Technology Invoked Change – Workshop 2 (Technology Identification)
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Technology Invoked Change is provided by Mr. Horrocks Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
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Learning Provider Profile
Mr Horrocks, M.SC, B.Eng., C.Eng. has had a long career dealing with technology in various industries beginning in his early years as an engineer with the application of computers to machine tools both in structural Analysis and automated tool changing. His development with technology has followed both the computer-based developments through CAD, CAM, CIM and robotics to materials such as carbon fibre and the use of lightweight metals. He has been in the vanguard of introducing critical technology applications, such as low-power lasers for aligning machine tools to applying visual simulation techniques for assessing manufacturing lines and warehouse design.
As the technology matured, Mr Horrocks moved from the technical design to implementation, exploring why seemingly good projects and technologies failed. This led to change management and the impact that technology has on both people and processes.
Mr Horrocks began his career in machine tools after taking a mechanical engineering degree and a master’s in machine tool technology, focusing on designing future machine tools, for example, replacing cast structures with fabricated ones. This is Mr Horrocks’s genuine interest and capability in analysis and using computer tools to provide data for decision-making. Mr Horrocks next career move was into production consulting, analysing, and improving production processes.
Gradually Mr Horrocks became engaged in computer systems for design, process planning, and commercial processes, covering designing new applications and supporting customers with their implementation. Implementation work developed from training on new transactions and data migration to helping the organization through the required change. Again, this aligns well with Mr Horrocks’s natural disposition to create solid personal bonds, building strong customer trust.
• Depth of research
• Depth of experience
• Ability to relate customer situation to his experience.
• Anecdotal capability
• Simplifying tools and examples
• Good presentation skills
• Has undertaken the work personally within a wide range of industries and company profiles.
Mr Horrocks delivers engaging workshops and support materials; his rich tapestry of experience across different industries, company sizes, cultures, and ownerships enables him to relate to each client’s unique situation quickly. His style enables him to challenge management teams and proffer solutions when they appear stuck, changing the status quo. Mr Horrocks brings leading-edge tools that provide insights and vital decision-support information. Mr Horrocks has a lengthy mentoring background and is an experienced exponent of the art through online mediums.
MOST Analysis
Mission Statement
The program’s mission is to:
1. Embed a process within the organization 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.
• Decompose the proposed process down to the activity and task levels
• Set out the business rules and business roles
• Identify any research partners and seek cooperation agreements
• Set out process metrics, monitor and adjust processes during the project
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.
Tasks
• Conduct a series of communications sessions, beginning with a company-wide one, followed by departmental, then one-to-one sessions, at each decomposing the impact from corporate to department to individual.
• Support the face-to-face with additional communications such as videos and newsletters.
• Contact critical suppliers and customers again with both face-to-face and other media.
• Discuss individual action plans and timelines for implementation, including help with leaving the business if that is the result of these consultations.
• Communicate through all media successes of the programme and operate workshops to discuss failures and document lessons learned for the remaining and future programmes.
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.
Tasks
• Conduct a senior management workshop to discuss benefits and explore the use of the assessment tool.
• Set out the business process model, define each technology project’s impact, and map it to the relevant projects.
• Calculate the overall benefit and apply the category and degree of difficulty to each one to create the rationalised value.
• Conduct workshops to apply upper and lower limits to each rationalised value.
• Produce monitoring template
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
Tasks
• Agree on a high-level Process model based on the “what’ and ‘how’ process breakdown.
• Breakdown the processes at level 3 into detailed sub-processes and activities using cross-functional teams
• Conduct a capability maturity assessment, produce a gap analysis
• Using the gap analysis as a steer for the cross-functional workshops, explore the reasons behind the gap; using Lean and customer experience tools, explore waste such as redundant or duplicate activity, poor business rules and multiple data sources
• Create TOBE process models based on re-engineering the ASIS
• Review the use of digital twinning and agree on a strategy for the future.
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.
Tasks
• The outcomes of the end-to-end process analysis are presented to the departmental managers to discuss solutions and agree on actions to improve processes before any technology introduction.
o Remove unnecessary activities
o Remove personal uncontrolled data sources
o Implement management mandates to seek a single source of data
o Redesign business rules
• Document new business rules and communicate to staff
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
• Using the outcome of the capability maturity matrix for the support processes in HR and IT, undertake a workshop to determine potential solutions.
o Use of external resources to fit skills gap
o Introduce new capabilities such as online training
o Developing present staff to undertake different roles, such as trainers or mentors
• Redesign reward and remuneration system to enable recognition of upskilling and support of any change initiative.
• Present revised departmental structure and capabilities to senior management
Introduction
Welcome to Technology Invoked Change Workshop 2, Technology Identification. During this workshop, we start by exploring the need to look forward if a company is considering investing in technology. This requires a structured approach to gathering information across the company, identifying sources from research institutes and trade organisations. We review how to undertake horizon scanning, which, through a forum of staff, experts and futurists, Provides a long-term perspective on potential risks and issues the company might face. The workshop explores how partnerships with academic institutes might be beneficial in supporting the long view and providing answers to those risks. Finally, we suggest ways in which the internal research sources can be maintained.
The workshop moves onto how to link the strategic plan to the forward project plan by first defining criteria from a strategic perspective and then applying these to managing the bold project portfolio. The project portfolio management process requires an owner who can monitor, rank and prioritise the projects to meet both the strategy and any resource constraints.
The workshop moves on to discuss the requirement for concept testing for new products and services but also for internal transformations. The use of pretotyping keeps the costs of this process low and enables the company to fail fast. For physical products, digital twinning and 3D printing are reviewed.
As we move along the technology identification process, the workshop arrives at technology selection, which, over time, as the complexity of some of the decisions has increased and the number of options grown has become mired in long-winded and slow processes. The workshop demonstrates how to simplify the process and ensure the decision is objective and satisfies the strategic goals. The workshop also focuses on the need to not only choose the right technology but also the correct partner and internal team.
Having decided on how a project can be delivered from a people, partner and technology perspective, the next step is to ensure that the combination can achieve the required delivery during and after the implementation. Fully understanding your own resources capability and that of your partner will enable the company to plan any strategic change in the organisational ability by upskilling individuals and defining if the supplier needs to be ready to manage the service beyond the implementation.
The next subject in the workshop covers risk. We discussed the long-term risks earlier in the seminar when discussing horizon scanning; now, we are embedding that work in an Enterprise-wide Risk Management system. Adding in the project-related risks and constantly evaluating the status of the risks will guide both project management and senior executives to prevent potential project creep or missing delivery targets.
The following section deals with benefits management and the need to make this process that executives, project leaders, and managers can buy into. We discuss ways to connect the additional business capability envisaged through delivering the project and aligning this with the technology functionality and the required changes. Simplifying the benefit assessment process and permitting the application of qualitative evaluation of the ease of implementation means that single-figure benefit targets are avoided.
