doing OK, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. It can be countered with a strong business case for the change, presented to the C-suite by a persuasive Executive Sponsor. Your job is just to work on the spreadsheets and identify the argument for gains-to-be-made versus risk. Usually, it’s enough to use a logical argument with people who are obliged by rank to behave logically.

Personal resistance is tougher. This occurs when the rejection of change is based on the fear of personal failure. Trouble is, people very rarely state openly that this is what’s bothering them. Individuals give “good reasons” rather than “real reasons” in these circumstances. So instead of saying “I believe I will find it difficult and frightening to work with completely new methods” they say, “That’ll never work, because…”.

The trick is to assume from the start that everyone is scared of failing. Then, you can make personal failure appear unlikely. That includes building-in familiarity, such as making the user-interface very similar to the one people already use. It includes programme-long and plausible communication on how the new process/system will include soft-landing mitigations; training and continuing support; and a no-blame ethos. And it includes really meaning and living all the stuff in the previous sentence!

As change lead, other people’s lack of confidence is always your problem, not theirs. So everything you do must be designed to build their trust that you don’t want them to/won’t let them fail. You have to be encouragement personified…

If your organisation is undergoing change and perhaps meeting with resistance, Ignition Transformation can help. We have guidance for post-pandemic change programmes:

https://www.ignitiontransformation.co.uk/post-pandemic-transformation

as well as experts who will help you analyse and address people-issues:

https://www.ignitiontransformation.co.uk/solutions-people

The end of the beginning

Tue, 10 Aug 2021 09:02:24 GMT

Moving from development to support

When it comes to ending a transformation programme, it’s the little things that matter. As you transition from development to support, you are highly likely to be focused on the big stuff that needs to be tweaked/fixed/polished/delivered. But you’ll also need to keep an eye out for the twiddly bits on your clipboard with the Monumental Checklist of Things We Mustn’t Forget. It’s usually the little bits that make all the difference.

What are they, then? For me, there are six strands of activity you need to think about for transition. And within those, there are few easy-to-forget things that it’s essential to remember….

1. Don’t skimp on the communication

Everybody involved now needs to hear one more time the current position/destination/route/steps/ timing/etc, etc, etc. Interestingly, the communications piece here is often more straightforward than it has been at many previous stages - finally, after all these years, you’re seeing concrete reality approaching. Hallelujah – cue flags, bunting and a modestly-sized brass band. So go for your life with your Directorial Briefing Packs, customer interface seminars, staff countdown newsletters… whatever you think needs communicating.

But don’t forget the points-to-note reminders – which are very often about process change. For example, Eric will have been told that the report he usually runs on a Monday will now be out on a Tuesday and in a different format. But it’s wise to remind him and prepare him for the change now, a little way out, so that it is expected and more-normaller when it comes.

2. This is not just engagement; it’s active engagement

Yes, you’ve told everyone everything they need to know. At least twice. But for years, your project has been conceptual and a-long-way-in-the-future. Now it’s coming to life.

So the next consideration is to check everyone who matters – and that might be almost everyone involved – is actively engaged with this project. You need everyone switching on their full wattage to share knowledge and believe this now involves them. So for example:

BAU needs to be involved super-early, months before the go-live. Their processes work well now and they’ll have been involved in designing the new processes, but let’s get them thinking about all the ramifications of the new processes. They’ll spot problems, but they’ll also have ideas and solutions, ensuring accidents don’t happen.

Or take training. Of course you’ve thought of training. But here’s an idea - what might be done now to make all system users responsible for their own learning about the new system, so that they are, er, obliged to be actively engaged?

3. The dress rehearsal

Of course you’ll be chewing your way through ITIL – the giant ITIL manual on transition is taken as read. Implementing the prescribed steps and checks will avert most disasters.

But there’s always something that any amount of checks cannot avoid. So it’s cue spotlights: full dress rehearsal time. You’ll need costumes, props, and everyone knowing their lines. You need to involve key stakeholders, power-users and all the kit. You need the run-through to check what’s (not) working, what’s (not) connecting, and what’s fallen through the gap in the floorboards and cannot be prised out even with the breadknife and a bent coathanger.

Alongside that is remembering to check that there are the right resources in place to be able to cope, e.g. in BAU. Or whether in fact you need sign-off on more resources, followed by high-speed hiring and up-to-speeding. And, er, who’s going to do that?

You’ll also need to remember to tell everyone what we’ve got in the cupboard – what’s the service catalogue of all the offerings within the new system? And what’s the knowledge-base – how will system users find out the answers to their questions? Who can help them with what types of queries?

4. Prepare for problems

I think it’s easy to avoid preparing for a problem. We don’t forget about this, but we Transformers don’t like telling the sponsor/client that something might go wrong – it tends to make people a touch antsy. We also like to believe we’ve thought of everything (we write long lists on clipboards, you know, to be sure). But in fact, back in the real world, however much thought and innovation and testing and care we’ve used, the system ain’t going to be Grade AAA+ Class 1 perfect when it launches. With a lot of care and a bit of luck, any problems will have the status of snags and hiccups. But even these are still A Problem.

If A Problem happens, you’re aiming to score zero on the Headless Chicken Scale. You’ll need to be instantly prepared so that you know whose problem it is; and what they’re going to do about it.

That means you need to remember to create and discuss a Problem Escalation Protocol, which states at precisely what level the issue is the responsibility of the CIO; the Programme Sponsor; the Board and the CEO. Think of “discussing discomfort” as an essential part of your communication campaign and it might be a bit easier to talk about it…

5. Perfection is a work in progress

Despite all the above anticipatory thinking, you’re going to need a second edition of the new system far sooner than you’d planned. It’ll become clear on Day 2 that some stuff isn’t quite perfect. In fact, you probably already know some of the stuff that’s going into the Second Edition before launch.

Therefore, before you launch, you’re going to need a plan to fix all the stuff that wasn’t quite 100% by the time you went live. With space in it for the stuff you then found out didn’t meet the users’ expectations. Which means you need a plan for the second release date, even before you start…. Oh, and that means you’re straight back in development, and needing another delivery plan, too. Launch is the end of the first journey and the start of the second journey. Don’t forget to put that in big letters in your communications’ campaign.

Carry lessons over for the next time. Especially in multi-point/stage transformations, you will need constant objective assessments of lessons learned at every stage. In the relief of getting the ruddy thing out of the door, don’t forget to learn, review and change it for next for time. Once again, there’s no shame in not being perfect the first time – but shame on you if you make the same mistake twice.

6. It’s the little things…

And finally: don’t forget the printers – or whatever peripheral matter it is that you’ve probably forgotten, because smart people forget simple things. You need to check your fangle-dangle new system is configured so it speaks to the printers, or fits on the desks, or recognises the passwords, or isn’t scheduled to launch on Easter Monday.

The best way to do this is to ask a nice realistic person who has had nothing to do with the project to give you some suggestions of where their capable-but-IT-amateur eye thinks it might go wrong. They’ll be far more likely to spot the schoolboy error than you will from your ivory tower on the eighth floor.

This is an extract from Mark Aikman’s book Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

Pandemic pivoting support

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 13:12:04 GMT

Survive and thrive

So, the nightclubs are open and we’re on the last lap of the pandemic. Hmm… well, let’s see about that.

But undeniably, we’re in a world where so many organisations have needed to pivot because of the external influences on their business – from radically changed customer behaviour; to new market-entrants using alternative business models; to revolutionised working practices and leadership expectations.

If your business is pivoting to the point of pirouetting, Ignition Transformation may well be able to help. We have business transformation support for revising your strategy; changing your business model; re-engineering your technology; and sorting out your people. There’s no need to travel solo - see:

https://www.ignitiontransformation.co.uk/post-pandemic-transformation

How to lead when it all goes horribly wrong

Thu, 08 Jul 2021 11:54:01 GMT

Last week I looked at early-stage setbacks transformation which tend to centre on failure to engage buy-in – and cash – from the Executive.

Mid-stage setbacks tend to centre on lots-of-little-things-not-working – and plain old fatigue. You know how it is, when everything you thought was going to work… just doesn’t. I’d say this is when the Transformation Lead needs positive resilience the most; along with the ability to front-up to disasters and setbacks. Kipling and all that (Rudyard, I mean: I’m not advising getting a lot of cakes in).

You will need to develop a three-way personality split: the ability to move between three different leadership styles. You’ll need to assume the right personality for the task in hand throughout the programme – depending on what type of thing has gone wrong.

First up is:

The relationship manager

This is the approach you’ll need to use with the project sponsor, usually the Board and/or the senior management team. It’s a tricky one to get right because, in a crisis, the sponsor needs to be told at once that there is a crisis. And that sponsor sure ain’t gonna like it. So in relationship-manager mode, it’s your job to make sure the sponsor first really understands the problem. What precisely is wrong, and what are the implications of that? Then, once everyone has stopped running around the room screaming, you need to make sure the senior team members all believe that the problem can be solved. As the shouting stops, and the emotional temperature begins to steady, you then need to get their permission to solve the problem; and to give reassurance that this can be made to happen. That’s quite a journey to take people on: only relationship-managing gets a result with the sponsor, I’ve found.

Then:

Command-and-control

On the walk back down the stairs from the top floor to the Transformation Team office, you’ll need to morph into command-and-control mode. This does not mean you need to take a deep breath, ready to start shouting. It means you need to accept and own the problem. And want to direct the solution. And develop a coherent plan to fix it.

I believe that a crisis is not a problem that you should swiftly and neatly give away to a giant multinational provider, assuring everyone that it’s best if the Big Boys come in with all their bells and whistles. For me, you need to keep ownership in-house, with the solution being developed where you can keep an eye on it, under your control. That said, this is not a time to save a few quid, either.

If your crisis is large, you need to throw your best resources at it. That means hand-picking the most able, innovative and collaborative team you can get your paws on (and by the way, that usually includes the best lawyers). And you’ll need decent capacity levels, too. By being decisive and confident at this stage, everyone around you will feel reassured we’ve got this.

Once you’ve got the team lined up, swap back into relationship-manager gear. Your role is now to make this team believe the problem can be solved; and that they can solve it. You’ll need to create a positive atmosphere; you know, the one which has been slipping away from the team in the last few weeks of increasing gloom or frustration. You need them enthusiastic and energised if you want them to be creative and innovative. These people need to know that they can do the impossible. By next Tuesday.

Then, you will then need a final quick-change into a third type of leader:

The trendy Richard Branson-ish one

This is the “empowerer”: the one that devolves decision-making and accountability. Yes, sure, you OWN the problem, but David Brent-style my-way-or-the-highway is no way to get the best out of talented team members. So tell everyone they can make any decisions that fit with their remit and their recognised skill and judgement. Encourage solutions that don’t follow well-trodden paths, if these will fix the job. And give credit for those lightbulb ideas that really move the project on. The team members will all then do their bit to solve the problem for you…

This is based on an extract from Mark Aikman’s book Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

The Golden Half Hour

Thu, 01 Jul 2021 13:11:00 GMT

How do you have better and/or fewer meetings?

You have a really decisive meeting first.

As a Transformation Programme Lead, I worked out years ago that the biggest drag on progress is talking too long without taking a decision. This is an activity commonly known as “a meeting”.

Poor-quality meetings circle the subject; peer at it from all angles; and then run out of time before agreeing anything that moves stuff along. In Programme Leadership, the very worst place for this to happen is the day-planning stand-up meeting: the Golden Half Hour. Because if you don’t have everything decided within the 30 minutes, it means you’re going to need more meetings today. Joy unconfined….

Consequently, all those years ago, I realised the best option was to take all the day’s decisions there and then. Just choose. Then everyone can leave the room with the ability to move things along, immediately.

In the subsequent years. I’ve noticed three very interesting by-products of this approach:

If many Programme decisions are made with the full team present, everyone gets a better picture of the direction of travel. And there’s little need to spend time on just-to-fill-you-in communications.

Seeing decisions being scoped and taken gives everyone a better understanding of the Programme rationale and ethos. As a result, people go on to take their own decisions consistently, within these parameters.

Team members absorb the importance of decisiveness. They see that no blame is attached to a decision that later needs to be reversed. Therefore, people become more confident in daring to take their own decisions.

In the last year, this approach has become even more important, because so much time is being stolen from people by the ever-present demand to “jump on a Zoom”. The drive to create phoney face-to-face contact means that many people feel they are perpetually in formal meetings, with no time to do some actual work. Therefore, saving them just one additional decision-making meeting equates to giving them back time to make progress.

So for me, the very best way to improve a meeting is to make a decision. If it’s wrong, you can always take another one tomorrow….

Mark Aikman is the author of Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

Breakdown recovery

Mon, 28 Jun 2021 17:04:02 GMT

What to do when a wheel comes off #1

In digital transformation, wheels will come off. With a bit of luck, they won’t all come off at once. And all you’ll need is a wheel brace, a spare tyre – or at very worst, the AA.

Living in expectation of a problem arising will help. By expecting a problem, you’re likely to spot the warning signs. But equally, you’re less likely to panic, lose heart or feel you have to go and get another job. Transformation success is all about pragmatic resilience.

This week and next week, I’m looking at roadside repairs for digital transformation, starting with breaking down at the end of your own street….

Early-stage setbacks tend to centre on failing to get permission – and crucially, budget – for realising your ambitions. What do you do when the Board fails to share your vision?

You can’t win ‘em all, as we occasionally have to say at St James’ Park, NE1. And in my experience of IT transformation, sometimes, despite your best efforts, three months of preparation and 874 brainy ideas, you take your proposed programme to the Board: and you get a resounding “no”.

So what do you do then?

First up, just as in football, you do not punch the ref or mutter that the other team smells. Of course you are disappointed and possibly even furious, but when you hear that resounding no, you need to make every effort to park your emotions and really listen hard to the reasons given for rejecting your proposal. The Board will give you a few minutes grace to ask two or three questions to help you clarify where their objections lay – so pick the ones that will give you the best understanding of the root cause of their decision. Just keep it to a couple of questions, though – a long series of queries all beginning “Yes, but…” will make you look irritatingly defensive. Then leave, politely thanking them for their time.

Next, feel free to go and stand round the back of the office and kick the bins, providing no-one can see you. Once you’ve got a grip on your language, you’re ready to go and tell your team.

