MOST Analysis

Mission Statement

The programme’s mission is to

1. Embed a process within the organisation to effectively manage selecting, purchasing and implementing technology within the business.

2. Build the Competence of business leaders to identify technology, select appropriate vendors and manage their teams and vendors in its implementation.

3. Build communication and listening skills across the business so that the rationale for change and its benefits are fully understood, and buy-in is achieved with most staff.

4. Build support processes in areas such as horizon scanning.

5. Developing a project portfolio process that embraces not just the digital aspects in the process but those applied to sustainability and appropriate products/services, which might include

6. Provide a suite of tools and templates that speed up decision-making and remove any subjectivity.

7. Introduce key techniques that make the capturing, analysing and remodelling processes faster and easier to assimilate.

8. Promoting the concept that there is a need for a core team of staff across all levels of the business that are skilled in change tools and techniques

9. Developing the project and programme management capability to the point of establishing a Project Management Office for larger projects and continuing developments

10. Embedding a benefits assessment and monitoring process that operates with traditional return on investment analyses and can be tracked back to actions undertaken as part of the implementation and adoption of technology.

11. Implementing or improving the balanced scorecard approach to ensure the value of any technology is correctly measured, and plan adjustments can be implemented rapidly to effect the outcome.

Objectives

1. Improve the success ratio of technology programmes

Rationale

Most Technology implementation programmes need to deliver on their promised benefits or the company’s future vision; more than 60% cost more than the original budget and are completed late. Better use of capital and adoption of the proposed solution will reduce the stress at the senior management level, improve relationships with stakeholders, improve sustainability and enhance the customer experience.

2. The commitment of the senior management team

Rationale
Technology-driven transformation requires all senior management to speak the same language and articulate the same vision. Also, when the programme hits difficulties, they are as a team committed to finding solutions and combatting the inevitable resistance to change. They need to encourage collaboration at all levels and ensure that supporting the programme is career-enhancing.

3. Compelling Reason

Rationale
Without a compelling reason(s) for the programme and the inability to answer the question ‘why’, the programme will fail.

4. Metrics of success

Rationale
For each staff member, the ability to state what good looks like at all levels within the organisation, both corporately and at the personal level, will provide momentum to the programme. Using unambiguous metrics makes reporting and celebrating success much more accessible.

5. Creating a robust, repeatable process for technology programmes

Rationale
This is unlikely to be a one-off exercise. Therefore, enacting a proven process enables management to be flexible in resourcing and use projects as personal development opportunities without risking the quality of the outcomes.

6. Raising the appreciation of change and change management skill levels

Rationale
Change needs to be understood, and when it is forced on staff is never well accepted and is unlikely to be self-sustaining. Awareness of change, answering the What is in it for Me question and enabling all staff to contribute where possible. Extensive training and career opportunities, plus rewarding success, are fundamental. Engaging Change Agents internally to undertake change actions and communicate with co-workers can be transformative.

7. Change the perception and acceptance of benefits to drive change

Rationale
In many transformations, senior executives are sceptical that benefits are just a marketing exercise to sell the project but are unattainable; alternatively, they are used by finance to pressure operational management. Engaging in the cross-functional assessment of benefits, which provides a sight of the full value available but also recognises that this will not be a single target, keeps all management onside.

8. Developing a deeper understanding of processes

Rationale
Applying any technology requires a deep understanding of the process, not just at the transactional level but as an overall operating model. The detail is essential as this highlights stories of waste in redundant and duplicated activities, mismatch of business rules across departmental boundaries and the extent of personal systems and data sources by visual models that can be shared at all levels with the detail defined by front-line staff, managers, and executives, a better level of understanding the of the impact of poor process design. All technology will be implemented at a process level.

9. Resolving the departmental end-to-end process dichotomy

Rationale
Organisations have evolved through the application of command-and-control theory. Managers are asked to manage a skilled resource, the process scope being the conversion of inputs from other departments, customers or suppliers into an output. Their responsibility is to manage the attendance and development of the team to make it capable of functioning to metrics defined within the department. These metrics maybe make the end-to-end processes they are part of sub-optimal. Helping departmental managers understand their responsibility to the end-to-end process and aligning the performance measures accordingly will be fundamental to any transformation.