The final section of the workshop centres on communication and the fact that this subject is the most critical item in any technology implementation. We discuss personal communication styles and how to improve them. We review communication planning within each project plan and how best to use all the various media channels now available to reach your target audiences across the stakeholder spectrum.
Executive Summary
This workshop will deal with this process content.
Chapter 1: Horizon Scanning
The speed of technological change demands that more industries and companies engage in Horizon Scanning, looking for potential changes in the future that might impact the business. Several tools can be applied to assessing risks and opportunities to any business. It is not about predicting the future but detecting weak signals as indicators of potential change. The methodology has been used most prominently with governments and their agencies but is becoming more relevant for business.
As explained by the UK Cabinet Office:
It’s not about making predictions but systematically investigating evidence about future trends. Horizon scanning helps the government to analyse whether it is adequately prepared for potential opportunities and threats. This helps ensure that policies are resilient to different future environments.
The underlying principle draws experts from several disciplines to discuss a common issue and seek solutions. These experts need to come from credible sources to ensure the success of the process. In the workshop, we discuss scenarios or single issues, the scope of the scan, what sources the function will use, just machine-readable data or expert opinion or a combination of both. We look at the stages from identifying and monitoring relevant issues, assessing and understanding challenges, and envisioning desired futures and the actions to achieve them.
We will examine best practices in a process that has yet to be standardised, techniques in information gathering, communicating results and connecting these results to actions, and finally, how we apply any lessons learned from the scan. Scanning can be a continuous exercise with scans weekly or discontinuous when it is initiated to focus on an issue as it arises.
Institute of Risk Management
The workshop will set out process alternatives for identifying the right experts, the structure of the scan itself and how results are feedback and acting upon. Looking at ways to optimise the process through visualisation tools, seeking effective information sources, defining decision criteria and questions to ask and the use of methodological tools.
Chapter 2: Research Sources
Effective Horizon Scanning requires a robust internal process for reviewing all critical sources of information from the internet, trade publications, professional institute newsletters, learned papers, and government publications. Any relevant information needs to be summarised and made available to all employees in the organisation; this knowledge base needs to be structured so that information is easy to locate and update for digital research organisations such as Gartner and Info-tech provide extensive information, as do several independent technology watchers such as Bernard Marr.
Diversity and a wide range of information are essential for a horizon-scanning activity to be effective. Reports suggest practitioners should count on highly reputable publications, scientific reports, patents, and archives as primary sources.
In some instances, it may be advantageous to enter into a partnership with a University, which needs careful planning to execute successfully. Effective collaboration requires understanding the differences in culture, organisational style and operational parameters.
Key factors impacting any collaboration include the resources required, the type of research needed, communication frequency (using all channels) and the language used. When setting out the collaboration agreement, set out clear goals and objectives for both organisations and establish a clear set of operating rules for decision-making, intellectual property management and publishing, recognising that in some cases, the University requirement might directly clash with that of the business and this will need to be resolved. Mapping cultural differences, organisational objectives and operating parameters, such as working calendars, will avoid unnecessary conflicts.
In all partnering agreements, whether individual experts or Universities, always conduct an objective evaluation process, with clear criteria laying out the required support, scope and timelines and how the information must be presented. Knowledge transfer is fundamental; understanding your role and partner’s will avoid losses in poor or incomplete transfer. Be aware that if any government support is provided through the partnership, what are the company’s obligations, and what is the impact on IP?
Chapter 3: Strategic Alignment
Strategic Alignment enables companies to align all elements of a company’s strategy, covering customers, markets, operational processes, organisational capability and people development. Conducting this alignment will resolve issues arising from departmental initiatives that do not meet the strategy. Any misalignment can lead to a loss of trust in the future business vision, which will demotivate and weaken the momentum of any change or transformation effort.
Several artefacts combine to define the strategy, such as the Business Model, which will encapsulate the mission, vision and values; the balanced scorecard, which embraces the measures of performance required; and the target operating model, which defines the end-to-end process model. The strategic alignment will bring these elements to life, enable departmental objectives to be aligned with strategic ones, and confirm the execution of actions to achieve them.
Companies that embrace this process state that benefits are far-reaching and include;
• Increased empowerment across the whole business to be involved in shaping the future in terms of goals, visions and ambitions
• Building teamwork across and down an organisation
• Greater clarity of structure and their role in delivering the strategy
• Reducing the loss of energy and momentum by following the wrong initiatives
• Manage any part changes more effectively
• Clarify and correct any conflicts in the business
• Greater leadership credibility and faster decision-making
• Finally, building a more extensive and more effective consensus for change within the business
Different approaches show that the underlying principles are the same; for example, the consultancy Blue Ocean focuses on three propositions: value, profit and people. They are using a technique that analyses the company’s position in these three areas against crucial competition.
The importance of this work must be considered, as a recent survey showed that less than 40% of the C Suite believed that their operational teams had a different perspective than they did. Microsoft Work Survey 2022 states that employees who know how they contribute to the company’s objectives are less likely to leave by a factor of at least 4; companies that have engaged employees this way are 23% more profitable. If there is poor alignment, HR departments will confirm that this drags the whole company down with phrases such as Quiet Quitting, Bare Minimum Monday, Quiet Firing, Great Resignation, and Mass Layoffs becoming part of a company’s dictionary.
It is vital to recognise a rhythm for each company layer, from the strategic to the operational and the tactical. Differences exist, but linking is key, linking the forward strategy set for 18 months, reviewed every quarter, to the Operational plan, which covers 12 months and is reviewed and reported monthly, with the day-to-day tactical operation that operates in real-time. Doing this successfully will
• Reinforce Strategic Intent and Priorities
• Encourage cross-functional working
• Sharing of information, learning and development of best practices
• Building an eco-system that operates on team cooperation and shared goals
• Focus is on the whole business, not departments
• More agile business with faster decision-making made at the correct level
Chapter 4: Portfolio Management
Implementing any strategy will involve completing several projects, from minor to larger. This collection of projects will need to be managed together and optimised to enable the financial and strategic goals of the company to be realised. This is called Project Portfolio Management and sits above programme and Project Management. Project and Programme management are about execution and delivery; Project Portfolio management is about doing the right project at the right time. The process helps optimise using limited resources and build synergies between projects. Poorly managed portfolios come from having too many competing projects and non-objective use of resources.
The Strategy alignment process will have identified a set of criteria that form its basis. These criteria will be framed as below.
• Lowering Product costs
• Improving Product performance
• Developing support services
• Improving Product Quality
• Reducing the carbon footprint
• Improving the ecological footprint
• Market attractiveness
• Uniqueness compared to the competition
• Feasibility and leverage of core competencies
Each can be scored on a simple scale, and further refinement can be achieved by weighting the criteria.