Of course, they’re going to be disbelieving, disappointed, disheartened, disapproving and disgusted. Possibly in that order. You’ll need to let all those emotions be expressed. And once the grumbling has been given airtime, you’ll be ready to start on the fixing stage.

First step in the fixing stage for me is to work out where we went wrong. You’ll have your notes on what the Board said, which might include:

The figures . Did we get it right, mathematically? Did we over-egg the content and so put the price up? Did we miss a bit, making us look like we were not being fully honest about costs? Did we fail to manage their expectations earlier of what this programme might cost?

The angle . Did we offer to fix the correct problem – i.e. had we got the problem statement right? Did we have a big enough solution? Or where we fixing too many things that weren’t yet broken? Did we have the right amount of emphasis on each part of the solution we offered, or was there a wonky imbalance?

The timing . Should we be fixing this now? Were we offering a solution that was too slow for the Board’s agenda? Or scarily fast for the size/mood of this organisation? Might we even have presented at the wrong time of the financial year?

The communication . Did we get our story right? Did we make the proposal clear – i.e. did they truly understand what we were trying to say and do? Did they get why the organisation needs to do this thing? Did we ensure they were worried enough about the consequences of not doing it?

The Other Things . We don’t know what we don’t know – and often, the Board is not able to tell us what that is. What if there’s a merger or acquisition imminent? Or a restructure? What if there are big budget cuts coming?

These questions will give you an insight into where it went wrong. They’ll direct you towards the additional evidence, ideas or information you’ll need to work on. However, they will only work if you answer them 100% honestly. Be prepared to admit – to yourself and to others – that you made an omission or a misjudgement.

Your answers will give you and the team an action plan. And you can divert the energy that you’d all planned to put into the programme to creating the revised proposal, with no tears before bedtime.

Don’t rush it; do a really thorough job on the re-worked offer, because it has to be even more convincing now you’ve had a refusal. And while you’re doing that, any Other Things That They Couldn’t Tell You might see the light of day. So, chin up, ball on the centre spot, kick towards the goal…

This is based on an extract from Mark Aikman’s book Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

Customer interface

Tue, 08 Jun 2021 14:51:36 GMT

Tips for risk-reduced customer involvement in transformation design

We all know now that the customers, or “service users”, or whatever you call the people who need the outputs of your organisation, should be the key beneficiaries of your Programme. I’m always banging on about the importance of collecting their views and requirements.

But risk creeps in very quickly around the topic of “customers”. Here are some tips for handling the challenges of getting the customers’ views first-hand:

G atekeepers

The first problems arise if other parts of the organisation become protective about customers: “They’re ours” say Sales. “If you lot talk to them, you’ll only go and upset them.” That might be Sales or another part of the organisation - typically, gatekeeping comes from the department that usually speaks directly to your customers/service users.

These people are right, of course, to an extent. It is a very dainty path you need to walk to discuss your offer with customers without inviting criticism or raising expectations you cannot fulfil. You shouldn't do it: it's a definite case of Do Not Try This At Home.. But equally, Sales shouldn't do it either. You are going to need Professional Listening to do this.

To gather customers' views using facilitated customer interviews or focus groups, I would always advise using experienced professional intermediaries. They will have the conversation with representatives of the customer base on your behalf (btw: Ignition Transformation has talented people who can do this for you). These people will be skilled at not judging, agreeing or promising. But you’ll still need to sell that idea to Sales.

So involve Sales – or any other resistant colleagues – in the discussions about how the customers will be approached and reassure them about how expectations will be managed. Be entirely transparent about what will be discussed and what will happen if customers express negative opinions or frustration. Persuade them of the benefits of being seen to listen to the clients. And always, before you approach any customers, make sure any resistant colleagues are on your bus.

Over-promising

Other customer-centred problems can arise when you are using particular delivery methods. Imagine the scene: you consult with the customers; they state their expectations; you assure them that these can be included in your programme, almost immediately. Everyone gets very excited. Fireworks, champagne, rejoicing.

And then, on reflection, you select a waterfall development mechanism with the supplier sitting way outside the business and producing phased development that takes weeks, or months, or even years. Customer delight = zero.

This isn’t necessarily solved by changing your delivery method to suit one stakeholder – yes, agile delivery may produce quicker visible results, and that would be attractive here. However, you nonetheless need to balance your decision with other significant considerations (e.g. budget, culture, capacity) and use the method that’s best overall for your stated purpose. So if it’s going to be a while, you need to manage customer expectations throughout the build. You need to do so right at the start – when you’re gathering their ideas - and then all the way through the process as you develop a solution. And again, Do Not Try This At Home. Instead, ask your Communications Team to set up a plan with Sales on how we keep customers excitedly patient. And that way, everyone stays in the loop...

This is based on an extract from Mark Aikman’s book Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

Mission Creep and the Triangle of Truth

Wed, 26 May 2021 11:43:29 GMT

How to balance speed, quality and cost in a transformation

Jinkies! Zoinks! Jeepers! No, that headline is NOT the title of the next Scooby Doo movie. It’s an idea for managing programme drift. Because almost all transformation programmes are vulnerable to loss of focus or direction.

To reduce your anxiety about mission creep, the first rule is: accept it. Creep is almost inevitable, because organisations and their environments change during the course of every transformation. The best you can do with mission creep is to accept it will happen; be aware that it has started to happen; and then control it.

If your Discovery exercise is thorough; your purpose statement is clear; and you have a good understanding of the business at the start, then it cannot wander too far.

You will, however, need to be clear about your Triangle of Truth, which comprises:

Cost

Quality Time

Every programme has an anchor point on the Triangle of Truth. You will need to identify your anchor point on the triangle at the start – which of these three is non-negotiable for your Programme? Being clear about that will allow you to permit teensy bits of creep on the other two. So if the deadline is the deadline, then cost and quality could be allowed a little elasticity.

It is very useful to have this concept to hand when pressure is put on you by stakeholders. Explain the aim is to balance all three, but that Some Corners Are More Equal Than Others. It is a particularly effective tool when Nice-To-Have and Kids-In-A-Sweetshop Syndromes kick in. Because as you know, “if it wasn’t for those meddling kids” life would be easier…

But as I said, creep will inevitably occur. Sometimes there may be “positive creep” – when you need to accept that new circumstances have arisen and it’s essential to accommodate these. As long as the business is happy to do so; you can deliver to an acceptable quality standard; the necessary funding is available; and time has been allowed, then there’s no need to freak out, gang.

Mission Creep can also occur when you’ve missed something in the early (Discovery) stages. Again, this is necessary creep. Admit the mistake, accommodate the new information and crack on. Once you’ve recalibrated to take account of this new information – maybe even resetting your anchor-point on the Triangle - then you will need to communicate the new position to key stakeholders.

From there onwards, be dogmatic about what we are here to do and how. Keeping your purpose statement and agenda visible will help keep people on the straight and narrow. As will the occasional Scooby Snack...

This is based on an extract from Mark Aikman’s book Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

Ready ... Steady... Go?

Tue, 18 May 2021 11:30:07 GMT

How do you set the right speed for your transformation?

Well, we can now all go to the bingo, join a zumba class or go on a rollercoaster. So that’s my back-to-normal sorted.

Variants of Concern aside, we still look to be on course for back to (roughly) normal within a few months. Which means all those suspended transformation programmes are starting to come back to life. The need for the changes they represent will be even greater now, following delays of perhaps 12-18 months or longer. The demand for transformation at warp-speed will be loud.

Steady on, though. It’s quite natural that organisations now want to transform quickly: they’ll see the much-needed business benefits soonest. But obviously, it’s also necessary for the credibility of your transformation that it’s (largely) right , as well. So there’s a balance to be struck between speed and perfection.

So, how do you strike that balance?

Anything is possible

A quick response is always possible. We all proved that last year when the Covid-19 pandemic hit all countries of the world and new processes such as remote working had to be introduced almost overnight. There was no choice. But I’d argue that a quick response is always possible, and that availability of choice has nothing to do with it.

In one of my roles, I was tasked with deployment on what was then the fastest and largest ever separation in the food industry. In 22 months, we set the business up as an independent producer, working on all continents.

Achieving that deadline was due to hard graft and taking one significant decision: to use out-of-the-box solutions, with little to no customisation. We set up the new organisation with new processes, as dictated by the off-the-shelf technology, balanced with a clear focus on customer requirements. So very rapid transformation really can be done.

How to set the Speed Dial

Yes, it can be done – but is it right to do it? I’d suggest there is one consideration that will tell you how quickly you need to go. The customers.

The customers need to be central. Their expectations will give you cues for how quickly you need to transform. How soon do your customers need this change? More to the point, what have your competitors done that has changed your customers’ expectations?

We need accurate information, constantly updated, on what the customers are thinking and how they are behaving. And the transformation activity needs to be buzzing around these views and needs, working very quickly and nimbly if customer needs and expectations change.

High speed. The food-industry Programme described above was entirely in response to customer expectations. They wanted a provider whose systems would jigsaw-puzzle-piece lock onto their own, with no loss of service as the company’s ownership transitioned. It was the only way the new company would keep the old company’s clients.

And because that organisation was going through such a seismic change, the workforce recognised the magnitude of the demerger and therefore expected, and largely accepted, very significant changes to everything they did and how they did it. That kind of speed is an option for when the situation is … drastic.

That’s very tough to do at speed unless everyone the organisation is clear about the external driver of the change – for example, that we’re in a “change or die” scenario. In these circumstances, your degree of change can be enormous (although your sponsorship and communication must still be beyond excellent).

So if that description represents your situation, then yes, put the pedal to the metal. Go for out-of-the-box and a rigid adherence to delivering only the minimum viable product.

But if it’s not about the business's very existence, then...

Variable speed. Not every digital change is responding to something drastic within or around the business, but nonetheless, the customer still needs to be the central point of focus. Common sense.

You’ll need to offer a rapid response to the customers’ ever-changing needs. And needs change all the time: for example, people in Leeds didn’t know they needed digital bus stops to tell them precisely when the next bus would arrive, until Transport for London showed them how handy it could be….

So be prepared to bring forward parts of your Programme that are customer facing whenever the need becomes apparent. So how has the pandemic with its business interruptions and effect on customer behaviour changed the needs and wants of your buyers? What does that do to your list of priorities? Can you really still run your transformation in the same order as you had planned it at Christmas 2019?

Steady speed . In less extreme circumstances, I’d advise that technology change – especially when affecting people and processes - has one essential sister-principle: you must win hearts and minds. If your customers are not urgently demanding change, you can take a little bit more time to bring the organisation along on the journey – always assuming the CFO will let you spend money with no sign of an immediate ROI…

And guess what? This couldn’t be a better moment. People within your organisation have been through so much upheaval in the last year or so that they’re actually more open-to-change than they’ve ever been. Yes, you’ll have a few who crave the comfort-blanket of the old-normal, but in fact, most people have proudly proved how they can adapt to change. They recognise there have been some great ideas to come out of our enforced circumstances – from sign-in QR codes to table-service for pints – and with that positive mindset, they may well be more accepting of doing things differently.

But it might be only a small window of opportunity, so make the most of it. Even if you’re planning on taking it slow, it really is now time to go, go, go!

This is based on an extract from Mark Aikman’s book Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

Transformation, training and trust

Tue, 11 May 2021 10:38:35 GMT

Key considerations when planning training

Putting me in the cab of a JCB and saying 'on you go' is not something anyone sane would do. However, all too often the end-user training on a transformation is an afterthought, sometimes not much better than my self-taught excavation skills. As a result, defeat is snatched from the jaws of a victorious transformation, due to poor adoption.

How do you avoid that?

Start early

Consider training right from the start of the Programme. At the discovery stage, capture information on what people do now; what they like/dislike about how it’s done now; and what the organisation’s comfort zones look like. “As-is” is never just an assessment of the technology – where are the hearts and heads?

Start early on building a consistent – honest! - narrative of how the new system will be better and make life easier, aiming to kindle an appetite for what’s coming. You want people to be clamouring for their training slot by the time it comes to launch.

Avoid lazy thinking

Just because 'the kids' are a whizz with social media doesn't mean that they won't be like rabbits in the headlights when presented with a new system. And a training programme that only tells them which buttons to press is no use unless it tells them why as well. Nobody will be a natural.

Show some understanding

It is also true that someone who has been there 30 years and is a whizz on the 'as is' may still be very fearful of the 'to-be'. Who wants to look and feel like a newbie where once they were an old hand?

People don't like change, full stop. Even if they have been bleating about how inefficient the old systems were, it doesn’t mean they’ll openly embrace the new. New is scary.

This is where the appetite-creation comes in. You will have been selling the benefits to everyone for some time by this stage. But make sure you’re also tolerant of and understanding about these very real fears.

Make it safe

People need to learn in a place of safety. So start early and keep it positive.

Allowing plenty of time and using non-threatening trainers will create a much more relaxed learning environment. That’s essential, because people must be allowed practise without penalty to build confidence. And nobody learns or retains anything if they’re stressed.

Also, in the run up to and in the first days of 'Go-Live', the business needs to be very relaxed about outputs. Accept imperfection - mistakes and correcting them are key to the learning process.

And what about the training teams?

Use genuinely skilled trainers

For many years, IT thought the best bet for training was to send in the Local IT Expert – the person who knew the most about the relevant piece of software or hardware. That way, any questions that arose could be answered. On the spot.

Meanwhile, back in real life, trainees don’t actually ask challenging questions about how the software works behind the scenes. They don’t want a coding expert: they want a mentor. They want someone to teach and support them as they go through the difficult task of re-learning everything they know about doing their job. Trainees are often in a place where they see the new solution as “slower” and “more work” than their familiar processes and tools. They’ll feel frustrated, exasperated and even threatened. Time to be kind.

Consequently, you’re looking for trainers with empathy, a supportive attitude and saintly patience. Charm doesn’t go amiss, either. And again, the E-word: it’s worth hiring a small training capability early, as prototypes and demos shared with focus groups and UAT volunteers can all be used as part of the engagement campaign.

Above all, you need trainers people trust.