10. Understanding that robust support processes are required

Rationale
Technological change still involves the staff in the organisation and requires good underlying IT Infrastructure. Therefore, the support provided by HR and IT needs to be best in class, whether supplied through internal staff, external suppliers or a hybrid. The processes and metrics must engage with the strategic elements in the balanced scorecard organisational capability, which is two-fold, cultural and knowledge-base and IT capability. Processes such as IT security, hardware provision, Training, reward, remuneration, and appraisals must align with future business requirements.

Strategies

1. Improve the success ratio of technology programmes.

1.1 Rationale
Most Technology implementation programmes must deliver on their promised benefits or the company’s future vision; more than 60% cost more than the original budget and are completed late. Better use of capital and adoption of the proposed solution will reduce the stress at the senior management level, improve relationships with stakeholders, improve sustainability and enhance the customer experience.

1.2 Strategy
Educate and validate the understanding of all key stakeholders regarding what technology is being employed, what impacts are likely, what mitigating actions can be taken and how planning and monitoring will be fundamental. The business must own the project and be prepared to make difficult decisions during the implementation.

2. The commitment of the senior management team

2.1 Rationale
Technology-driven transformation requires all senior management to speak the same language and articulate the same vision. Also, when the programme hits difficulties, they are as a team committed to finding solutions and combatting the inevitable resistance to change. They need to encourage collaboration at all levels and ensure that supporting the programme is career-enhancing.

2.2 Strategy
Senior management develops the future vision using simple tools such as the Customer Value proposition and the Business Model Canvas, collaborating as a team. Each executive and manager is trained to articulate this vision from a business and staff perspective using their own words but promoting a core message. Active listening and providing counterarguments to staff members will be encouraged.

3. Compelling Reason

3.1 Rationale
Without a compelling reason(s) for the programme and the inability to answer the question ‘why’, the programme will fail.

3.2 Strategy
Building the new business and operating models will need research to support the need for change. Presenting this as a business case will align the issues needing to be addressed with the planned actions, including training, personal development and new career opportunities.

4. Metrics of success

4.1 Rationale
The ability to state what good looks like at all levels within the organisation, corporately and personally, for each staff member will provide momentum to the programme. Using unambiguous metrics makes reporting and celebrating success much more accessible.

4.2 Strategy
Starting with the balanced scorecard and a generic set of KPIs, we will build or refresh the existing business metrics. We will seek to balance the usual lagging financial indicators with more leading ones for customers and internal processes. We will also encourage using measures for organisational capability covering culture and innovation, IT capability covering infrastructure, security management, paperless reporting and mobile device management.

5. Creating a robust, repeatable process for technology programmes

5.1 Rationale
This is unlikely to be a one-off exercise. Therefore, enacting a proven process enables management to be flexible in resourcing and use projects as personal development opportunities without risking the quality of the outcomes.

5.2 Strategy
We will discuss the process steps offered in the course and modify this to suit the company’s situation. We will examine the present processes employed to manage any technological application and redesign it where necessary. The course will encourage establishing partners with research organisations and trade bodies. During the period, we will test the quality of any redesign and modify it accordingly, ensuring that we have applied suitable metrics to monitor performance easily.

6. Raising the appreciation of change and change management skill levels

6.1 Rationale
Change needs to be understood, and when it is forced on staff is never well accepted and is unlikely to be self-sustaining. Awareness of change, answering the What is in it for Me question and enabling all staff to contribute where possible. Extensive training and career opportunities, plus rewarding success, are fundamental. Engaging Change Agents internally to undertake change actions and communicate with co-workers can be transformative.

6.2 Strategy
We will provide routes for all staff to engage in change, from those very keen to those who do not relish the thought—starting with extensive communication sessions backed up with one-to-one or group questions and answer sessions. Online training on fundamental change management skills will be implemented, and a process to identify and train change agents is expected. Success and failure will be recognised, and in the latter case, lessons learned will be documented and shared.

For those members of staff that cannot manage the change within the organisation, the programme will anticipate that alternatives are offered, such as redundancy or support to find alternative employment.

7. Change the perception and acceptance of benefits to drive change.

7.1 Rationale
In many transformations, senior executives are sceptical that benefits are just a marketing exercise to sell the project but are unattainable; alternatively, they are used by finance to pressure operational management. Engaging in the cross-functional assessment of benefits, which provides a sight of the total value available but also recognises that this will not be a single target, keeps all management onside.