Critical steps in the process will be to clarify business objectives (taken from strategic alignment), research requests, compare and select best projects, validate feasibility and manage and monitor. When comparing portfolio projects, visual displays can help aid the understanding, such as bubble charts, which can measure risk versus reward or time to profit, with each bubble having attributes displayed as colours or size to indicate resource utilisation and time to completion.
Chapter 5: Concept testing
Almost all technology implementations need to explain the concept being espoused, whether a change in materials or implementing a digital process. Completely disruptive innovations, particularly those products and services sold to external customers, will require extensive testing, ideally at the lowest possible cost. The key phrase here is to fail fast and learn.
In the early stages of any development project, best practice promotes the idea of ‘pretotyping’, a phrase coined by the Director of Innovation at Google. The ‘pretotyping’ process ensures that the market, customer segmentation and value proposition are fully tested before extensive development work is undertaken. Google states that it has been wasting over 70% of development money on unsuccessful products.
Pretotyping tends to be delivered through hypothesis testing and using the results to modify product specifications, pricing and delivery mechanisms. Minimum Viable Products tend to be the next step from pretotyping and can be delivered via digital twins and 3D printing, for example.
The MVP is a practice that attempts to demonstrate a new product or service’s look, feel and performance at the lowest cost. There are recognised types of MVPs, including Fake Doors, Mechanical Turk, Pinocchio, One Night Stands and Split Tests. Each will use different technologies to test customer reactions and feedback before investing in a complete prototype.
Digital twins can be developed for parts and assemblies, for example, seat layout options in passenger aircraft and presentation of off-site construction options, say for utility rooms or bathrooms; in some cases, small-scale replicas can be developed using 3D printing.
Chapter 6: Technology Selection
Selecting the right technology and the correct partner to fit your culture is equally important; the starting point will be the high-level business case emanating from strategic alignment and portfolio analysis. Technology choices involving new materials probably only have one solution, but those involving digital-based solutions will have many options, and we need the most effective one chosen.
A set of steps represents best practices and avoids mistakes critical to the business’s future, such as missing functionality, buying unproven capability and a mismatch with company structure. The key steps can be summarised as follows;
• Confirm the specification and avoid functional creep; the easiest way to do this is via the processes, using the end-to-end processes that form part of the target operating model and validating the scope with all departments involved in delivering the end-to-end process. The Process Priority Analysis will indicate the points of focus.
• Fully develop the process steps using cross-functional teams and collaborative tools; ideally, document outcomes within a digital twinning tool and analyse the processes with Lean customer experience attributes to look for waste and streamline opportunities. Document the key functionalities and projects to manage the streamlining actions. Develop use cases to define how the functionality will be used and which role within the business.
• All functionalities will not be equal. Seek a way to classify them as mandatory, desirable and aspirational. Weightings can be applied to each classification. Perform this work with a fully cross-functional team to gain a consensus, ensuring business buy-in.
• Shortlist solutions applying a range of criteria, such as:
o Functional match
o Resources available
o Implementation Planning options
o The market position of the provider, does it match your company’s position
• Narrowing the shortlist starts with internet searches and online demos to get to a maximum of three; request the demonstration to be structured around the Use Cases and provide your data to bring the demonstration to life.
• Use a scoring template to rate functionality, usability and cultural fit. Build a business case based on each vendor’s scores, costs and a timescale to support a selection and presentation from the team to senior management.
New technologies will require an extra step: a full Proof of Concept, which might embrace a set or one process with an entire dataset and configuration of the system to meet usability needs and business rules.
Chapter 7: Delivery capability
Part of the selection process will include a short internal and supplier skills assessment. Once a choice is made, the company will need to conduct another forensic review to enable it to define internal training requirements and explore the need for additional external resources to support the project.
Drawing up a skills matrix for each project is the first part of this work, with the additional skills required for any specific technology defined in conjunction with the vendor. Completing the matrix across the staff to identify skill levels and gaps provides a guide to seeking suitable training options. If there are internal systems to record these requirements, these should be completed, and face-to-face or online courses should be identified and funds made available. Ideally, each class should provide a certificate of completion for each person’s CPD record. Recruit suitable candidates, expressing the role that needs to be filled and the career development opportunities for anyone willing to be retrained.
Skills considered more transient than future support of the project post-implementation, which the vendor needs to provide fully, could include programme or project management, specialist IT skills, coaching and mentoring and process analysis. Researching potential sources for these will begin with the Internet and any referrals from other businesses that have or are implementing similar technologies.
Selecting external resources is a complex procurement process requiring correctly specifying the skills necessary, testing them and gaining customer testimonials. Contract structures must set obligations, deliverables, service levels, and relevant employment conditions such as substitute resources and notice periods. This is relevant even for remote working.
Chapter 8: Risk management
When presenting the business case, it is required to develop and populate a risk register, which should capture not just the technical risks but also any legal/regulatory, environmental, cost, schedule, safety and market-related risks. From a technical point of view, risks will need to be considered at the process level and for adoption reasons, looking at the user interface, transaction processing and access to information; also, from a vendor perspective, team capability and resource capacity; plus the management of changes through software updates.
The standard risk register will capture the following data;
• Risk description
• Risk category
• Probability
• Impact
• Severity
• Cost to fix
• Financial Impact
Each risk can then be assessed against a set of action categories as below;
• Avoidance, taking actions such as moving resources or hiring extra resources
• Reduction: a mitigating action might be to adjust budgets or seek cheaper alternatives to ensure project completion.
• Transference is moving the risk to a third party, such as a supplier, if that is included in the contract or employing an insurance policy to cover the costs.
• Acceptance accepts the risk; sometimes, the reward will outweigh the risk.
These are then mitigated to reduce the risk the business is exposed to; a recent survey found that 59% of companies reported that the number and complexity of threats are increasing, and 68% of organisations have experienced an operational surprise due to a risk they did not adequately anticipate.
Chapter 9: Benefits Management
Throughout this program, the assessment, management and monitoring of benefits will continue the detail and accuracy. Increasing as the information on impacts becomes clearer. Our methodology is based on an IBM-Harvard Business School approach that applies pseudo-scientific analysis, enabling executives and senior managers to buy into the results. The system relies on the process model; it requires that the management team assess which processes any technology chosen will impact and categorise it into three types.
• Displaced Costs are usually a one-off impact such as inventory reduction, stopping printing or headcount reduction.
• Improved productivity, conducting the process more effectively.
• Increased Revenue, selling more to more customers or improving the margin due to reduced operation costs.
The second dimension of analysis is the difficulty of implementation, which in technology has both a technical capability angle and change and adoption. Three levels are related to the ease of implementation and are
• High implementation of the technology is entirely within the gift of the management team, the resistance to change is assessed as low, and the company has the skills to implement it.