Leading edge

Tue, 27 Apr 2021 11:49:39 GMT

Creating the right environment for ideas-led innovation

As Head of Transformation, you have an enormous responsibility for thought-leadership. You’re here to run the show and deliver, couldn’t agree more, but it’s also your responsibility to make the Programme as innovative as it can possibly be within your stated purpose. I believe this has two key strands: being outward looking and inventive; and anticipating the future rather than reflecting the present. Three simple ways of achieving this are:

Thinking big. As Programme Thought Leader, you’re looking for Ideas That Think Big, which you can explore. What can you include that will actually change the business and not just improve operational effectiveness? The latter is a given in transformation – the former is what will add true benefit.

So don’t be too quick to dismiss seemingly disruptive or over-ambitious ideas – there may be a genuine benefit to the business in what is being described, even though it currently sounds a bit sci-fi. Especially at the early doors stage, keep away from language that dismisses the more revolutionary ideas until you’ve investigated the benefit vs. achievability ratio. So we’re not saying “Utopia”, “pipe-dream”, “fantasyland” or even “unrealistic”. And we’re definitely never saying “crackpot”.

The Ideas Coach . One important point on this: thought-leadership does not mean “I personally must have all the good ideas”. Indeed, implementing only your own (potentially crackpot) ideas is counter-productive as it will quickly reduce team buy-in.

Instead, the thought leader is there to raise the bar and widen the horizons, so that your team and your colleagues in the wider business can have the innovative ideas. Effectively, you are the ideas-coach. Allow multiple opportunities for creative solution development – from capturing innovations at the Discovery stage; to workshopping possible options; to championing inventive routes to market suggested by junior people. And let all the original thinkers have their moment in the sun.

Looking Forward. You can make an excellent return on the investment in your Programme if it includes a degree of future-proofing. Again, you need to work entirely within your stated objectives, but you should always consciously focus on anticipating what’s coming next.

One of the biggest enemies of anticipation is thin Discovery. Programmes which have selected the technology solution before understanding the problems and opportunities (i.e. a good majority of them) will not hear the still small voices that have seen the future. These Programmes have wedged themselves into the here and now, using approaches and technology that are already available to address issues that exist today.

At least give a few days’ thought to where your organisation and sector will go tomorrow. Rope-in Marketing and ask them what their opium-crazed predictions include as possibilities for your field. It won’t all be spaceships and fantasy; and they’ll have very useful hard evidence for the most likely scenarios.

However far behind your systems are, your aim is never catching up with The Now.

This is an extract from Mark Aikman’s book Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

High-speed deployment: a masterclass from the NHS

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 17:39:10 GMT

I’ve had my jab! It’s just like everyone tells you, me and the Missus: entrance to exit in six minutes.

On the way home, I’ve been sharing my observations on how transformation deployment can learn from the UK’s Covid-19 vaccine programme. Strangely, Our Lass spent most of this discourse looking out of the car window and reading her texts, so I’m going to share the lessons as I see them with you, who I find to be a much more appreciative audience.

So what is the vaccine roll-out demonstrating about high-speed deployment?

The importance of a clear objective. Everyone in the country has heard a thousand times that the aim is to “offer the vaccine to all adults by July 2021”. That’s the programme objective.

It’s simple, clear and easy to understand and not full of complicated caveats. Communicated in nine words.

And it’s given the deployment programme team clear sight of what their priorities are: offer the jab, jab everyone who can be persuaded to come forward, do it fast – and six minutes to process two Aikmans is pretty fast.

The value of collaborative working. This roll-out is undoubtedly one of the best collaborations the country has ever seen. We think of it as the work of the NHS, who are clearly leading players; but it also includes the logistical brilliance of the army; co-operation from private business, from High Street pharmacies to pharmaceutical giants; involvement of the third sector, from access to mosques and cathedrals as vaccination centres to the thousands of volunteers directing people around the car parks.

Clearly, everybody has the shared aim of Getting a Good Thing Done. No visible territories, grandstanding or glory-grabbing. IT deployment can only work quickly if it takes the same approach. Good leadership fosters collaborative working; and in turn collaborative working gets unimpeded results.

Shop local. Leading on from collaboration, the programme is a great example of taking the advice of local experts. All kinds of contributors have been allowed to bring to bear their expertise. So we’ve seen bowling alley facilities managers help set up their premises as vaccination centres; GPs work out which patients won’t be able to book online; and Social Services contribute ideas for taking mobile vaccinations centres to the homeless.

Crucially, all these people with specialist knowledge and expertise have been listened-to and allowed to contribute to decision-making. Rapid deployment in IT transformation always benefits from that style of ears-and-mind-open listening…

How to work in phases. I’ll wager you could all tell me which phase you were/are in for your jabs. Right from the start, it was made clear that there would be two key phases (over/under 50s), with subdivisions to each phase. The programme has stuck to those rules, despite many suggestions of the thousand other ways there are to skin a cat.

Nobody attempted Big Bang. It has never been complicated or difficult to understand which phase we are currently in, or what the timing of that phase is. Consequently, expectations are being beautifully managed.

As with all phased programmes, it has been possible to improve the deployment, as the team learned as they went. Remember at the start – people were being jabbed with both shots in a four-week window? The scientists then discovered the doses would go further and be more effective if they were delivered in a 12-week window. So Phase 1b just calmly changed the plan. No drama: more lives saved.

Governance by measurement . I bet you can also tell me roughly how many UK adults have been vaccinated up to today. This programme has been a masterclass in how to demonstrate progress by numbers. Every day, we’re updated on increased first jabs and second jabs; and the corresponding decline of infection and mortality rates.

Now admittedly, very few programmes are resourced with the statistical capability that shows proven progress by the day – but I think for the rest of my career I will use this roll-out as a beacon-reminder of the importance of measuring and communicating progress. Which leads me onto…

Communicating consistently . Another thing we’ll all remember for a long time is the communication used in the early days of the pandemic. The legendary “Stay at home; go to work; use public transport; don’t use public transport” had my Comms colleague purple in the face. But with the vaccination programme, all former communication errors have been consigned to the realm of nostalgia-comedy.

This time, messaging coming from within the programme is crystal clear. How many times has the PM said; “when you are offered your jab, take it”? The metrics are consistent, day after day. The format for delivering key messages – the three-person press conference – is now reassuringly dull.

In all deployment programmes, there’s no limit to how often you should repeat your message until everyone has heard and had time to believe it. And who could resist a technicolor Van Tam word-picture to bring it all to life?

Calm flexibility . Things will inevitably go wrong in any deployment. The leaders of the vaccine roll-out have faced (to our knowledge, as a minimum) vaccine supply problems and shortages; international political rows; and patient scepticism, distrust and even fear. There’s no sign of anyone flouncing out or tipping over tables. They have just calmly got on with it.

They’ve shown all deployment teams the importance of calm flexibility. They’ve sourced additional vaccines; managed stakeholder expectations; and communicated clearly and intelligently about risks.

The programme – the biggest of its kind ever attempted in this country - is still motoring and is still world-class. And it’s showing those of us in IT transformation just what can be done, at scale and at speed.

Professionally, I’m beyond impressed. As a citizen, I’m bursting with pride. And we two Aikmans, on a personal level, are very grateful indeed.

Mark Aikman is the author of Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

Tunnel vision

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 08:27:07 GMT

Do we really need a new approach to project management?

“The Agile PMO”. That’s the latest trend in project management, apparently. We’re told that the traditional PMO functions of control over projects are allegedly no longer fit for purpose. Seemingly, we need a new, magical way of doing things, with a whole new set of PMO processes.

I’m sceptical. We now have a vast array of research and amassed knowledge on project management in the UK, and yet our projects seem to be worse run than ever. We have seen some unbelievably weak project outcomes in recent years – with famously overspent, late and just plain unworkable solutions across high-profile organisations. Seems to me that new methods and increased knowledge aren’t necessarily making things better. Compare infamous infrastructure projects of recent years with the 19th century railway pioneers...

Almost 200 years ago, armed with nothing but dynamite and pickaxes, George Stephenson built the Wapping tunnel under Liverpool in only three years. It was the first-ever tunnel to be bored under a city. It was built in two parallel pieces, meeting in the middle to an accuracy tolerance of one inch. Admittedly, the tunnel was only 2km long but it came in on time, in parallel with the rest of the Liverpool Manchester Railway which had had to overcome many geological challenges. The lot was completed in the same three-year period. And that was in 1830 .

So what’s the difference? Stephenson didn’t have hectares of research and arcane processes with catchy names. But the two halves of his tunnel still met neatly in the middle, right on schedule.

What Stephenson must have had was high-quality thinking, from experienced people. Two hundred years ago, the same truth stood as it does today - it’s the quality of the people in the PMO that will be the biggest influence in the performance of that PMO.

Here at Ignition Transformation we are experts in bringing out the quality of your PMO. We assess first and foremost how to get your PMO people to succeed on a personal level; then go on to look at the organisational process context and environment.

Because, in real life, there is no one-size-fits-all magic PMO bullet, however trendily-titled – just smart, diligent people.

What a difference a day makes

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 11:47:01 GMT

Getting started with transformation strategy and planning

All transformations need a strategy, Rule 1. We all know that, but it can often be extremely daunting when you’re in World of Problem to know just how to step over the line into World of Plan. But in fact, all you need to do is give it a day.

Spending just one day asking and answering the right questions will be all you need to get your basic strategy and embryonic plan onto paper. Here’s what I’d suggest:

Avengers Assemble : Get the right people in a room for one day with no distractions. Any minute now, doing this will actually become legal again.

You’ll need all the key players in your project: such as the person who will be your Executive Sponsor; a person representing your customer(s); function owners, such as the people who believe they own the processes involved; and your key do-ers.

Ban their phones and tablets. Confiscate these if necessary. You want their full attention, just for today. Explain that no-one leaves the room until we have a strategy and a headline plan. Collaboration, decisiveness and positive thinking is therefore the quickest way they’ll get their phones back and be out of here…

Immovable object-ive : The most important thing you need the group to agree today is the objective for the Programme. You’ll need to get them to agree what we are trying to achieve with this transformation – but stated in five words or less. If you’re interested in this, there’s more below on how to frame an objective in: https://www.ignitiontransformation.co.uk/objective-perspective

It’s only five words, but it may take a fair amount of time to get there. That’s time well spent, as the Programme objective will be the key yardstick you use to keep the Programme on track, potentially for months or years to come. Getting agreement on it (and having the key players remember they created it) will be key to governing the project as it progresses. It’s the stick you’ll use to keep everyone in line: so they need to own that stick.

Name the date. Next, set the completion deadline. If you’re lucky, some external force may be setting this deadline for you – perhaps it’s the date the company has set for selling-off the part of the business you’re working on. But most transformations aren’t lucky enough to have a scarily-close immutable deadline. These are in a much more vulnerable position…

That’s because so many programmes drift, creep or fail because the end-date is constantly shifting. Deadline-drift means early promises are soon broken and the Programme loses credibility within the business; and the Programme’s internal focus seeps away.

Therefore, I’d strongly advise setting an ambitious-but-realistic deadline right here and now. Ignore false constraints – such as company financial year-end or calendar year-end. Instead, work out how long it will realistically take and pick that. If it means the benefits will fall into only half a financial year, that’s the case the Executive Sponsor is going to have to be happy making to the Board.

Fix the price : This tends not to take long – largely because most people have already been told by the Board that the transformation has to come in within a specific budget. But if that isn’t the case, I’d recommend naming a reasonable sake-of-argument figure at this stage and seeing if we can make it work as the day’s decisions progress. As Programme Lead, just be sure to come prepared with some research into back-of-a-fag-packet costs.

With these first three topics in place, you may have taken most of the morning, but you’re now clear on What, When and How Much – the three most important cornerstones of your strategy. The details – The What – come next….

Define deliverables . You’ll now need to identify the key deliverables – the must-haves - which will be dictated by the objective, the budget and the deadline. Given what you need to achieve, what do you do? And what can you do?

The team now needs to agree what MUST be in place for the Programme to be deemed a success by the deadline date. Never mind the would-likes and nice-to-haves at this stage. We’re looking only for the key deliverables.

That’ll involve a good deal of horse trading and possibly a spot of arm-wrestling. One woman’s must-have is another man’s would-like… A trick is to set a time-limit on deciding this part: and because the participants are starting to pine for their emails, they’ll very likely comply.

Resource, of course : Resourcing would take forever if we were writing a full project plan. But remember, at this stage we’re not – we’re just creating a simple strategy and headline plan. So don’t get hung up on how-many-business-analysts-we’ll-need-in-June.

All you need is a plan for getting to the proper plan – how do we need to resource the project to get it started? Who are the lead players we now need to find? Are they available internally or will we need some from outside? Again, this is not a lengthy discussion of the merits of all possible candidates, from Abigail to Zoe – it’s about identifying the presence or absence of skillsets.

It’s fine to refine: By now, it should be no later than 3pm. Because you’ll need some time to review your decisions and refine your ideas. Decisions made early may need to be reconsidered in the light of thinking done later. So go over each decision in your plan and check it still stacks up.

I tend to find that this exercise is a quick and effective way of adding useful refinements. For example, the later thinking, when brought to bear on e.g. the deadline, starts to put more flesh on the bones. So the original agreement, featuring one start date and one end date, will magically develop rather obvious stage-dates, just like that!

Hometime: And now, after that recap-and-refine, it’s hometime. Everyone is enormously pleased with themselves, feeling progress has been made and says have been had. And all achieved in just one day: marvellous!

That’s because we’ve missed a bit. A big bit. A lot of very big bits. You see, we’ve not really discussed The How. We haven’t discussed the solutions we need; the products we might look at; the vendors we might choose; the team we might hire; the persuasion this will require; the training we’ll need to do; the colour of the carpet in the training room…

That’s deliberate. Because we don’t need to do that on Day 1. That’s for later, and possibly even for a completely different group of decision-makers.

Most planning sessions become fraught or inconclusive because people try to agree too much at once. As a starting point, not only do you just NEED one day to get a strategy and outline plan, but it would be foolish to spend any MORE than a day on the first pass. Get the basics down; then identify the details slice by slice, later. But that’s a story for another day….

Ignition Transformation’s SPARC service helps organisations define their transformation strategy and plan. We guide teams through the decision-making process and offer information and advice on what will be required. More information can be found at:

https://www.ignitiontransformation.co.uk/problems-we-solve-getting-started

CRM systems: when is it time to say goodbye?

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 12:16:29 GMT

CRM systems. Like so many things in life, they start out all full of attractive possibilities, but so often end in frustration, disappointment and broken hearts. After a while, it can often seem that the CRM system has stopped delivering what the business needs and it’s time to look at next year’s model.