7.2 Strategy
The basis of the benefits assessment will be the executive assessment process. Within this process, we categorise benefits into three impacts Displaced Costs (one-off benefits mainly), Increased Productivity and Increased Revenue. We then apply a degree of difficulty of implementation (High, Medium and Low), which relates to the level of control the company has in implementing the change; for example, the likely level of internal resistance or, in the case of revenue, the level of influence the company has over customers. Each degree of difficulty applies a different percentage to the total value of the benefit. Splitting the benefit across all three degrees of difficulty in any category is possible. Having identified the total benefit value and a more ‘realistic’ value, these values can be further modified by applying Control System Theory. This theory states that when applying any measure to monitor a process, you must allow for natural variation, meaning the initial value will have an upper and lower limit. Using this theory, we avoid the single-figure measurement and fail when it is not achieved. So managers are more committed to achieving it. It also lets us practice celebrating successes when the realistic or more optimistic target is hit but not class a failure when the measure dips one month.

8. Developing a deeper understanding of processes

8.1 Rationale
Applying any technology requires a deep understanding of the process, not just at the transactional level but as an overall operating model. The detail is essential as this highlights stories of waste in redundant and duplicated activities, mismatch of business rules across departmental boundaries and the extent of personal systems and data sources. It uses visual models that can be shared at all levels with the detail defined by front-line staff, managers, and executives, understanding the impact of poor process design. All technology will be implemented at a process level.

8.2 Strategy
Process Modelling and Management is an expensive and long-winded activity requiring specialists to perform or document. The resulting documents are used once and are challenging to maintain. We demonstrate that these issues have been addressed with technology such as collaborative tools and digital twin business modelling tools. We examine the relationship between ‘What’ the company does and ‘How’ it delivers. We use the parent-child concept to break down the core processes that the company employs through three levels; to develop the ‘What’ picture. The core processes will be selected from an internationally recognised set of process descriptions and scope.

This work is one with senior executives, managers and process staff. Once these first three levels are agreed upon, we work with managers and process staff to define the following two levels of “How’ the company conducts these processes. At this level, we can examine business rules that orchestrate the process, who does it, its effectiveness and the systems applied. Collaborative tools allow these meetings to be more easily managed and the results shared. They are enabling staff from different locations to be involved with less impact on their daily routine.

During this work, we ensure that the right level of understanding is achieved at every level of the company enabling senior executives and managers to make robust decisions on process change.

Supporting the collaborative approach to process modelling with electronic whiteboards and post-it notes, we will build a digital twin of the processes to examine how employing this technology moves the management of processes further, enabling:

• Lean and Customer Experience Analysis
• ASIS and TOBE comparisons
• System Rationalisation
• Organisational design
• Low-Code or No-code system implementations

9. Resolving the departmental end-to-end process dichotomy

9.1 Rationale
Organisations have evolved through the application of command-and-control theory. Managers are asked to manage a skilled resource, the process scope being the conversion of inputs from other departments, customers or suppliers into an output. Their responsibility is to manage the attendance and development of the team to make it capable of functioning to metrics defined within the department. These metrics maybe make the end-to-end processes they are part of sub-optimal. Helping departmental managers understand their responsibility to the end-to-end process and aligning the performance measures accordingly will be fundamental to any transformation.

9.2 Strategy
We are implementing technology that will cross departmental boundaries and improve end-to-end processes. Cutting across the ‘silos’ that are departments requires the next level of understanding of the process. To do this, we analyse the handover issues across the boundaries, such as;

• Duplication of work
• Conflict of differing business rules
• Creation of additional data sources (re-entry of data)
• Sub-optimisation of overall process performance

We will examine these issues and ensure that the technology is aimed at removing them. End-to-End process metrics are then deployed to the departmental activities undertaken to perform the process. These are then compared to existing measures and changes made where appropriate.

Conflicts in business rules will be discussed, and new rules will be developed to suit the end-to-end perspective.

10. Understanding that robust support processes are required.

10.1 Rationale
Technological change still involves the staff in the organisation and requires good underlying IT Infrastructure. Therefore, the support provided by HR and IT needs to be best in class, whether supplied through internal staff, external suppliers or a hybrid. The processes and metrics must engage with the strategic elements in the balanced scorecard organisational capability, which is two-fold, cultural and knowledge-base and IT capability. Functions such as IT security, hardware provision, Training, reward and remuneration and appraisals must align with the requirements of the future business.