• Medium, it is assessed that the resistance to change might be high, and the company relies on external resources to deliver the required skills.
• Low, the resistance to change is assessed as high, implementation skills are challenging to find, or the market will have a significant influence.
Each of these dimensions has a percentage attached to High 70%, Medium 40% and Low 20%; these are applied to the raw figures assessed for the technology impact. Therefore the process can deliver an overall benefits figure for all processes and a modified figure that recognises the effort required to implement it beyond the cost of external support.
These two figures provide the vision of the best that can be expected and a more realistic target that operational managers can buy into. In the case of a multi-technology project such as combining business process management, robotic process automation and AI then three assessments maybe be required and then combined.
Chapter 10: Communications
Executive engagement is critical to any technology deployment, requiring constant commitment and reinforcement. Executives can only be engaged if they have enough information to participate in decision-making, understand the impact of their decisions and then articulate that impact through a vision of the future.
Facilitating this need careful planning to provide easy-to-assimilate information on the technology itself, using curated research and vendor marketing materials and subtly testing understanding through communication sessions to ensure time has been spent reviewing the report. Articulating the vision will be the responsibility of the relevant executives, but validating that vision vis-a-vis the technology is fundamental. As they say, ‘little knowledge is a dangerous thing’.
All the visioning and decision-making will revolve around the business processes, and therefore, the right level of understanding must be imparted prior to any decisions to implement the technology. The understanding is not how the technology works but the impact on the process, the data required and the business rules that might need to change.
Digital Twins are a critical factor in making this a reality. If they are easy to access anytime, without an expert being required, there is a better chance it might fit with the executive’s schedule and persuade a more in-depth examination of processes. Capable digital models will provide several insights to support decision-making, starting with the level of waste within a process, which will be due to the slow evolution of processes as the business matures. These can be difficult to remove as they become part of the company’s immune system, particularly if they are associated with the departmental structure. As an executive, being able to challenge long-established departmental managers with a rational approach rather than simply commanding change will probably mean a more self-sustaining change.
Supporting this process confidence with structured arguments developed by process experts will significantly enhance the executive’s impact on the projects or programme.
We discussed the benefits assessment process earlier in the workshop, which again will provide confidence to non-financial executives and managers that they talk about benefits and how they will achieve.
Lessons Learned
Feedback from PoC
Measurement and analysis
Modifying project approach
A fundamental principle we espouse throughout the programme will be capturing lessons learned and communicating them for successful and unsuccessful actions. During this part of the process, there are several touchpoints where this action is vitally important.
The first of these will be Proof of Concept, which can be presented and tested in various ways.
• Pretotyping is essentially a hypothesis test of the customer value proposition, which is easy to envision if the company is developing a new product or service. But it can also be valid for any change in customer-facing processes. Therefore one of the proposals we discuss is the use of customer panels which can be employed remotely through questionnaires, online workshops or face-to-face forums. Using the feedback to alter the design of any product, service or process if the internal team feel it is valis and achievable. Recording the information within a knowledge for future reference also.
• An MVP will be a facsimile of the proposed product or service process, which can be achieved through video, scale models, user interface mock-ups and physical representations in traditional modelling tools such as clay or wood. The review and feedback mechanisms will reflect those above, except for physical representations that need face-to-face assessment.
Applying measures across the programme means that there will be a constant stream of information, regarding progress, changes in risks and effectiveness of certain actions. Each of these outcomes will provide guidance on the following;
• Effectiveness of training and skills upgrading
• Management of external resources
• Software capabilities and Testing them
• Communications effectiveness by channel
• Levels of adoption
• Market changes, both regulatory or customer driven
All this information can inform both the project approach and individual departments such as HR with regard to L&D tools and techniques, procurement on sourcing, evaluating and managing the delivery of external resources and internal marketing on messages and the most effective channels. Again this knowledge should be embedded in each departments processes and business rules.
Curriculum
Technology Invoked Change – Workshop 2 – Technology Identification
- Horizon Scanning
- Research Sources
- Strategic Alignment
- Portfolio Management
- Concept Testing
- Technology Selection
- Delivery Capability
- Risk Management
- Benefit Management
- Communications
Distance Learning
Introduction
Welcome to Appleton Greene and thank you for enrolling on the Technology Invoked Change corporate training program. You will be learning through our unique facilitation via distance-learning method, which will enable you to practically implement everything that you learn academically. The methods and materials used in your program have been designed and developed to ensure that you derive the maximum benefits and enjoyment possible. We hope that you find the program challenging and fun to do. However, if you have never been a distance-learner before, you may be experiencing some trepidation at the task before you. So we will get you started by giving you some basic information and guidance on how you can make the best use of the modules, how you should manage the materials and what you should be doing as you work through them. This guide is designed to point you in the right direction and help you to become an effective distance-learner. Take a few hours or so to study this guide and your guide to tutorial support for students, while making notes, before you start to study in earnest.
Study environment
You will need to locate a quiet and private place to study, preferably a room where you can easily be isolated from external disturbances or distractions. Make sure the room is well-lit and incorporates a relaxed, pleasant feel. If you can spoil yourself within your study environment, you will have much more of a chance to ensure that you are always in the right frame of mind when you do devote time to study. For example, a nice fire, the ability to play soft soothing background music, soft but effective lighting, perhaps a nice view if possible and a good size desk with a comfortable chair. Make sure that your family know when you are studying and understand your study rules. Your study environment is very important. The ideal situation, if at all possible, is to have a separate study, which can be devoted to you. If this is not possible then you will need to pay a lot more attention to developing and managing your study schedule, because it will affect other people as well as yourself. The better your study environment, the more productive you will be.
Study tools & rules
Try and make sure that your study tools are sufficient and in good working order. You will need to have access to a computer, scanner and printer, with access to the internet. You will need a very comfortable chair, which supports your lower back, and you will need a good filing system. It can be very frustrating if you are spending valuable study time trying to fix study tools that are unreliable, or unsuitable for the task. Make sure that your study tools are up to date. You will also need to consider some study rules. Some of these rules will apply to you and will be intended to help you to be more disciplined about when and how you study. This distance-learning guide will help you and after you have read it you can put some thought into what your study rules should be. You will also need to negotiate some study rules for your family, friends or anyone who lives with you. They too will need to be disciplined in order to ensure that they can support you while you study. It is important to ensure that your family and friends are an integral part of your study team. Having their support and encouragement can prove to be a crucial contribution to your successful completion of the program. Involve them in as much as you can.