But let’s not be hasty. I find that a new system isn’t always the quickest, cheapest or best answer. So if you suspect you’re reaching the end of the line with your CRM system, I’d like to offer five minutes CRM Relationship Counselling before you go your separate ways.

So tell me (serious face, earnest voice, steepled fingers): why do you think you need a new CRM system?

Because it doesn’t do what we need it to do

OK, that’s reasonable cause for concern. But before we chuck it in the skip, it might be worth a business analysis exercise. Keep this simple, and first of all think of the end state:

What would the perfect CRM environment look like?
What would be the business benefits of achieving that perfect functionality?

Think about the management information we need it to give us; ease of use; and any potential for revenue gains or efficiency savings in that ideal scenario. With that in mind:

Can what we’ve got be upgraded or reconfigured to deliver what we want? Because if not, any extra profits or savings made will need to cover the cost of what we spend on starting again… which is often quite a lot of dosh.
Can we get (most of) those benefits for less cash, using a rework of the system we already have?
Or is tweaking going to be dearer than replacing?
And is it the system itself that’s the problem? Don’t confuse the CRM system with the data that it holds. It could be the case that the system is fine, but the data is ropey. It may seem obvious, but people often forget that without a data strategy there is no CRM…

Because it doesn’t fit with what we do any more

Once you know your end state, you then need to assess how your CRM solution supports current business processes. This area is always a challenge. Quite often, there’s a disconnect between how the system works and how the business works – as these two strands will often have diverged over time.

First, you’ll need a better picture of “how people currently work”. It’s often the case that current processes aren’t documented and there are a lot of assumptions around how things really get done around here. A warts-and-all assessment may throw up some quick wins and may even get you on the path to the end state. In that case, you’ll be able to keep what you’ve got, maybe with a makeover.

If the assessment doesn’t give you a possible solution with as-is, well then at least you’ll know what your new kit will need to deliver. And then you will only buy what you need – and therefore spend less. So there’s no down-side to this exercise.

I think there’s a tendency to forget that CRM is a product that needs to constantly evolve with your business. As customers and users change what they do, the CRM should be adapted accordingly. Over time, you can save a lot of money by keeping an eye on it and making regular adjustments.

Because people don’t use this one properly

Don’t forget about the users. They have to use this CRM day in, day out and you want them a) to bother; and b) to make the extra effort to populate it with inciteful data.

Take a look at the system you’ve got:

How could you make it easier for people to get it right?
What could be better about the user interface and user experience? This is vital, especially in call centre environments. Don’t draw your own conclusions – ask the users.
Work with the users to understand what’s in it for them to use it correctly. What motivates them to get it right?

Working through these concepts will tell you how to improve the interface: and whether the system you’ve got can achieve the standard of accuracy that you want.

That might fix most of the problems. But of it doesn’t, it’s still not yet time to phone the CRM vendors. Because….

People not using CRM properly will often be a six-and-two-threes situation. Certainly, some of the poor output from the current system could be down to it being difficult to use or non-intuitive. Alternatively – gasp! – is might equally be the case that it has been poorly trained-in to under-motivated users.

Think about what you can do on training and engaging the system users. Because whether you keep your old one, or build a new one, you’ll still have the problem of user error and misuse. Old or new, you’ll still need to reduce under-performance by improving competence and user engagement. So would diverting the technology budget to training in fact be the best use of your resources?

Because it’s not clean and shiny any more

Don’t underestimate the effort required to maintain a CRM. Many times, I have seen companies throw out existing solutions because they haven’t been maintained properly. They blithely assume their new shiny tool will solve their problems. It will for a short time: but they’ll be back to where they started in a matter of weeks unless there’s the right team in place to wash and iron their content and their capability.

So maybe, you don’t need a new system – you just need a spring clean?

Because I’ve been told about a new one with all the latest bells and whistles

Vendors will happily tell you that their solution will change your business. Of course they will – that’s just them doing their job. So the trick is not to go out to any vendors until you truly understand the problem you are trying to solve, after trying all of the above approaches. That way, it will soon become clear whether a) a particular vendor’s solution will do precisely what you need; or b) your existing solution is, in fact, as good as it gets….

Ignition Transformation offers confidential advice for people with technological challenges. Please see: https://www.ignitiontransformation.co.uk/problems-we-solve-getting-back-on-track

Five little words

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 15:18:51 GMT

Some of the most important things to say as a transformation leader

Consistency of communication is essential to a successful transformation. That’s not to say the transformation leader says exactly the same thing to everyone - that couldn’t be further from the truth! I mean that consistency in the leader’s approach and messaging are essential. To this end, I’ve developed five key words that are my vocabulary in every programme:

Why

Key Word One is “why”. Not the four-year-old's persistent question, the statement. Explaining why we are doing this, and what the outcome will be, can never be repeated often enough in transformation. It can be used on a macro level (why the whole organisation needs to do this); and locally, to explain why this will benefit an individual, team or department.

It probably won't literally be the word “why”. I suggest substituting the concept “why” with the key word from your programme objective – e.g. growth, simplification, modernisation, merging, whatever. That’s why we’re undertaking this transformation.

You simply need to select your core concept and repeat it all the time. And yes, that means repeating yourself over and over again, long after you become bored with it all. Remember that you’ve heard yourself say it a thousand times, but it may be the first time for each listener. So you need to be as steadfast and enthusiastic today as you were 17 months ago. And your own private views should never, never show…

You

Next up is the Most Important Word in Advertising: “You”. As in, “What’s in it for you?” Because after all, most of the people you talk to in your programme, whatever their level of involvement, will believe their personal benefit is the most interesting thing about the project.

Those benefits will vary wildly between audiences and interest groups – what the CFO wants to hear about long-term cost efficiencies bears no resemblance to what the Warehouse Supervisor wants to hear about improved picking-and-packing processes. Yet both benefits are genuine and tangible – and each is extremely attractive to its audience. So tailor your message specifically to fit your audience and always lead with what’s the most valuable programme content for that particular audience member.

Insight

It is essential to listen to everyone within the Programme: and everyone affected by it who wants to make a contribution. The more you listen, the better your offer will fit their needs. And therefore, the more likely they will be to run with it.

However, listening isn’t terribly common in business, so people still tend to get a bit over-excited when they’re truly listened to. They can readily mix up careful listening with total agreement. So when Jane tells you she prefers the screen to be blue, and you nod, Jane is then expecting a blue screen, even if you’re going to make it white, like all the other screens.

People tend to fix this conundrum by not speaking to Jane. If you don’t listen, you can’t accidentally promise. But that misses the point – the point that Jane’s other ideas might be brilliant; and that having her say means Jane feels involved in the transformation.

Consequently, you need the skills for really listening, and showing the person they’ve been heard: but not promising. I struggled for some years to find the right language to express this balance, rejecting the word “feedback” as too trite or corporate; “ideas” as too promise-ish; and “thoughts” as too under-impressed.

I’m currently using the word “insight” to do the job. Telling someone you’re grateful for their insights tells them you have seen their perspective, empathetically. It tells them they were heard and important. It involves them - but doesn’t sound like a promise.

And?

This is the key word for people who come forward with ideas. I use it when they’ve told me their brainwave – specifically, when they tell me “what” but not “why”. If the idea is high quality, they can always give me a good answer to “And?”.

With this question, I’m looking for the idea-generator’s understanding of how their suggestion meets the programme’s objectives. If they can demonstrate that, it stands a strong chance of going further. But if the idea is … just an idea, with no consequences or impact, then “And?” sorts it out nicely.

“…….”

Cheating, this one. It’s not a word; not a sound at all – it’s saying nothing. I find this one immensely useful in all circumstances as a Programme Lead. Because “Lead” does NOT mean “person who talks the most” or “she who has all the ideas”.

Watching and listening, making no comment or judgement, allows people to: develop ideas; disclose their inner motivations; think for themselves; show their workings-out; take responsibility; show you alternative perspectives; be more honest…. And what Lead wouldn’t want all that?

Sharp focus

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 08:37:40 GMT

Surviving and thriving post-pandemic

What has the last year meant for IT and CIOs? What successful responses can CIOs replicate and take forward in the coming years? And what's the next big opportunity for IT resourcing?

This interview with The CIO Crowd looks at what's coming and where some of the wins can be made. Read more at:
https://ciocrowd.com/blog/post/whether-you-are-surviving-or-thriving-in-the-pandemic-transformation-...

Objective perspective

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 11:29:24 GMT

How do you restart a stalled transformation?

We’re all sick to the furry little mintballs of hearing the line: “80+% of all transformations fail”. Clearly, transformation isn’t easy, but in IT, we do rather surround major change with an air of always-doomed-from-the-start gloominess. I think we should shift our perspective to be more on the lines of “80+% of transformations stall” – and then have a long hard look at why this is the case. For me, there’s one very clear answer.

I’ve looked at the ways in which transformations can go wrong. Typically, they hit the buffers when:

They become extremely complicated, with multiple strands all developing at once and competing to be the priority workstream, with nothing being completed due to thousands of demands on capacity

The senior team gets cold feet at the cost/time it will take/direction of travel

Sub-teams are developing disconnected standalone projects within the overall programme

A catalogue of mission creepage – sometimes going back years – has changed the content of the programme beyond all recognition

And as for culture… well, it can be broken, bullying, bullish or backbiting…

In some stalled transformations, you’ll see all of the above. By the shedload.

There’s a very simple starting point which will begin to address all the above problems; refocus everyone; and restart the programme. You just revisit the programme objective.

Successful programmes depend on there being a clearly stated objective. This needs to be simple; agreed, believed and sponsored by the leadership team; and oft repeated.

The programme objective is the yardstick by which any activity is ruled in or out. By making the objective clear and memorable, it becomes the litmus test by which anyone working on the programme can judge whether or not to pursue any particular activity.

So for example, if your programme objective is “to merge two operational systems after an acquisition”, everyone will know what we’re trying to do. Therefore, if only one of the original companies had a CRM system, there’s no excuse for the Marketing Department to try to sneak in a cheeky CRM upgrade - because no merging is required. It’s add-ons like these, the might-as-well-do-it-while-the-bonnet’s-ups, that cause chaos, confusion and creep.

Keep the objective as simply worded as possible: e.g. “to separate”, “to replace” or “to make more secure”. Avoid woolly stuff – e.g. “to enhance customer experience” – because people can make anything fit inside the transformation remit if it’s open to interpretation. You’ll meet people who will argue that upgrading payroll software enhances customer experience, because it frees up capacity in Finance for improved invoice checking!

Most “failed” transformations are just “stalled” or “over-complicated” exercises, and therefore most can be stripped back and restarted. Ignition Transformation’s Blue Light service can bring an objective perspective and support you to get back on track – see more at:

https://www.ignitiontransformation.co.uk/problems-we-solve-getting-back-on-track

Trade secret

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 12:33:16 GMT

Why it's always wise to make an early start on data privacy

“Data privacy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We’ll tag something on at the end, around about the time we decide where we’re going for the Done-it Drinks and Disco.”

No. That’s a widely held view of when to handle data privacy in a transformation, but a risky one. Instead, I’d always recommend considering your approach on data privacy right from the outset. This enables you to build a privacy framework within your operations: and in turn, begin to embed privacy awareness within your culture.

My five good reasons for starting early on data privacy are:

1: Privacy professionals are your friends . Make time to talk to an expert. Don’t view these people as The Fun Police; Chief Creativity Crushers; or Computer-Says-No types. A good privacy expert will work with you to understand what you want to achieve with your data and help you access maximum - legal - flexibility with it.

2 : The rules are not always the rules . Not all privacy rules apply to all businesses. A privacy professional will help you understand which privacy laws and regulations apply to your business. Taking time to investigate may reveal your situation is more relaxed than you think.

3: Education, education, education . The biggest risk under privacy law for most firms is an accidental breach by a misguided – or misled – employee. By starting privacy design and culture change early, you have time to educate your employees of their and your organisation’s obligations for protecting personal information.

4 : Developing open partnerships with suppliers . You need honest communication with your vendors and clear oversight of what they are doing because – eeek! – their mistakes are your responsibility. If someone provides services on your behalf, you are also responsible for how they collect and use your consumers’ personal information. Again, that level of transparency will take time and so needs an early start.

5 : How would YOU feel? You are a Data Subject. So am I. Take time to look at what you are doing with the personal data and think "If I were the Data Subject, would I be happy about that?" It often gives you the right answer....

Brain training

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 18:03:36 GMT

Key skills for a transformation team

Who is responsible for engaging people across the organisation in a transformation? Who is expected to whip up the enthusiasm of everyone in the business? Whose job is it to settle worries and concerns?

Contrary to popular belief, it’s NOT the job of the Communications Team. It’s the responsibility of everyone working on the Programme (Comms just don’t do any other things, that’s all).

This means there’s a key skillset you’re looking to develop in everyone in your transformation team: and not just the out-there interactors, such as the BAs or Comms or the Trainers. Every member of an effective transformation team needs to know:

How to communicate at a level which is understood by each individual reader or listener. This includes jargon-busting explanatory skills, as jargon is the last refuge of the IT charlatan. They need to be able to pitch their explanations for all levels of knowledge, interest and agendas. One size does not fit all.

How to make regular references to what the Programme is seeking to achieve , and what the benefits of making uncomfortable changes will be for end-users. They need to do this in a way which is convincing and natural. And yes, this IS code for “selling”! IT people within the Programme must be its best ambassadors and as such have a huge role to play in the engagement piece.

How to deal calmly and positively with reluctance and resistance , including excellent listening skills and the empathy to see the situation from the other person’s perspective. Having this type of attention and imagination will make them better problem-solvers and persuaders. They also need techniques for communicating openly and reasonably at all times. They need to be able to lose the battle to win the war. So you may also need to teach patience here.

How to stay on-message at all times, even when they themselves voted for an alternative solution to the one they are being asked to implement. They need the skills for toe-ing the line in a way which means they do not feel their integrity has been compromised. If this doesn’t happen, the entire Programme is undermined by the Programme “owners” apparently disapproving of the Programme’s content … to people who will be all too ready to listen.

How to match their pace to the Programme timeline. Coming from BAU, some team members may not always have had to work against a Programme plan. One-paced people, diligent perfectionists and the easily-distracted may need some time management refreshment if they are to keep in step.