10.2 Strategy
An initial capability maturity assessment will identify the status of the processes. Metrics will be set to these processes and be captured in the balanced scorecard. The evaluation will determine the performance gaps, and we will define a couple of projects focused on HR and IT to run in parallel with the technology project(s). If HR is provided through internal resources, we will examine ways in which HR advisors and L&D staff can become an integral part of the change team; in areas such as communications and training in skills such as lean, problem-solving and presentations.

Tasks

1 Improve the success ratio of technology programmes.

1.1 Rationale
Most Technology implementation programmes must deliver on their promised benefits or the company’s future vision; more than 60% cost more than the original budget and are completed late. Better use of capital and adoption of the proposed solution will reduce the stress at the senior management level, improve relationships with stakeholders, improve sustainability and enhance the customer experience.

1.2 Strategy
Educate and validate the understanding of all key stakeholders regarding what technology is being employed, what impacts are likely, what mitigating actions can be taken and how planning and monitoring will be fundamental. The business must own the project and be prepared to make difficult decisions during the implementation.

Tasks
• Conduct Stakeholder Assessment
• Conduct Individual awareness sessions
• Technology Impact Assessment
• Develop Project Portfolio
• Sign up for the Senior Management Charter

2 The commitment of the senior management team

2.1 Rationale
Technology-driven transformation requires all senior management to speak the same language and articulate the same vision. Also, when the programme hits difficulties, they are as a team committed to finding solutions and combatting the inevitable resistance to change. They need to encourage collaboration at all levels and ensure that supporting the programme is career-enhancing.

2.2 Strategy
Senior management develops the future vision using simple tools such as the Customer Value proposition and the Business Model Canvas, collaborating as a team. Each executive and manager is trained to articulate this vision from a business and staff perspective using their own words but promoting a core message. Active listening and providing counterarguments to staff members will be encouraged.

Tasks
• Conduct Customer Value Proposition Workshops
• Develop Business model Vision using Business Model Canvas
• Conduct one-to-one and group presentation sessions
• Monitor management communications sessions
• Provide Training for managers to communicate better or undertake active listening.

3 Compelling Reason

3.1 Rationale
Without a compelling reason(s) for the programme and the inability to answer the question ‘why’, the programme will fail.

3.2 Strategy
Building the new business and operating models will need research to support the need for change. Presenting this as a business case will align the issues needing to be addressed with the planned actions, including training, personal development and new career opportunities.

Tasks
• Build a business case to support the future vision
• The business case to cover corporate and personal benefits and changes
• Outline project outline and supporting activities such as training and IT infrastructure developments.

4 Metrics of success

4.1 Rationale
The ability to state what good looks like at all levels within the organisation, corporately and personally, for each staff member will provide momentum to the programme. Using unambiguous metrics makes reporting and celebrating success much more accessible.

4.2 Strategy
Starting with the balanced scorecard and a generic set of KPIs, we will build or refresh the existing business metrics. We will seek to balance the usual lagging financial indicators with more leading ones for customers and internal processes. We will also encourage using measures for organisational capability covering culture and innovation, IT capability covering infrastructure, security management, paperless reporting and mobile device management.

Tasks
• Review existing or build a new balanced scorecard
• Populate with existing KPIs, where available
• Run a workshop to select new or additional KPIs based on a generic set or other sources.
• Define a potential benchmarking partner, enter an information-sharing agreement, or join a benchmarking service.
• Add new KPIs for all sections of the balanced scorecard and set targets.

5 Creating a robust, repeatable process for technology programmes

5.1 Rationale
This is unlikely to be a one-off exercise. Therefore, enacting a proven process enables management to be flexible in resourcing and use projects as personal development opportunities without risking the quality of the outcomes.

5.2 Strategy
We will discuss the process steps offered in the course and modify this to suit the company’s situation. We will examine the present processes employed to manage any technological application and redesign it where necessary. The course will encourage establishing partners with research organisations and trade bodies. During the period, we will test the quality of any redesign and modify it accordingly, ensuring that we have applied suitable metrics to monitor performance easily.

Tasks
• Discuss and develop the proposed process.
• Examine all existing processes that are being used to manage technology projects.