Successful distance-learning
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes or workshops, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. But unlike traditional internal training courses, it is the student’s responsibility, with a distance-learning program, to ensure that they manage their own study contribution. This requires strong self-discipline and self-motivation skills and there must be a clear will to succeed. Those students who are used to managing themselves, are good at managing others and who enjoy working in isolation, are more likely to be good distance-learners. It is also important to be aware of the main reasons why you are studying and of the main objectives that you are hoping to achieve as a result. You will need to remind yourself of these objectives at times when you need to motivate yourself. Never lose sight of your long-term goals and your short-term objectives. There is nobody available here to pamper you, or to look after you, or to spoon-feed you with information, so you will need to find ways to encourage and appreciate yourself while you are studying. Make sure that you chart your study progress, so that you can be sure of your achievements and re-evaluate your goals and objectives regularly.
Self-assessment
Appleton Greene training programs are in all cases post-graduate programs. Consequently, you should already have obtained a business-related degree and be an experienced learner. You should therefore already be aware of your study strengths and weaknesses. For example, which time of the day are you at your most productive? Are you a lark or an owl? What study methods do you respond to the most? Are you a consistent learner? How do you discipline yourself? How do you ensure that you enjoy yourself while studying? It is important to understand yourself as a learner and so some self-assessment early on will be necessary if you are to apply yourself correctly. Perform a SWOT analysis on yourself as a student. List your internal strengths and weaknesses as a student and your external opportunities and threats. This will help you later on when you are creating a study plan. You can then incorporate features within your study plan that can ensure that you are playing to your strengths, while compensating for your weaknesses. You can also ensure that you make the most of your opportunities, while avoiding the potential threats to your success.
Accepting responsibility as a student
Training programs invariably require a significant investment, both in terms of what they cost and in the time that you need to contribute to study and the responsibility for successful completion of training programs rests entirely with the student. This is never more apparent than when a student is learning via distance-learning. Accepting responsibility as a student is an important step towards ensuring that you can successfully complete your training program. It is easy to instantly blame other people or factors when things go wrong. But the fact of the matter is that if a failure is your failure, then you have the power to do something about it, it is entirely in your own hands. If it is always someone else’s failure, then you are powerless to do anything about it. All students study in entirely different ways, this is because we are all individuals and what is right for one student, is not necessarily right for another. In order to succeed, you will have to accept personal responsibility for finding a way to plan, implement and manage a personal study plan that works for you. If you do not succeed, you only have yourself to blame.
Planning
By far the most critical contribution to stress, is the feeling of not being in control. In the absence of planning we tend to be reactive and can stumble from pillar to post in the hope that things will turn out fine in the end. Invariably they don’t! In order to be in control, we need to have firm ideas about how and when we want to do things. We also need to consider as many possible eventualities as we can, so that we are prepared for them when they happen. Prescriptive Change, is far easier to manage and control, than Emergent Change. The same is true with distance-learning. It is much easier and much more enjoyable, if you feel that you are in control and that things are going to plan. Even when things do go wrong, you are prepared for them and can act accordingly without any unnecessary stress. It is important therefore that you do take time to plan your studies properly.
Management
Once you have developed a clear study plan, it is of equal importance to ensure that you manage the implementation of it. Most of us usually enjoy planning, but it is usually during implementation when things go wrong. Targets are not met and we do not understand why. Sometimes we do not even know if targets are being met. It is not enough for us to conclude that the study plan just failed. If it is failing, you will need to understand what you can do about it. Similarly if your study plan is succeeding, it is still important to understand why, so that you can improve upon your success. You therefore need to have guidelines for self-assessment so that you can be consistent with performance improvement throughout the program. If you manage things correctly, then your performance should constantly improve throughout the program.
Study objectives & tasks
The first place to start is developing your program objectives. These should feature your reasons for undertaking the training program in order of priority. Keep them succinct and to the point in order to avoid confusion. Do not just write the first things that come into your head because they are likely to be too similar to each other. Make a list of possible departmental headings, such as: Customer Service; E-business; Finance; Globalization; Human Resources; Technology; Legal; Management; Marketing and Production. Then brainstorm for ideas by listing as many things that you want to achieve under each heading and later re-arrange these things in order of priority. Finally, select the top item from each department heading and choose these as your program objectives. Try and restrict yourself to five because it will enable you to focus clearly. It is likely that the other things that you listed will be achieved if each of the top objectives are achieved. If this does not prove to be the case, then simply work through the process again.
Study forecast
As a guide, the Appleton Greene Technology Invoked Change corporate training program should take 12-18 months to complete, depending upon your availability and current commitments. The reason why there is such a variance in time estimates is because every student is an individual, with differing productivity levels and different commitments. These differentiations are then exaggerated by the fact that this is a distance-learning program, which incorporates the practical integration of academic theory as an as a part of the training program. Consequently all of the project studies are real, which means that important decisions and compromises need to be made. You will want to get things right and will need to be patient with your expectations in order to ensure that they are. We would always recommend that you are prudent with your own task and time forecasts, but you still need to develop them and have a clear indication of what are realistic expectations in your case. With reference to your time planning: consider the time that you can realistically dedicate towards study with the program every week; calculate how long it should take you to complete the program, using the guidelines featured here; then break the program down into logical modules and allocate a suitable proportion of time to each of them, these will be your milestones; you can create a time plan by using a spreadsheet on your computer, or a personal organizer such as MS Outlook, you could also use a financial forecasting software; break your time forecasts down into manageable chunks of time, the more specific you can be, the more productive and accurate your time management will be; finally, use formulas where possible to do your time calculations for you, because this will help later on when your forecasts need to change in line with actual performance. With reference to your task planning: refer to your list of tasks that need to be undertaken in order to achieve your program objectives; with reference to your time plan, calculate when each task should be implemented; remember that you are not estimating when your objectives will be achieved, but when you will need to focus upon implementing the corresponding tasks; you also need to ensure that each task is implemented in conjunction with the associated training modules which are relevant; then break each single task down into a list of specific to do’s, say approximately ten to do’s for each task and enter these into your study plan; once again you could use MS Outlook to incorporate both your time and task planning and this could constitute your study plan; you could also use a project management software like MS Project. You should now have a clear and realistic forecast detailing when you can expect to be able to do something about undertaking the tasks to achieve your program objectives.
Performance management
It is one thing to develop your study forecast, it is quite another to monitor your progress. Ultimately it is less important whether you achieve your original study forecast and more important that you update it so that it constantly remains realistic in line with your performance. As you begin to work through the program, you will begin to have more of an idea about your own personal performance and productivity levels as a distance-learner. Once you have completed your first study module, you should re-evaluate your study forecast for both time and tasks, so that they reflect your actual performance level achieved. In order to achieve this you must first time yourself while training by using an alarm clock. Set the alarm for hourly intervals and make a note of how far you have come within that time. You can then make a note of your actual performance on your study plan and then compare your performance against your forecast. Then consider the reasons that have contributed towards your performance level, whether they are positive or negative and make a considered adjustment to your future forecasts as a result. Given time, you should start achieving your forecasts regularly.