How to work collaboratively within and beyond the team. Collaborative team-working is the only way you’ll make a complete success of a transformation Programme. It’s certainly the only way to get it out of the door on time. So if your incumbent team has baggage, or a tendency to lone-wolfery, it needs to be persuaded to behave differently.

A Big Ask?

Yes, quite possibly. You may very well need a programme of education as well as training. Your IT people may need to be educated and persuaded that doing things differently will be in their own self-interest.

So hire a beyond-excellent communication and behaviour trainer or coach, who will begin by creating in the team an appetite for changing their ways. This has to be a person who can get them all to believe that if they make the effort to try the new approaches, their lives will be easier, with less resistance and quicker acceptance of their suggestions. This person will get the team to believe it’s possible to be trusted and valued for their skills and expertise if they behave a little differently.

This is not fairy dust: educators like this really exist! And for the record: building rafts in deepest Argyll in February is one type of team-building training. That definitely isn’t what you need here.

Oh, and also for the record, the Programme Lead has responsibility for being the role model for all this behaviour. Yeah, mmm…. I’m still working on 100% compliance myself…

This article is taken from Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

Don't mend what's broken

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 14:32:33 GMT

Finding the best starting point for business transformation

Most of the time, digital transformation will include an element of improving business processes. Well, why wouldn’t you, while you’re at it?

I’ve realised it’s enormously tempting to come at business process improvement from the wrong starting point – i.e. 25% of the way down the track. Most people's first instincts are to go and look for what’s broken and start there. Invariably “what doesn’t work” is the information that rings out loud and clear from Discovery – or, indeed, was often the very reason the organisation realised it needed transformation in the first place.

But I'd argue that What’s Broken isn’t your process-improvement starting point – in fact, it comes a quarter of the way along. To get the best benefit from your transformation, I’d recommend starting instead at Where Are We Going?

As with all other aspects of change, it’s imperative that everyone involved has clear sight of the vision and the programme’s objective at all times. A simply-stated objective - where we are going - keeps the initiative focused on priorities and maximises its benefits.

So in practical terms, that means first establishing what we’re aiming to achieve overall – you know, greater efficiency, faster to market, new channels, all that jazz – and then framing how processes can help with this. Only at that point, after 24.9% of the thinking, is it time to go exploring what’s broken. And in fact, setting a clear objective may well have redefined in what way it’s broken. It could now be even further adrift from what we need than we thought!

Process improvement isn’t about what broken – it’s about what’s brilliant.

Pyramid sellers

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 11:39:18 GMT

An idea for managing multiple suppliers

Many transformation programmes – even quite modest affairs – will have multiple suppliers. It is common for supplier management to become a massively time-consuming task. This happens particularly when there’s some old-school behaviour raising its ugly head – such as inter-supplier responsibility-ducking, deadline-blindness or finger-pointing.

Ideally, this can be mitigated at the start of the programme, but in an emergency, vendor vendettas can be fixed by simply restructuring the chain of command. So, instead of all suppliers having equal status, and equal calls on your team’s time, you arrange them in a pyramid format. You make one supplier the prime player, responsible for the delivery of all the others. Then, the prime supplier becomes responsible to you for getting work out of the door and dispute de-fusing – and you don’t have to. You now have just one point of contact for contract delivery.

“Yes, but”, I hear you holler, “That’ll come with a price tag. The prime supplier will want to be rewarded for the risk and effort they are taking.”

“Yes, but”, I reply, “The only other option is to find the budget for in-house resource to police the squabbles.” It costs the same either way, but there is every chance there is greater capability for the role within a large and experienced supplier company than inside your team.

This article is taken from Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation by Mark Aikman

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

2020 hindsight: a review of the year in IT

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 06:49:56 GMT

Well, that was 2020. IT’s year of adapt and survive… It went something like this:

January : Brexit finally becomes an actual thing. We all start planning for a year focused on international trade changes.

People are getting hot under the collar about IR35, which looks likely to change the face of IT contracting. Least it’s not snowing.

February : My friend gets a weird flu. Loses his sense of smell and has a cough that won’t go away. No idea what that was.

March : All hell breaks loose. Politicians take to standing at lecterns and telling us to stay home. Schools shut, shops shut, flights stop. In a slightly-jolly Blitz spirit, IT people save the day by hunting through cupboards to find as many dusty old laptops as possible, handing them to people who are sent running from the building clutching a password for something called Zoom.

But it’s OK, because it’s only going to be a couple of weeks or so, and at least the IR35 changes have been postponed.

April . It’s sunny. The roads and skies are empty and pollution free. And thousands of people are dying.

Not-admitting-to-enjoying-the-heroics has evaporated. The case for – and shortcomings of - national, equitable broadband is illustrated in real time. Disaster recovery has been tested to the max. Sourcing IT kit, fixing access and security problems and cobbling-together becomes part of the daily grind for IT.

May: We press on. In IT contracting, it becomes clear that clients are not starting planned programmes, as clearly it will be easier to do this when we can all get back to normal meetings and workplace conversations. Some Programmes are halted, as the more nervous clients start to be concerned about expenditure, now that the forecast “Sharp V” of recession is shaped more like a tick… IT interims look forward to a few weeks in the garden.

June : It looks like the worst is over. I post an article blithely telling the IT world it has 90 Days to lay claim to change leadership, before we all go back to business as usual. Yeah right, Mark, thanks for that…

July: We’re moving in the right direction. With our help, offices are made Covid-safe for the Big Return in September. IT contractors have beautifully weed-free gardens and that’s OK, because the recruiters believe it will all pick up again at the end of summer.

August : We eat out to help out – it’s the least we can do. Optimists who still have holidays booked find themselves charging back from Spain and France as “travel corridors” close off like something from another remake of The Poseidon Adventure .

September : Homeworking parents bedeck their houses with bunting as schools reopen. Everyone discovers their suits no longer fit as they head back into the office. Pret is saved.

It lasts about a fortnight...

October : There has been no Big Restart. Thousands of IT contractors are out of work. Very few new projects have started as expected in September. R&D is still on hold. Confident, complex and safe-as-houses industries and sectors like travel, commercial property, weddings, aircraft manufacture, brewing, conference services and training are collapsing. It's now not just a problem for contractors: IT employees face redundancy levels that have not been seen for a decade.

November: See April: but with the added downside of Retail Armageddon.

But then…. Some wonderfully hardworking, inventive and nimble-thinking people create, evaluate and approve a Covid vaccine.

December : We are all entirely exhausted. But the difference now is that the end is in sight. Even Brexit and IR35 have reappeared and we are almost pleased to see them.

So what have we learned?

Demand for what we all do in IT has been be seismically disrupted in just nine months. Depending on the role you fulfil, you will have been asked to adapt, innovate, be creative, compromise, crisis manage, work at the kitchen table, persuade, persevere, be patient, or apply for a new job. And in many cases, all of the above.

I think the biggest deal is that we have changed. We have taken on the challenge, turned on sixpences and delivered as very best we could. We have proved IT contributes positively to business – if only by bringing in click and collect and card machines for tiny shops – and to business continuity. It turned out we could all be creative problem solvers and agile thinkers. Some of us could even teach compound fractions and now understand what the subjunctive is.

The real opportunity for IT will be to stay this nimble and open-minded in 2021. And all the rest of the decade after that.

With thanks to everyone who read any of my ramblings this year: have a very happy Christmas and a much better 2021!

Mark Aikman is the author of Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation . Found at:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

Just ask!

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 13:26:40 GMT

Useful questions in the transformation discovery phase

Every single transformation has different points of emphasis. Each has a different context and specific challenges; and each one needs a particular tone of voice. The Discovery phase needs to uncover this.

Ignition Transformation is always careful to stress that Discovery is not just there to identify what kit they use in Finance or whether the CRM system is up to snuff. It’s there to get an understanding of the much wider landscape, from goals and opportunities to threats and constraints; taking in politics and personalities; and identifying potential friends and foes.

Therefore, we’ve drawn up a basic Discovery Checklist which can be used as a starting point. Of course, you will need to customise it to fit with your parameters, but as a starter-for-ten this should get you thinking about what else you’ll need to know:

Q uestions to ask (of) the C-suite

What went wrong last time? We always start with the negative – it gets so much more honesty at high speed. The question might be tailored around the specifics – such as “What are the key shortcomings of what we have now?” or “Where are your expectations not being met?”

Make it clear you are asking for the warts-and-all bad news – EVEN IF you personally were the author of some of the existing unpopular systems. This is not about you – it’s about what’s best for the business. And it looks impressive if you the guts to ask everybody this, not just the C-Suite.

Of the C-suite, what percentage would you say have bought-in to this programme? Where within the C-suite are the lower levels of buy-in? These questions give you a starting point for your engagement campaign. Obviously, you do not go up to each C-Suite member bold-as-brass and ask “Hey Barry, you bought-into this or what?” You may have to approach it in a much more oblique and subtle way. Asking “What do you see this project delivering?” tends to give voice to any cynicism….

Characterise the appetite for risk in a) your CEO and b) the rest of your C-suite. When you have the answer, you can choose to view it as a constraint; or instead, a primary strand of your communication campaign. You can ask them about their appetite for risk - or deduce it from their other statements and actions. Asking them would be wiser, as it is puts it on the record.

How would you describe your previous change initiatives from the five words and phrases offered below?

Top down
Refreshing
Collaborative
Chaos
Evolutionary

Respondents are only allowed to select one word – and the choice is deliberately not “either/or”. This will give you the tone of how they feel about previous experiences of change.

How did the organisation set the time-frame/deadline for the completion of this change? Surprisingly arbitrary timelines are often set – so it’s best to check early on just how real and reasonable to window is.

Is this the only significant change we will be running in the assumed time period? Or are there other major change initiatives happening simultaneously? “Other” includes, for example, mergers/acquisitions or other C-suite led initiatives such as culture change programmes. A complex suite of changes happening simultaneously is not impossible – but it’s very challenging and meticulous co-ordination of activity and communications will be essential.

Questions to ask (of) the Divisions

Is this the only significant change programme we will be running in the assumed time period – or will we have any other initiatives ongoing in this division? As well as the company-wide initiatives addressed above, it is very common for divisions or sub-groups of people to be running other changes – for example, organisational restructures, plant upgrades or product launches. The presence of simultaneous projects will give you information on how much attention this division will give to your Programme; whether there is a potential for conflicting changes; and whether arms will be opened in welcome. Again, this will inform your plans for engaging their involvement.

What technology do you have now? What precisely does it do for you? Where does it fall down? How does it waste time? Where is it? Who uses what? Do you own it or hire it from Microsoft et al? What supplier relationships are in place?

What processes do you follow now? Are these dictated by the technology, or is it the other way round? Which processes are noticeably cumbersome/time-wasting? What characterises process improvements that have worked really well in your Division?

How do people in your Division abuse the technology and the processes? Why do you think they do this?

How do your technologies and processes link-up with those used by other Divisions (or Departments)? Where are the gaps and broken links?

Where are the opportunities to be bigger, smarter, faster, more?

Questions to ask (of) the Users

What is inefficient, frustrating, broken? Why do you say this? Here, you will need to observe, probe and evaluate, as well listen. For example, it could be that frustration comes from an ill-advised process rather than unsuitable technology – or vice versa. It’s not going to be a technology solution every time!

How could we help you do a better job? You can prompt with ideas for time-savers, step-removers or customer-satisfaction-enhancers.

Where are the opportunities to be bigger, smarter, faster, more?

Questions to ask (of) the customers

What do our competitors do better than us? Where do we exceed what is on offer from our competitors? This is a bit risky, because it might raise expectations that you will definitely deliver whatever they mention. Only ask this question if you’re intending to knock your competitors’ offer into a cocked hat (whatever a cocked hat is). If this feels too out-there, you could always try….

In a perfect world, what else could we do to impress you? In the real world, what one thing would you like to see improved? Again, this line of questioning needs careful management in order to keep expectations realistic – hence the careful wording. You might consider investing in external, professional and neutral facilitators for customer Discovery. And NEVER approach clients without first discussing this with Sales and Marketing.

Questions to ask absolutely everyone

What will success look like? This is the question to ask of everyone you meet. Obviously, you’ll make sure the executive sponsor answers this, but don’t forget to ask every manager and end-user you encounter, too. You’ll be surprised how much the answers will interlock.

This article is taken from Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation by Mark Aikman

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncommon-Sense-Alternative-Thinking-Transformation-ebook/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

The truth is out there...

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:08:05 GMT

What do you need to know from the discovery phase in digital transformation?

Effective Discovery works on more levels than simply finding out how people currently use the existing technology. I'd argue it has six key features:

1. What’s going on in this organisation?

Clearly, Discovery needs to tell you what’s going on in the organisation. Who’s doing what with which technology; whether it works or not; how they cheat when it doesn’t work; how we could do more business if it worked differently; and how it could be brillianter. It creates benchmark baselines of where we are now on your chosen yardsticks – such as how long it currently takes to do stuff.

You need to elicit a comprehensive picture of what will make the business more efficient and effective, and ideally future-proofed.

Of course, this opens us up to kite-flying pipe-dreams and Utopian-Nirvanas of the first water. It can be very easy for Discovery to conclude that Everything Is Broke and Only Perfection Will Do as a solution. But that’s OK as a starting point: you are aiming to get a sense of the biggest picture possible. Managing expectations in the real world comes later. A full sense of what’s wrong and what’s an opportunity will help you scope the project and prioritise its component parts.

2. What’s the people-factor?

You will also need an understanding of the people of the organisation – widely termed the culture, but exemplified by the attitudes and behaviour they demonstrate. You’ll need to get a clear picture of which frustrations are so great that they outweigh resistance to change – this is generally expressed as “ anything would be better than this”!

You’ll need to know who is supporting which agenda, from the C-suite right through to the shop-floor. You’ll need an attitudinal map, understanding, for example, which departments are the most crafty work-arounders; which will be impressed by glitzy gizmos and gorgeous gadgets; and which would prefer Slade to still be topping the charts.

3. What about the customers?

Let’s have a little story, seeing life from the customer’s end of the telescope….