With reference to time management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual time taken in your study plan; consider your successes with time-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; consider your failures with time-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future time planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to time planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your time expectations. You need to be consistent with your time management, otherwise you will never complete your studies. This will either be because you are not contributing enough time to your studies, or you will become less efficient with the time that you do allocate to your studies. Remember, if you are not in control of your studies, they can just become yet another cause of stress for you.
With reference to your task management: time yourself while you are studying and make a note of the actual tasks that you have undertaken in your study plan; consider your successes with task-efficiency and the reasons for the success in each case; take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; consider your failures with task-efficiency and the reasons for the failures in each case and take this into consideration when reviewing future task planning; re-evaluate your study forecast in relation to task planning for the remainder of your training program to ensure that you continue to be realistic about your task expectations. You need to be consistent with your task management, otherwise you will never know whether you are achieving your program objectives or not.
Keeping in touch
You will have access to qualified and experienced professors and tutors who are responsible for providing tutorial support for your particular training program. So don’t be shy about letting them know how you are getting on. We keep electronic records of all tutorial support emails so that professors and tutors can review previous correspondence before considering an individual response. It also means that there is a record of all communications between you and your professors and tutors and this helps to avoid any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation. If you have a problem relating to the program, share it with them via email. It is likely that they have come across the same problem before and are usually able to make helpful suggestions and steer you in the right direction. To learn more about when and how to use tutorial support, please refer to the Tutorial Support section of this student information guide. This will help you to ensure that you are making the most of tutorial support that is available to you and will ultimately contribute towards your success and enjoyment with your training program.
Work colleagues and family
You should certainly discuss your program study progress with your colleagues, friends and your family. Appleton Greene training programs are very practical. They require you to seek information from other people, to plan, develop and implement processes with other people and to achieve feedback from other people in relation to viability and productivity. You will therefore have plenty of opportunities to test your ideas and enlist the views of others. People tend to be sympathetic towards distance-learners, so don’t bottle it all up in yourself. Get out there and share it! It is also likely that your family and colleagues are going to benefit from your labors with the program, so they are likely to be much more interested in being involved than you might think. Be bold about delegating work to those who might benefit themselves. This is a great way to achieve understanding and commitment from people who you may later rely upon for process implementation. Share your experiences with your friends and family.
Making it relevant
The key to successful learning is to make it relevant to your own individual circumstances. At all times you should be trying to make bridges between the content of the program and your own situation. Whether you achieve this through quiet reflection or through interactive discussion with your colleagues, client partners or your family, remember that it is the most important and rewarding aspect of translating your studies into real self-improvement. You should be clear about how you want the program to benefit you. This involves setting clear study objectives in relation to the content of the course in terms of understanding, concepts, completing research or reviewing activities and relating the content of the modules to your own situation. Your objectives may understandably change as you work through the program, in which case you should enter the revised objectives on your study plan so that you have a permanent reminder of what you are trying to achieve, when and why.
Distance-learning check-list
Prepare your study environment, your study tools and rules.
Undertake detailed self-assessment in terms of your ability as a learner.
Create a format for your study plan.
Consider your study objectives and tasks.
Create a study forecast.
Assess your study performance.
Re-evaluate your study forecast.
Be consistent when managing your study plan.
Use your Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) for tutorial support.
Make sure you keep in touch with those around you.
Tutorial Support
Programs
Appleton Greene uses standard and bespoke corporate training programs as vessels to transfer business process improvement knowledge into the heart of our clients’ organizations. Each individual program focuses upon the implementation of a specific business process, which enables clients to easily quantify their return on investment. There are hundreds of established Appleton Greene corporate training products now available to clients within customer services, e-business, finance, globalization, human resources, information technology, legal, management, marketing and production. It does not matter whether a client’s employees are located within one office, or an unlimited number of international offices, we can still bring them together to learn and implement specific business processes collectively. Our approach to global localization enables us to provide clients with a truly international service with that all important personal touch. Appleton Greene corporate training programs can be provided virtually or locally and they are all unique in that they individually focus upon a specific business function. They are implemented over a sustainable period of time and professional support is consistently provided by qualified learning providers and specialist consultants.
Support available
You will have a designated Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and an Accredited Consultant and we encourage you to communicate with them as much as possible. In all cases tutorial support is provided online because we can then keep a record of all communications to ensure that tutorial support remains consistent. You would also be forwarding your work to the tutorial support unit for evaluation and assessment. You will receive individual feedback on all of the work that you undertake on a one-to-one basis, together with specific recommendations for anything that may need to be changed in order to achieve a pass with merit or a pass with distinction and you then have as many opportunities as you may need to re-submit project studies until they meet with the required standard. Consequently the only reason that you should really fail (CLP) is if you do not do the work. It makes no difference to us whether a student takes 12 months or 18 months to complete the program, what matters is that in all cases the same quality standard will have been achieved.
Support Process
Please forward all of your future emails to the designated (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit email address that has been provided and please do not duplicate or copy your emails to other AGC email accounts as this will just cause unnecessary administration. Please note that emails are always answered as quickly as possible but you will need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general tutorial support emails during busy periods, because emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. You will also need to allow a period of up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Please therefore kindly allow for this within your time planning. All communications are managed online via email because it enables tutorial service support managers to review other communications which have been received before responding and it ensures that there is a copy of all communications retained on file for future reference. All communications will be stored within your personal (CLP) study file here at Appleton Greene throughout your designated study period. If you need any assistance or clarification at any time, please do not hesitate to contact us by forwarding an email and remember that we are here to help. If you have any questions, please list and number your questions succinctly and you can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each and every query.
Time Management
It takes approximately 1 Year to complete the Technology Invoked Change corporate training program, incorporating 12 x 6-hour monthly workshops. Each student will also need to contribute approximately 4 hours per week over 1 Year of their personal time. Students can study from home or work at their own pace and are responsible for managing their own study plan. There are no formal examinations and students are evaluated and assessed based upon their project study submissions, together with the quality of their internal analysis and supporting documents. They can contribute more time towards study when they have the time to do so and can contribute less time when they are busy. All students tend to be in full time employment while studying and the Technology Invoked Change program is purposely designed to accommodate this, so there is plenty of flexibility in terms of time management. It makes no difference to us at Appleton Greene, whether individuals take 12-18 months to complete this program. What matters is that in all cases the same standard of quality will have been achieved with the standard and bespoke programs that have been developed.