Stuck on an extremely stationary train once, short of entertainment, my colleague and I were having a conversation – well, OK, a two-way rant – about the transport and travel industry. We concluded that clearly, ten years ago, some imaginative IT and/or Marketing people in travel were given a problem statement that asked them to address “profitable, customer-focused booking”. Some of them did an absolutely brilliant job: for example, just look at the intuitive and innovative approaches in the Trainline booking technology or the BA app.

Now, most travel-industry apps are absolutely great for booking in nanoseconds. And as a result, the customer gets the impression the app is now reliably running the show and is their main point of contact with the transport brand. Expectations of a whizz-bang-customer-delight experience are now (ahem!) on-track to (er) sky-high levels.

Trouble is, the travel and transport industry in general has only got round to addressing the first part of the transaction. You know, the important part, the one where they capture your credit card details like lightning.

Because most transport apps fall apart a few minutes after the booking transaction completes. Most have no facility for problem solving when something goes wrong. They’re not connected to the live-action real world, which is full of fog and snow and malfunctioning credit card terminals and cable-theft and cancelled trains. So the minute there’s a problem, the oh-so-handy app becomes part of the problem – instead of being a switched-on trusty friend, it’s looking a bit blank and repeating itself un-cooperatively. Despite all the imagination and energy that’s been invested in innovation, the stranded 21st century customer then has to revert to Victorian technology and queue up at a desk to consult old-school uniformed staff.

This is a brilliant example of seeing the situation only from an in-house perspective. The travel companies knew what they wanted – seamless booking to get the money and commitment off the punters, pronto. They then failed to recognise what their app did to their brand from the customer’s point of view. Probably because they didn’t ask the customer what their expectations were.

Rule 3 is always include the customers in your Discovery: don’t take the business’s word for it on their needs, views and their aspirations.

4. What are the competitors up to?

Competitors used to be something to do with Sales and Marketing. Now, they’re our problem. Sorry, I mean “opportunity”, to use the correct marketing language.

Your transformation needs to take into account everything you know about what competitors are doing in your marketplace. Ideally, it will put you ahead of the pack; but at Very Worstest you need to be keeping pace.

Marketing folk are trained to look into the empty spaces available in the future – spaces this organisation might claim and fill. They don’t think about the now, or the soon: they are programmed to look at the five- and ten-year horizon.

To give an example, in mid-2020 most UK holiday travel companies were in a flat spin about the here and now, desperately filling next week’s seats and worrying about ever-changing “air corridors” at the height of the global pandemic first wave. But over in China, the 200-year-old Thomas Cook brand had been quietly purchased by a company who were turning the package holiday operating model on its head. This firm was setting up the new Thomas Cook as an online-only brand, with no infrastructure or risky wholly-owned assets. They were capitalising on the brand and simultaneously de-risking their offer – with an almost diametrically opposed set-up to existing travel providers.

That’s the kind of research and thinking we need to do as common-sense thought-leaders – and the kind of space we should be playing in.

5. Setting out your stall

Discovery should also build your store. As well as its practical function in identifying the problem statement(s), it should also pique the interest of the business and be part of starting the engagement process. By asking people what would make them more effective and efficient, you’re asking them to shape this organisation for the future. That conversation may just start the process of bringing them onside with your Programme.

6. A minimum viable product

Your aim in the Discovery stage is to conclude by identifying the minimum viable product (MVP).

The MVP should be extremely clear and not a moving feast. Upping – or downing - the requirements mid-way will lead to disaster and failure to deliver what the business needs. Clarity on the MVP will help you avoid the temptations of bells and whistles; or alternatively mission crop. It will help you plot timescale. And it will tell you if you need to start planning to include scary stuff, such as in-yer-face behavioural change. With a clear MVP, you will know the parameters and scope of your project from its very earliest days.

We'll follow up next week with some questions to ask to get the necessary information out of people....

This is an extract from Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08KSG513Q

Apple location: https://books.apple.com/gb/book/uncommon-sense/id1536877985

Losing IT

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 13:56:30 GMT

What's the single most effective method for retaining talent?

When the going gets tough, the tough get their CVs out. It happens quite regularly on most pressured transformations. What’s the one best remedy for re-motivating and retaining disgruntled team members?

Dead simple. Listen to them.

As Transformation Lead, one of your key responsibilities is to make time for people - and make enough time to listen to them well and empathetically. That’s everything from making time to hear about their weekend; to listening to their career aspirations; to letting them sound-off when it’s not going well.

Listen in order to understand where the person is coming from. Don’t assume you just need to nod and agree while they get it off their chest. Take whatever action you can to bring them back alongside. Often, showing you really do understand how tough they are having it can be enough. If people are paid positive attention – both when they do and don’t need it - you will stand a far better chance of retaining talent. In return, they will give you early-warning signals that they need attention, so you can address dissatisfaction before the place becomes Leaving Party Central.

This is an extract from Uncommon Sense: Alternative Thinking on Digital Transformation

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08KSG513Q

Uncommon Sense

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 14:32:50 GMT

Launched today! With thanks for your thinking...

A very big thank you: to all the people over the years whose ideas (and experiments, nightmares and triumphs) contributed to this book. You know who you are: massive appreciation for all your uncommon sense.

The book is launched today on Amazon and gives an alternative view of digital transformation. It’s not a Haynes Manual of Transformation or a proper academic textbook. Instead, it’s a bunch of ideas for tackling typical problems that surround transformation, from discovery to delivery, via sceptical sponsors and secretive suppliers; TOMs, timelines and training; to bacon and avocados.

Amazon location: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08KSG513Q

MVPD-Day

Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:27:11 GMT

One problem occurs quite often when a transformation is working against the clock: failure to identify what will constitute the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). If you have not identified this bottom-line of your transformation, you are unlikely to deliver very well against your objective and will be very vulnerable to mission creep and crop.

In high speed transformations, typically what happens is that deadlines are so tight that your team will be working on developing and delivering simultaneously with identifying your MVP. You’re in learning-by-doing mode. You’re identifying what you can do whilst still not having identified what you should do.

This will cause the purpose and the output of the Programme to be poorly defined – which invariably results in an expensive free-for-all, with he-who-shouts-loudest being the only satisfied customer.

Stop. Draw a breath. Choose to make identification of the MVP a priority.

Set a date by which you will agree the MVP – or at least, the headline content of the MVP. This date marks the end of the beginning. Discussion of “potential” output is replaced on this day with discussion of “planned” output. We are committed.

This method has a very interesting side-effect. It drives engagement.

That’s because those people who want to have their area of operation included in the transformation suddenly recognise they need to get involved. Instead of telling you they’re too busy to talk to you until at least the middle of next April, they will find time to ensure you are aware of their requirements before the MVP is agreed … on MVPD-Day.

The A Team

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 10:32:44 GMT

The people you really need for successful digital transformation

Successful digital transformation depends on selecting the right team. Duh, of course.

But who do you really need in your A-Team? Well, quite obviously, “people who know about technology”. Naturally, your key personnel will depend on the nature of your programme – but you don’t need me to explain that you’ll need an A1 AI guru if that’s your big opportunity; or a cunning security expert; or sparky developers. The technical roles are usually the easiest to identify; and of course the success of the project is heavily dependent on their skills.

However, I’d argue that there are three more cornerstones to success. I believe a trio of role-groups are critical within the programme and recruiting for these is often delayed, or hurried, or overlooked, as they are not – at first glance – the stars of the show. But in these three sets, the quality of the individual is pivotal to programme success. So my recommendations for careful recruitment in the three groups are:

Group 1: The holy trinity of Commercial, PMO and Finance

Three very big roles, here. I’m making a point by lumping these three together.

Historically in IT, these roles were traditionally seen as absolutely separate from each other. Indeed, I’ve experienced projects where there has been downright territorialism and Byzantine empire building, with each lead washing his/her hands of any connected responsibilities that can be passed onto the other guys. That type of approach is hopelessly old-fashioned and culturally chocolate-fireguard-ish. This trio need to work in harness.

I will always hire collaboratively-minded people for these three roles – folk who will work together to ensure everything is the team’s collective responsibility. This avoids mistakes as tasks fall between two bailiwicks: and even better, it avoids all those hours wasted on forensically identifying whose mistakes the mistakes were….

So what are the other skills and qualities you’re looking for here?

Commercial (aka Procurement)

The right relationship with suppliers – “partners” – is critical to the success of the programme. It therefore follows that the right person managing the supplier relationship is also pivotal.

My first point on the Commercial role is that this person gets hired early-doors. There is no sense in hiring Commercial to pick-over the Swiss cheesy contracts with suppliers that you put in place before the professional arrived on the scene. Hire Commercial before contracting with any supplier.

Next, make sure that the Commercial Manager truly understands partnership working. You need Commercial people to be those who understand that outcomes are agreed with suppliers – and never assumed . My rule of thumb with the client-vendor relationship is that you never have to take the contract out of the drawer. Nothing should arise which makes it necessary to even check The Rules of What We Should Be Getting. We’re seeking to create a situation where suppliers – shock! – are allowed to make a reasonable profit from the job and in exchange will always go the extra five miles. So you need a Commercial Manager who has written that into the deal and then – belt and braces – engendered the necessary supplier pride and loyalty to ensure it occurs.

Programme Leads might be tempted to perform this function themselves. If you have the right experience and commercial acumen, you’d probably be suited to it. However, it’s important not to underestimate the amount of work it takes to effectively manage supplier relationships – including the dainty detail of contracts, timing plans and SLAs. As Programme Lead, you will have many, many more demands on your time – so as a minimum, get someone in who’s good with the teensy-tiny detail and will own the supplier relationship day-to-day.

If I’ve made you doubt you have capacity/time available, you may prefer to bring in some support to get the very best from the supplier relationships. I’d recommend you look for an experienced Commercial Manager who:

Works collaboratively with all parties
In particular, works hand in glove with Finance and PMO, without silos
Is happy to get close to the detail, day-to-day
Knows what questions to ask during due diligence, to see through any flannel from prospective suppliers
Understands contracting and negotiation, as well as positive supplier liaison
Thinks ahead, to ensure the contract is as all-inclusive as possible, to avoid a big bill from later date add-ons and unforeseen premium services
Takes the long view, looking at the lifetime cost of the Programme so that it continues to be affordable to the business in five years’ time. Licenses keep on costing money, people!
Has a good sense of the commercial landscape, knowing what’s for sale and what it’s worth…
... but nonetheless has empathy for the supplier’s position and their need to come away from the experience feeling positive about your organisation

And yes, you’re right. I am indeed saying that the days of Procurement being The Office Rottweiler are over. The type of negotiator who insists on nailing the vendor to the table and then laughing in his face is consigned to Gene Hunt World, where they belong.

This is because a contract works best when all parties are happy with it. If either supplier or client feel they are being ripped off, defensiveness creeps in, and then ultimately conflict and frustration. All that takes time away from Getting The Job Done and Doing A Good Job. It’s wasted energy.

So you’re looking for an intelligent and knowledgeable expert, who sets the tone of the client-supplier relationship right from the stage of drafting the contract. He/she will then Chair “service review” meetings that help guide how the contract comes to life – which is quite an art. Some organisations will run supplier meetings monthly, but I prefer weekly, especially at the start, before there’s a chance for things to go adrift.

And there’s your first clue about the Holy Trinity. Quite obviously, those meetings will bring to light financial and project management issues. But these are not to be handed-down from on high to the other teams – they are to be solved by working across. We’re all on the same side. Even the suppliers….

PMO

You’re also going to need a PMO Lead who can keep both the organisation and the suppliers on-side. PMO is there to work alongside Commercial and keep the output going. In addition, they’re there to maintain the quality of what’s being delivered. It’s quite obvious they can’t do this without continuous reference to Commercial.

A good PMO lead recognises that the effectiveness of suppliers is client-dependent. If those of us inside the client organisation don’t keep our promises and meet our deadlines, we cannot then expect the suppliers to pick up the slack. So the talented PMO will also persuasively manage customer expectations and adherence to our obligations as the client.

In addition, PMO has to sidle over to the finance side of the pitch every now and again. It is extremely easy for the business, the Programme sponsors and, on occasion, even the transformation leads and Commercial to get a bit kids-in-a-sweetshop. The vendors come along flashing all the shiny new toys … and mission creep waits just around the corner… PMO needs to be the grown up and pull on the reins. Persuasive diplomacy is an excellent attribute to hire in the PMO.

Finance

Finance completes the jigsaw. In under-developed leadership teams, there is a tendency for PMO and Procurement to dump evaluation-before-payment with Finance. But it’s not appropriate for Finance to take time on evaluating output against contract in a vacuum. It takes close collaboration with the other two to decide when enough value has been achieved for payment to be made. You need a Finance Manager who keeps the dialogue open.

Group 2: Communications and training

The first rule of communications is… you DO talk about communications. Early doors. Communications and training are not something to bolt-on halfway through or towards the launch – you need the messaging managed from the very start.

There’s an old-fashioned school of thought that believes talking about the Programme before it’s visible and tangible brings it into disrepute; they think this is promising without delivering. In fact, that’s an assumption based on poor communication strategies. In reality, you need to talk about the programme all along – but say different things at the different stages. Therefore, you need Comms on the team – if only with a limited capacity – from the very beginning. It can be very helpful to involve the Comms team in the discovery phase, both to help shape the message and manage the (timeline of) expectations; and to have them be there to listen to how the business sees the problem and the Programme. They need that background information to communicate well.

So what are you looking for when hiring for these roles?

You need Communication people who are able to adapt to the reality of the situation. Of course, they need to be persuasive and technically skilled, but they need a very twitchy ear to pick up on the required tone. Therefore, you’re looking for:

People who listen before they speak. The best Comms people sit quietly for a long time, drinking it all in, so that when they respond they pitch-perfectly hit top notes.
People who can adapt the communication so that it rings-true with each audience. You need people who understand the same message needs to be spun a dozen ways to suit a dozen audiences. Lazy one-size-fits-all communicators need not apply.
People who explain persuasively but honestly, rather than people who sell. Polishing up the situation to make it more attractive will always be found out. Skilled communicators are those who can make the harsh reality acceptable. Or at least, tolerable and credibly fixable.

And what about the training teams?

Meanwhile, back in real life, trainees don’t actually ask difficult questions about the far end of a farthing functionality of the kit. They don’t want an expert: they want a mentor. They want someone to teach and support them as they go through the difficult task of re-inventing everything they know about doing their job. Trainees are often in a place where they see the new solution as “slower” and “more work” than their familiar processes and tools. They’ll feel frustrated, exasperated and even threatened. Time to be kind.

Consequently, you’re looking for people with empathy, a supportive attitude and saintly patience. Charm doesn’t go amiss, either. And again, it’s worth hiring a small training capability early, as prototypes and demos shared with focus groups and UAT volunteers can all be used as part of the engagement campaign.

Which brings me to the final point on this group. As with Commercial, PMO and Finance, try to view Training and Communications as a single entity. Communicators help educate the business; and trainers help the business understand the changes that are happening. The roles overlap and interlock. This team’s members may originate from PR and HR – but they need to work on the Programme as a joint enterprise.

Group 3: the Analysts

The analysts are last, but not least. Indeed, the analysts are arguably first, in that – can you believe this? – you need to do (most of) your discovery before you commit to buying anything. You need the analysts to gain insight into the business, its needs and its current position before you can start committing to suppliers. Time and again I see digital transformation programmes commit to suppliers, services or products BEFORE knowing what it is that’s really needed. Analyse first!

So in this final cluster, I’m including all the people who work with detail, data and information, from the Business Analysts who look at discovery; to the Testing Teams who check that it’s working. Traditionally and unkindly viewed as the Data Nerds, the analysts are coming out of the cupboard under the stairs in modern change programmes. We need them interacting with the business.

Discoverers are here to build the blueprint of facts before we begin. That might be on people or processes, or what shape your data is in. Sometimes, frankly, they even need to go off and discover where your data is!

Roles like this have an enormous impact on the success of the Programme – because it’s only ever as good as the investigation and checks that it’s based on. Therefore, this time you’re looking for people who:

Can identify and interrogate detail. They need to be thorough in doing this…
… but still able to deliver analysis in a timely manner. You cannot take any decisions until they’ve done their work, so skills for balancing content and pace are essential
Discoverers need to be open-minded, to watch and listen without bringing pre-conceived ideas and solutions to a project. You need people who can interview and facilitate, without bias.
They need imagination to view the situation from a number of standpoints and lenses, weigh the importance of each perspective and thereby create realistic options for consideration by decision-makers.
All the analysts also need to be able to build relationships with the business. They are an integral part of the engagement process – from the BAs asking the process owners what functionality they need, to the UAT testers giving it a run out with prospective users. They need to be persuasively on-message and able to build good relationships, part of the team warming-up those people who believe All Change Is A Bad Thing.

So my A-Team has no BA Baracus, no rocket launchers and no jumping out of the back of vans. Apologies to everyone for that disappointment – well, everyone except the people who wanted a successful transformation!

Agile development: a quick case for and against

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 13:16:17 GMT

Six considerations

In digital transformation, the debate on agile vs. waterfall still rages after all these years. So what are the headline arguments for and against using agile?

I tend to use it for Programmes that aren’t up against the clock; or resourced with big bucks budgets to meet a demanding deadline. My main arguments in its favour would be:

The business sees it all happening . You can check back in with your stakeholders every fortnight, giving them something new to chew on, test and examine. They will be highly-engaged in the evolving solution – and they’ll see tangible progress as you head for the finish line.

It builds stakeholders’ confidence . Stakeholders see what’s happened in the project and know what is going to happen next. They understand the hurdles you’re clambering over and any tricky problems get on their radar early, so come as less of a shock. They also see a lot of problems solved within a fortnight, giving them further reassurance that it’s all going to be OK.

he stakeholders can’t send it off track . People will often worry that agile delivery allows the stakeholders too much influence on the project. First I’d say, hey, these people are the customer, and we all know what the customer never is. They must be allowed to describe what they want and judge whether our efforts meet that need. But second, more pragmatically, you can mitigate any risk of mission-creep by using skilled business analysts, who translate between the business and the developers and who are drilled to Stay Focused On What’s Important at all times.

The business benefits from being involved . Agile is well-known for making a lot of demands on the business, asking stakeholders to commit vast amounts of time to development solutions. And yes, you will undoubtedly have to ask for a lot of their time. But instead of resenting that, the business tends to see the benefits – they’re getting what they really want; they’re seeing opportunities to develop the organisation and streamline processes as they go; they understand the system and how it could be further evolved in future. Sometimes, they even believe their IT is going to be a growth-enabler, Heaven forfend!

It can keep going . In truly agile delivery, your changes can be in a state of permanently-continuing. It always gets better.

However…

Agile is easily misunderstood by the business . Because this type of development involves the business in seeing your workings-out, it can be misinterpreted and then can develop a reputation for being a solution made on the hoof. You will need really good communication programmes to explain that we are not “making it up as we go along” or “launching before it’s ready” or “getting the business to solve all IT's problems”.

T-Time

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 15:42:49 GMT

How to tell if it's time for digital transformation

People working in IT can get hung up on the “evolution or revolution” debate. When does your IT you just need a bit of tweaking; and when do you need full-throttle IT transformation? For me, there are five symptoms that show an organisation needs the full monty – this questionnaire walks you through them:

1) Is your screen still black and green?

If it is, you’re using some 30+-year-old technology that hasn’t yet made it into the digital age, and it’s time to bite the transformation bullet. And bear in mind, black-and-green is indicative of Big-Hair 80s technology in its underwear. There are plenty of those systems dressed up in a party frock, with modern-looking interface screens but that are still really black and green underneath….

2) Is your Head of IT ranked below C-Suite level?

If he/she is, then this person – and this discipline - is not considered to be integral to the business. He/she is not in a position to influence strategic decisions. IT is therefore still being seen as a tool, not an integrated enabler. Those days are coming to an end.

As the IT lead, you can prove the worth to the business by the act of transforming. As the business comes to realise what IT can do for it – and where it can take the organisation – your worth will become immediately apparent.

3) Does your technology dictate your processes?

You know the sort of thing: Barry gets the figures off the system and exports them to a spreadsheet. He then passes that spreadsheet onto Graham, who cross-references it with his spreadsheet. Then he sends it back to Janice who adds it up and writes a paragraph to go with it. And bingo! All the answers you need in just three hours and 16 easy stages! Bad technology does nothing other than teach your team how to invest their time in developing ingenious local solutions….

4) Is technology is excluded from your R&D programme?

If you’re developing products and services without thinking about the technology content, then you’re a taxi firm that’s waiting to be overtaken by Uber. You need technology to help you to be disruptive in your sector, to innovate and to get the edge. You need it built in to your offer, not added on at the end – or you’re at risk of being overtaken by an app developed in a back-bedroom.

5) Is your IT department still kept in cupboard?

Stand-alone IT departments are looking increasingly lonely. In these, technology people sit in their quiet office waiting to be invited to a day out in the rest of the company; or retreat there to escape the ear-bashing from irate colleagues who don’t know how to explain what the problem is. Instead, embedding IT people into the other disciplines (e.g. Marketing, Finance, Production) has been proven to enable greater productivity. The host disciplines have less downtime; their systems become sleeker and faster with a technical person on the ground; and the Hero Techie spots and stops a disaster before it happens.

Governance: why making your own rules matters

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 09:20:09 GMT

In any transformation, you need to set your own rules. Any Programme Leader worth their salt will want to be involved in setting the governance criteria and content, ensuring they’ve brought reason and rigour to the expectations placed on the programme. But I believe it goes beyond that obvious and logical I-don’t-break-the-rules-I-make transaction: it has much deeper psychological and emotional components. For me, these are:

1. These are not just your rules . In agreeing the governance criteria with the business, you’ve psychologically bought-into the business’s aims. That often includes committing to massive challenges, like tight deadlines and ambitious multi-project working. You haven’t just said you’ll do it; you’ve promised yourself you’ll do it.

2. You’ve agreed the rules on behalf of others . When you suggested or agreed to certain criteria, you committed on behalf of your team: because you believed this team had the potential to deliver against these demands. You are now obliged to support them to achieve the standards set. You’re the cheerleader on their (winning) side.

3. You need to know you’re winning . Without the rigour of good governance, you can’t know if you’re ahead of the curve, running to catch up or already standing on the podium. At the end, you can’t know if you’ve done a good job, learned any valuable lessons, or have been valued by the people around you. So without rigorous governance, there’s no job satisfaction.

I believe that governance setting should be viewed as a leadership exercise in its fullest sense. Yes, you’ll be promising the business some tangible delivery and practical outcomes. But that’s not the end of it. You’ll also need to think more broadly about how you’ll be contributing to improved inter-team performance; the personal performance of yourself and your team members; and the overall quality of the organisation. Governance is first about hitting the targets – and then about targeting the hits.

Mission Crop

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 06:26:31 GMT

When business transformation becomes IT upgrade

We all start out with good intentions and an ambitious vision – to transform the organisation with IT at the heart of that transformation.

But such well-laid plans are very susceptible to mission creep. It’s all too easy for people to lose sight of the vision when faced with the scale of the transformation task and the non-negotiable deadlines. It’s easy to tip into the world of mission crop, where big ambitions are not realised and return on the investment is not truly achieved. So how do you stop mission minimisation? My suggestions are:

Inspire the business

Most people in most organisations don’t really want to change. Change requires hard work and risk. So culturally, most organisations will find every opportunity to stay exactly the same. If the business is not inspired by the possibilities that come with the proposed change, it will seek comfort-zone solutions – methods and mechanics that keep its world just about the same as it always was. No horizons will be widened.

So everyone in the business first needs to be inspired by the benefits and possibilities that the change will bring. That’s not just the role of the CEO or the Programme Leader. Everyone in IT can play a part in enthusing colleagues about the opportunities ahead. The CIO needs to inspire her team to be inspiring.

Without buy-in from the business, and people willing to run with the new technology to improve the business and innovate further, you will simply have refreshed the IT.

Be a disruptor

In IT, we’ve spent a long time in that windowless office on the eighth floor. We’re used to waiting to be asked to get involved, usually to facilitate or implement other people’s ideas for innovation. Maybe we’re still not really used to exploiting our potential for taking a leadership role in the business. This can sometimes make us a little too passive. And so when colleagues press for familiar-as-possible solutions, we don’t yet have the habit of challenging them.

Making that challenge will be uncomfortable - for everyone involved. Organisations can be perfectly fine with change itself being uncomfortable: indeed, “disruption” has changed from a negative to a positive concept in the last few years in most corporate lexicons. However, they can be less accepting of an IT team and its leader becoming disruptive. For four decades, IT have been compliant facilitators of the organisation’s wishes. IT bursting out of the cupboard under the stairs like Vin Diesel may come as something of a shock.

But if the transformation programme is to succeed in full, IT will have to speak up, be persuasive and put its collective foot down. That means being recognised for your leadership and not easily pushed back into that cupboard.

My best tip here is for CIOs to use some communications coaching before the programme begins. It’s extremely difficult to regain your voice after you’ve been drowned out, so coaching helps you speak out loudly and convincingly from the start.

Do what’s right: not what’s easy

During the build, everyone in IT is of course under enormous pressure. Deadlines are pressing and not negotiable and there is always far more to do than we anticipated at the start. It therefore becomes very tempting to use quick and easy solutions. Expedient shortcuts can result in all kinds of long-term disappointments, from reduced functionality and lost opportunities to lack of metrics and restrictions on further innovation.

I would recommend that the litmus test for solutions that save development time is just one question: “It’s easy: but is it right?” If the solution fulfils the aims of the Programme, then it’s perfect. But if it’s expedient but doesn’t deliver the programme’s potential – then it’s a false (time) economy and it’s never right. It’s just an upgrade. Your aim here is to stop your role in project leadership – i.e. delivering the vision – becoming project management, which is simply delivering a solution.

Do NOT plan to fix it later

Again, those looming deadlines are the enemy of fully achieving our vision. We all know how the argument goes: we know we meant to have that feature ready for go-live but it’s proved tricky. So we agree to launch without it and retrofit it later. The IT will be upgraded at launch, but only part-way to what could have been.

In my experience, in reality people rarely go back and fix it later. They are overtaken by events. Other snags arise and take up time – or even other opportunities arise and catch our magpie-eyes. Users quickly get used to the upgrade – after all, it’s better than what went before – and don’t demand the solution they might have had.

I think the only way of avoiding delayed functionality – and therefore a sub-optimal solution at launch – is to identify in the project plan which features are absolutely non-negotiable if we are to meet the business objectives of the programme. These are therefore always priority developments and must always be fully functional at launch.

Challenge collective self-deception

Finally, the greatest enemy of achieving the full ambition of the programme is a very interesting psychological one. It usually manifests when someone in the C-suite suggests that they are beginning to sense that this organisation is not quite ready for such a profound change as the one we’ve been proposing. When this happens, it is often met with a chorus of approval. Frankly, I think that’s because it lets everyone else off the hook – there’ll be no need for the discomfort of change or risk if the transformation can be labelled as not quite right for the business at the moment. The comforting arms of business-as-usual beckon.

This collective self-deception is based on the worrying assumption that this transformation is about THIS organisation. But it almost never is. It’s bigger than just us. Transformation is almost always necessary because of this organisation’s place in its market . So if anyone else in your market or area of operation is already implementing the content of your transformation, your organisation needs to do it too. And quickly.

You will always need to challenge the introspection of “are we really ready for this?” with “folks: we have no choice”.

Simple rules for digital transformation

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 08:37:59 GMT

The four key questions to ask

I’ve spent my entire career in transformation. And I’m beginning to notice that in many ways, it’s getting simpler, rather than more complicated – I now recognise the key features on which the success of any programme depends. So to keep focused, I’m currently running transformation programmes in response to just four very specific questions:

1) Is our vision one that everyone can believe in?

Bottom line: there’s no success without vision and delivery. But large bespoke digital transformations can take a long time and are incredibly complex. They contain an infinite number of opportunities to become side-tracked. They can be hijacked by ever-changing technologies; they are often subject to organisational regime changes; and they serve colleagues with widely differing priorities.

I’ve learned that it’s critical to solidify the vision of what we want to achieve – and do this very quickly. It’s then essential to create a simple message about the vision that people can remember; and which makes the benefits of the programme crystal clear. Then, everyone working on the programme will have an easy-to-remember yardstick that will help them decide on whether something is a necessity or a priority – instead of just a nice-to-have.