Distance Learning Guide
The distance learning guide should be your first port of call when starting your training program. It will help you when you are planning how and when to study, how to create the right environment and how to establish the right frame of mind. If you can lay the foundations properly during the planning stage, then it will contribute to your enjoyment and productivity while training later. The guide helps to change your lifestyle in order to accommodate time for study and to cultivate good study habits. It helps you to chart your progress so that you can measure your performance and achieve your goals. It explains the tools that you will need for study and how to make them work. It also explains how to translate academic theory into practical reality. Spend some time now working through your distance learning guide and make sure that you have firm foundations in place so that you can make the most of your distance learning program. There is no requirement for you to attend training workshops or classes at Appleton Greene offices. The entire program is undertaken online, program course manuals and project studies are administered via the Appleton Greene web site and via email, so you are able to study at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office as long as you have a computer and access to the internet.
How To Study
The how to study guide provides students with a clear understanding of the Appleton Greene facilitation via distance learning training methods and enables students to obtain a clear overview of the training program content. It enables students to understand the step-by-step training methods used by Appleton Greene and how course manuals are integrated with project studies. It explains the research and development that is required and the need to provide evidence and references to support your statements. It also enables students to understand precisely what will be required of them in order to achieve a pass with merit and a pass with distinction for individual project studies and provides useful guidance on how to be innovative and creative when developing your Unique Program Proposition (UPP).
Tutorial Support
Tutorial support for the Appleton Greene Technology Invoked Change corporate training program is provided online either through the Appleton Greene Client Support Portal (CSP), or via email. All tutorial support requests are facilitated by a designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). They are responsible for deciding which professor or tutor is the most appropriate option relating to the support required and then the tutorial support request is forwarded onto them. Once the professor or tutor has completed the tutorial support request and answered any questions that have been asked, this communication is then returned to the student via email by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM). This enables all tutorial support, between students, professors and tutors, to be facilitated by the designated Program Administration Manager (PAM) efficiently and securely through the email account. You will therefore need to allow a period of up to 20 business days for responses to general support queries and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because all tutorial support requests are answered strictly within the order in which they are received. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Consequently you need to put some thought into the management of your tutorial support procedure in order to ensure that your study plan is feasible and to obtain the maximum possible benefit from tutorial support during your period of study. Please retain copies of your tutorial support emails for future reference. Please ensure that ALL of your tutorial support emails are set out using the format as suggested within your guide to tutorial support. Your tutorial support emails need to be referenced clearly to the specific part of the course manual or project study which you are working on at any given time. You also need to list and number any questions that you would like to ask, up to a maximum of five questions within each tutorial support email. Remember the more specific you can be with your questions the more specific your answers will be too and this will help you to avoid any unnecessary misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or duplication. The guide to tutorial support is intended to help you to understand how and when to use support in order to ensure that you get the most out of your training program. Appleton Greene training programs are designed to enable you to do things for yourself. They provide you with a structure or a framework and we use tutorial support to facilitate students while they practically implement what they learn. In other words, we are enabling students to do things for themselves. The benefits of distance learning via facilitation are considerable and are much more sustainable in the long-term than traditional short-term knowledge sharing programs. Consequently you should learn how and when to use tutorial support so that you can maximize the benefits from your learning experience with Appleton Greene. This guide describes the purpose of each training function and how to use them and how to use tutorial support in relation to each aspect of the training program. It also provides useful tips and guidance with regard to best practice.
Tutorial Support Tips
Students are often unsure about how and when to use tutorial support with Appleton Greene. This Tip List will help you to understand more about how to achieve the most from using tutorial support. Refer to it regularly to ensure that you are continuing to use the service properly. Tutorial support is critical to the success of your training experience, but it is important to understand when and how to use it in order to maximize the benefit that you receive. It is no coincidence that those students who succeed are those that learn how to be positive, proactive and productive when using tutorial support.
Be positive and friendly with your tutorial support emails
Remember that if you forward an email to the tutorial support unit, you are dealing with real people. “Do unto others as you would expect others to do unto you”. If you are positive, complimentary and generally friendly in your emails, you will generate a similar response in return. This will be more enjoyable, productive and rewarding for you in the long-term.
Think about the impression that you want to create
Every time that you communicate, you create an impression, which can be either positive or negative, so put some thought into the impression that you want to create. Remember that copies of all tutorial support emails are stored electronically and tutors will always refer to prior correspondence before responding to any current emails. Over a period of time, a general opinion will be arrived at in relation to your character, attitude and ability. Try to manage your own frustrations, mood swings and temperament professionally, without involving the tutorial support team. Demonstrating frustration or a lack of patience is a weakness and will be interpreted as such. The good thing about communicating in writing, is that you will have the time to consider your content carefully, you can review it and proof-read it before sending your email to Appleton Greene and this should help you to communicate more professionally, consistently and to avoid any unnecessary knee-jerk reactions to individual situations as and when they may arise. Please also remember that the CLP Tutorial Support Unit will not just be responsible for evaluating and assessing the quality of your work, they will also be responsible for providing recommendations to other learning providers and to client contacts within the Appleton Greene global client network, so do be in control of your own emotions and try to create a good impression.
Remember that quality is preferred to quantity
Please remember that when you send an email to the tutorial support team, you are not using Twitter or Text Messaging. Try not to forward an email every time that you have a thought. This will not prove to be productive either for you or for the tutorial support team. Take time to prepare your communications properly, as if you were writing a professional letter to a business colleague and make a list of queries that you are likely to have and then incorporate them within one email, say once every month, so that the tutorial support team can understand more about context, application and your methodology for study. Get yourself into a consistent routine with your tutorial support requests and use the tutorial support template provided with ALL of your emails. The (CLP) Tutorial Support Unit will not spoon-feed you with information. They need to be able to evaluate and assess your tutorial support requests carefully and professionally.
Be specific about your questions in order to receive specific answers
Try not to write essays by thinking as you are writing tutorial support emails. The tutorial support unit can be unclear about what in fact you are asking, or what you are looking to achieve. Be specific about asking questions that you want answers to. Number your questions. You will then receive specific answers to each and every question. This is the main purpose of tutorial support via email.
Keep a record of your tutorial support emails
It is important that you keep a record of all tutorial support emails that are forwarded to you. You can then refer to them when necessary and it avoids any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Individual training workshops or telephone support
Please be advised that Appleton Greene does not provide separate or individual tutorial support meetings, workshops, or provide telephone support for individual students. Appleton Greene is an equal opportunities learning and service provider and we are therefore understandably bound to treat all students equally. We cannot therefore broker special financial or study arrangements with individual students regardless of the circumstances. All tutorial support is provided online and this enables Appleton Greene to keep a record of all communications between students, professors and tutors on file for future reference, in accordance with our quality management procedure and your terms and conditions of enrolment. All tutorial support is provided online via email because it enables us to have time to consider support content carefully, it ensures that you receive a considered and detailed response to your queries. You can number questions that you would like to ask, which relate to things that you do not understand or where clarification may be required. You can then be sure of receiving specific answers to each individual query. You will also then have a record of these communications and of all tutorial support, which has been provided to you. This makes tutorial support administration more productive by avoiding any unnecessary duplication, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation.