When you have intelligent and capable people who understand and rate the vision, they do not need anyone to tell them every day precisely what to do. These people will feel that they are making a contribution and that they have opportunities for creativity and autonomy. They experience the satisfaction of being both permitted and encouraged to think for themselves.

Therefore, a clear vision and understanding of the benefits of the programme will encourage better and quicker decision making; reduce wasted effort; and create a productive and engaged delivery team.

2) Are we responding quickly to what the customer now wants?

In commercial organisations, the customer needs to be the central point of focus. Obvious enough. But in digital transformation, this has to be coupled with a rapid response to that customer’s ever-changing needs. And those needs do change quickly – for example, nobody knew they needed a app to call a cab instead of making a phone call, until Uber showed them how handy it would be….

So the customer needs to be central. We need accurate information, constantly updated, on what the customers are thinking. And the transformation activity needs to be buzzing around these views and needs, working very quickly and nimbly.

Clearly then, waterfall development, with the supplier sitting way outside the business and producing phased development that takes weeks or months, is probably dead and cremated. Agile and hybrid development are a much better option, as these methods are closer to the customer and quicker to make responsive progress. This rapid development will be successful, as long as the vision is clear, and everyone is conditioned to repeatedly ask……

3) Is it really right for this business?

Successful innovation isn’t always about the bleeding-edge. Of course, everyone wants to out-run obsolescence but it’s essential not to be diverted by hot-off-the-press technologies and solutions. They’re sexy, sure – but are they what this business really needs?

I learned early that the newest solution isn’t by definition the best. Instead, it’s essential to balance the technology specification, design and build against those business benefits we truly need. So if the business needs bells but not whistles, I’ve always taken care not to get distracted by using whistles, just because they’re there.

My rule for selecting technology has been: does it benefit the customer? If it doesn’t benefit the customer directly, does it help the smooth running of the business (which in turn will benefit the customer in the long run)? This question-sequence has always been invaluable in helping select a suite of technologies that perfectly fit the programme’s stated needs.

4) How is everyone feeling about the programme today?

Finally, back to people. We started by ensuring everyone bought-into the vision. But we can’t just wash our hands of them once they have an understanding of the vision: we have to bring them along through the whole experience too. As everyone knows, significant change of any kind can be a challenging and often even a threatening experience. And most people don’t react well to being threatened!

So Question 4 ensures we keep a keen eye on how positive and engaged people are, 24/7. We have to have everyone firmly on the bus to achieve programme success.

In a digital transformation, there is a very important virtuous circle that can very easily become a vicious circle. It’s the relationship between digital change and cultural change. Digital change absolutely inevitably forces cultural and behavioural change on the organisation’s people – things are just plain done differently. But equally, cultural change will be needed if the digitisation is to become wholeheartedly adopted.

So we need continuous work to keep all the people keen on the digital improvements we’re making. That means every programme needs massive effort directed towards building and maintaining workforce engagement. And so, speaking from the viewpoint of a CIO, I will always believe that communication is more important than technology…

The agile mindset: rewiring the CIO for the 2020s

Mon, 06 Jul 2020 08:10:33 GMT

Why the last three months' upheaval is nothing compared to what's ahead

Agile. It’s been the buzzword of the last three years. There’s nothing that hasn’t been said about the possibilities for agile development in our world. Yeah, agile has merit; and we get it.

But it’s a limited concept of agility. Agility that is simply confined to development is nothing like what CIOs will need for the next decade. In the 2020s, it won’t be about dabbling in a bit of agile software development: it will be an all-consuming obligation to be agile in everything we do.

Here’s what I mean:

Covid-19 has meant that we’ve all just experienced what were probably the “most agile” three months of the last decade. We’ve been given innovation space and seen our organisations experience rapid change. For a few days last March, all bets were off and many of us had the opportunity to pluck a new operating model out of thin air.

But that was nothing, decade-wise. Whatever nimble innovation we’ve achieved in the last few months amounts only to the first few steps for the 2020s. It demonstrates just a fraction of the dexterity and open-mindedness the decade will demand of CIOs.

I believe that this decade will be the era of the “agile mindset”. In the next few years we will face the long tail of a pandemic; a sharp global recession; increasingly cagey worldwide trading relationships; above-board and underhand applications of vast datasets; criminal state and commercial security attacks; and technological innovation exploding in all directions. In this environment, the successful CIO is going to need the skills and brass-neck confidence to quickly read the runes; think creatively every time; and take rapid action.

So what’s an agile mindset? And why is “agile” a positive concept and different from “scatterbrain”, “bandwagon-jumping”, or “rainbow chasing”?

I would define the agile mindset that CIOs need as one that has no fear of innovation – even on a large scale, with risk and/or at high speed. It is a mindset confident to make changes because the basis for the change is rooted in intelligent analysis and well-considered weighing of alternative solutions. And the agile mindset means the CIO is able to take decisions on innovation quickly because she has had her eye on the wider horizon in the preceding months and years. She saw this coming.

Rapid response on a grand scale is not always what IT has been famous for. Therefore, if we are rewired, we might surprise and unnerve our colleagues. So it’s going to be essential we avoid accusations of fad-following headless chickenery or mid-life crisis. Consequently, our agile mindset will need to be grounded in, and supported by, five principles. I would say these are:

1. Face outwards

I’ve banged on many times about how the role of IT in the past was head down, keeping the machinery running, while the big decisions were taken by other people. That era is over, and probably ended in March 2020 (see above). We can no longer operate by considering only our own teams or organisations – meerkat-like we need to sit up and look around.

We need to listen and observe to get the fuller picture so we are ready to respond nimbly. That means time spent on listening, observing and taking the time to truly understand the ideas and concerns of C-Suite colleagues. It means observing the actions of competitors, not just leaving that to Marketing or Sales. But perhaps most of all it involves paying close attention to the customer….

2. The customer is always moving

We all know why Zoom meetings went from 10m last December to 300m in April. We may also have noticed in the press that more than half of UK pensioners shopped online for the first time during the pandemic. Those are just two examples of how Covid-19 imposed huge and un-forecasted changes on customer behaviour. But its effect is bigger than that. It taught customers of all kinds that: a) there are good and useful ideas out there that they haven’t yet tried; b) changing the way you interact with a brand is often very easy; c) a new way of interacting can become available very quickly.

Customers will continue to be moving. Their expectations will change, as will their appetite for new and niftier solutions.

This is not something that only Marketing should monitor. The CIO in the 2020s needs an open mind and a keen eye on how customers are behaving. But developing access to customer information and observation needs to be in collaboration with the traditional customer-facing functions – this is not the time for muscling-in, treading on toes or knowing better.

3. Quick response is always possible

We all proved in March that a quick response is possible. There was no choice. I’d argue that it’s always possible, and that availability of choice has nothing to do with it.

I’ve just finalised deployment on the Upfield separation from Unilever – the fastest and largest ever separation in the food industry – completed in 22 months. We accommodated 14 manufacturing plants and lord-knows-how-many offices on all continents, in three phases. “Quick” doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

But we made it, and that was due to (hard work and) taking one significant decision: to use out-of-the-box solutions, with little to no customisation, adaptation or personalisation. Changing the organisation’s processes to adapt to the technology permits rapid and customer-focused change to occur. It can be done.

However, making very rapid changes – especially those affecting people and processes - has one essential sister-principle: you must win hearts and minds. Which means….

4. Bring others along on the trip

We have all noticed over the years that people within the organisation tend not to do things simply because we tell them to. Instead, they have to be persuaded.

Therefore, I’m saying that a key mindset and skillset for the CIO of the 2020s is the ability to persuade, influence and communicate. CIOs will need to prove the argument for their innovation logically and with evidence, as has always been case. But they will also need to be able to influence C-Suite colleagues with persuasive arguments, as well as having the background-radiation of credibility as an outward looking, market-responsive thinker.

Then, they will need to be able to make the case for change to everyone else in the organisation - the people whose roles and processes will change. That will need to be framed to include both logical arguments and understanding of the benefits and results that will help people sample and then adopt the changes.

Crucially, in the coming years, the CIO will need to understand that all endless chatter that underpins persuading and influencing is in fact, Real Work. And work that will consume a great deal of their working week.

5. Anything might happen (but it probably won’t)

Finally, the CIO will need to abide by the principle that anything might happen. After all, it just did.

Experiencing the major upheaval of a pandemic could easily make everyone nervous and hyper-alert to all the meteor-strikes that might happen. However, I am not suggesting setting up A War-Room of Possibilities. Instead, I think we will need a rolling headline plan for what we will do if outlying situations occur, but we should primarily concentrate on having responses up our sleeves for the more likely probabilities. We need one foot in the future – but the likely future.

And of course, we will need, as ever, to keep abreast of technology innovations. However, we should not reduce the CIO’s role into the Librarian of New Advances. Primarily, we need to focus on selecting customer-responsive business innovations and then hire a technology expert to help us cherry-pick the right kit to deliver.

We’ve experienced significant upheaval in the last few months – but it’s nothing compared to what’s coming in the rest of the decade. The 2020s will be a mighty but potentially very satisfying challenge for CIOs. I believe that if we rewire our approach to be more agile and more tuned-in we will rise to the challenge and finally attract the respect that IT’s contribution deserves.

Ninety days that will define the decade

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 09:11:01 GMT

IT now has a unique opportunity to take a leadership role

In IT we are just beginning the most crucial three months of the 2020s. We currently have a unique and long-awaited chance to show business leadership through IT. But I believe it will only be an open window of opportunity until September, as governments worldwide ask many organisations to open up again and contribute to rebuilding the world economy.

No-one needs reminding that we’ve just experienced the weirdest and most disruptive three months of our working lives; and for many people, the saddest and hardest three months. At work, strategies, plans, operating procedures, expectations and even workplaces have been turned on their heads. People who would never have entertained radical change have had it thrust upon them. Some were ducks to water; most swam; a few sank. It has been a period of full-on disruption in both its old-fashioned and trendy new senses.

In many organisations, this degree of change is not being owned. Instead, it’s being seen as an externally-imposed challenge, something to be got-through-and-put-behind-us. In this context, it presents a once in a decade – maybe once in a career – moment of opportunity for IT to take firm ownership, whilst minds are still open to new thinking.

Anyone who is frustrated by IT taking a second-fiddle role (being the facilitator/implementer, not the designer) has to take action immediately. He/she needs to do something this week: sit in a darkened room and have a good think. How can you use this unprecedented sidestep away from normal to reposition IT as a leading force in your organisation?

Take a torch into your darkened room and try these questions out:

What will stop your organisation working to its full potential in The New Normal? Where can you apply IT to facilitate it getting back to full speed?

What typical thinking is preventing the organisation from using ideas like those you had in the answer to Q1? Who is driving/is the source of this obstructive thinking? How can you influence that thinking at source? Whose ear(s) do you need to bend?

What do you expect will be the resistance to your solutions? Put your torch on at this point: this will be a long list, from Brian in Accounts not liking newfangled processes; to shortage of budget; to lack of understanding of the benefits of your nifty ideas. For each point of resistance, write down a solution.

In your darkened room, you’ll then be the proud owner of three lists, entitled What, Who and How.

Of course, many of you are reading this and are quite rightly thinking. “Yeah, I already know all my answers to those questions, so no need for thinking in any darkened rooms, which would be an even weirder thing to do than the stuff I’ve been doing since March.” For you, my fourth questions is:

If you know What needs to be done, with Whom, and How, then what’s stopping you doing it? Why haven’t you started already?

I strongly believe that a door that’s been closed for years to many people in IT has been pushed ajar by the pandemic. It will slam shut again by September, as people snuggle back into their comfort zone, doggedly seeking The Old Normal or accepting the muddle-through approach. IT needs to jam a collective foot in that door.

An excellent resource is The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins. It assumes you are at the start of a new role; in fact, we all may as well be.

Don't squander your once in a decade chance of being heard. You have 90 days…

Adapt and thrive

Mon, 04 May 2020 08:39:21 GMT

Tips for business transformation when the world changes around you

In this 30-minute interview, Mark Aikman and Louise McCarthy discuss how to conduct a business transformation programme within the rapidly-changing environment of a global pandemic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eon4QThO_jU

Other transformations are available

Fri, 28 Feb 2020 10:25:18 GMT

The first questions to ask when beginning a transformation programme

I sat down today intending to write about my experience of tiny upgrades to huge global bleeding-edge transformations, planning to talk about how they’re all basically the same. Size, in this case, is not important, I thought. But after 15 minutes it became glaringly obvious that this isn’t in fact true.

It dawned on me that the operating principles are exactly the same – e.g. robust governance, huge and careful attention given to communications, time spent on truly engaging leadership sponsors – all that stands the test. But…

….Every single transformation has different points of emphasis. Each has a different context, specific challenges and needs a particular tone of voice. I’ve realised it will therefore be more helpful to share what I do to establish what’s different every time. Therefore, here are six opening questions to ask at the start of any transformation:

1. What will success look like? This is the question to ask of everyone you meet. Obviously, you’ll make sure the sponsor answers this, but don’t forget to ask every end-user you encounter, too.

2. How would you describe your previous change initiatives from the five words and phrases offered below?

· Top down

· Refreshing

· Collaborative

· Chaos

· Evolutionary

Respondents are only allowed to select one word or phrase – and the choice is deliberately not “either/or”. This will give you the tone of how they feel about previous experiences of change.

3. Within your C-suite colleagues, what percentage would you say quantifies overall buy-in to this programme? Where within the C-suite are the lower levels of buy-in? These questions give you a starting point for your engagement campaign.

4. Characterise the appetite for risk in a) your CEO and b) the rest of your C-suite. When you have the answer, you can choose to view it as a constraint; or instead, a primary strand of your communication campaign.

5. How did the organisation set the time-frame/deadline for the completion of this change? Surprisingly arbitrary timelines are often set – so it’s best to check early on just how real and reasonable to window is.

6. Is this the only significant change programme we will be running in the assumed time period – or will we have any other major initiatives ongoing? “Other” includes, for example, mergers/acquisitions or other C-suite led initiatives such as culture change programmes. A complex suite of changes happening simultaneously is not impossible – but meticulous co-ordination, especially of communications, will be essential.

Of course, there are quite a few more than six questions to ask. I chose these from my list because not one of them mentions IT at all. If you’re at the start of the programme, you’re nowhere near talking tech just yet!