Tutorial Support Email Format
You should use this tutorial support format if you need to request clarification or assistance while studying with your training program. Please note that ALL of your tutorial support request emails should use the same format. You should therefore set up a standard email template, which you can then use as and when you need to. Emails that are forwarded to Appleton Greene, which do not use the following format, may be rejected and returned to you by the (CLP) Program Administration Manager. A detailed response will then be forwarded to you via email usually within 20 business days of receipt for general support queries and 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies. This does not include weekends or public holidays. Your tutorial support request, together with the corresponding TSU reply, will then be saved and stored within your electronic TSU file at Appleton Greene for future reference.
Subject line of your email
Please insert: Appleton Greene (CLP) Tutorial Support Request: (Your Full Name) (Date), within the subject line of your email.
Main body of your email
Please insert:
1. Appleton Greene Certified Learning Provider (CLP) Tutorial Support Request
2. Your Full Name
3. Date of TS request
4. Preferred email address
5. Backup email address
6. Course manual page name or number (reference)
7. Project study page name or number (reference)
Subject of enquiry
Please insert a maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Briefly outline the subject matter of your inquiry, or what your questions relate to.
Question 1
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 3
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 4
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Question 5
Maximum of 50 words (please be succinct)
Please note that a maximum of 5 questions is permitted with each individual tutorial support request email.
Procedure
* List the questions that you want to ask first, then re-arrange them in order of priority. Make sure that you reference them, where necessary, to the course manuals or project studies.
* Make sure that you are specific about your questions and number them. Try to plan the content within your emails to make sure that it is relevant.
* Make sure that your tutorial support emails are set out correctly, using the Tutorial Support Email Format provided here.
* Save a copy of your email and incorporate the date sent after the subject title. Keep your tutorial support emails within the same file and in date order for easy reference.
* Allow up to 20 business days for a response to general tutorial support emails and up to 30 business days for the evaluation and assessment of project studies, because detailed individual responses will be made in all cases and tutorial support emails are answered strictly within the order in which they are received.
* Emails can and do get lost. So if you have not received a reply within the appropriate time, forward another copy or a reminder to the tutorial support unit to be sure that it has been received but do not forward reminders unless the appropriate time has elapsed.
* When you receive a reply, save it immediately featuring the date of receipt after the subject heading for easy reference. In most cases the tutorial support unit replies to your questions individually, so you will have a record of the questions that you asked as well as the answers offered. With project studies however, separate emails are usually forwarded by the tutorial support unit, so do keep a record of your own original emails as well.
* Remember to be positive and friendly in your emails. You are dealing with real people who will respond to the same things that you respond to.
* Try not to repeat questions that have already been asked in previous emails. If this happens the tutorial support unit will probably just refer you to the appropriate answers that have already been provided within previous emails.
* If you lose your tutorial support email records you can write to Appleton Greene to receive a copy of your tutorial support file, but a separate administration charge may be levied for this service.
How To Study
Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can help you to plan a task list for getting started so that you can be clear about your direction and your priorities in relation to your training program. It is also a good way to introduce yourself to the tutorial support team.
Planning your study environment
Your study conditions are of great importance and will have a direct effect on how much you enjoy your training program. Consider how much space you will have, whether it is comfortable and private and whether you are likely to be disturbed. The study tools and facilities at your disposal are also important to the success of your distance-learning experience. Your tutorial support unit can help with useful tips and guidance, regardless of your starting position. It is important to get this right before you start working on your training program.
Planning your program objectives
It is important that you have a clear list of study objectives, in order of priority, before you start working on your training program. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance here to ensure that your study objectives have been afforded due consideration and priority.
Planning how and when to study
Distance-learners are freed from the necessity of attending regular classes, since they can study in their own way, at their own pace and for their own purposes. This approach is designed to let you study efficiently away from the traditional classroom environment. It is important however, that you plan how and when to study, so that you are making the most of your natural attributes, strengths and opportunities. Your tutorial support unit can offer assistance and useful tips to ensure that you are playing to your strengths.
Planning your study tasks
You should have a clear understanding of the study tasks that you should be undertaking and the priority associated with each task. These tasks should also be integrated with your program objectives. The distance learning guide and the guide to tutorial support for students should help you here, but if you need any clarification or assistance, please contact your tutorial support unit.
Planning your time
You will need to allocate specific times during your calendar when you intend to study if you are to have a realistic chance of completing your program on time. You are responsible for planning and managing your own study time, so it is important that you are successful with this. Your tutorial support unit can help you with this if your time plan is not working.
Keeping in touch
Consistency is the key here. If you communicate too frequently in short bursts, or too infrequently with no pattern, then your management ability with your studies will be questioned, both by you and by your tutorial support unit. It is obvious when a student is in control and when one is not and this will depend how able you are at sticking with your study plan. Inconsistency invariably leads to in-completion.
Charting your progress
Your tutorial support team can help you to chart your own study progress. Refer to your distance learning guide for further details.
Making it work
To succeed, all that you will need to do is apply yourself to undertaking your training program and interpreting it correctly. Success or failure lies in your hands and your hands alone, so be sure that you have a strategy for making it work. Your Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and Accredited Consultant can guide you through the process of program planning, development and implementation.
Reading methods
Interpretation is often unique to the individual but it can be improved and even quantified by implementing consistent interpretation methods. Interpretation can be affected by outside interference such as family members, TV, or the Internet, or simply by other thoughts which are demanding priority in our minds. One thing that can improve our productivity is using recognized reading methods. This helps us to focus and to be more structured when reading information for reasons of importance, rather than relaxation.
Speed reading
When reading through course manuals for the first time, subconsciously set your reading speed to be just fast enough that you cannot dwell on individual words or tables. With practice, you should be able to read an A4 sheet of paper in one minute. You will not achieve much in the way of a detailed understanding, but your brain will retain a useful overview. This overview will be important later on and will enable you to keep individual issues in perspective with a more generic picture because speed reading appeals to the memory part of the brain. Do not worry about what you do or do not remember at this stage.
Content reading
Once you have speed read everything, you can then start work in earnest. You now need to read a particular section of your course manual thoroughly, by making detailed notes while you read. This process is called Content Reading and it will help to consolidate your understanding and interpretation of the information that has been provided.
Making structured notes on the course manuals
When you are content reading, you should be making detailed notes, which are both structured and informative. Make these notes in a MS Word document on your computer, because you can then amend and update these as and when you deem it to be necessary. List your notes under three headings: 1. Interpretation – 2. Questions – 3. Tasks. The purpose of the 1st section is to clarify your interpretation by writing it down. The purpose of the 2nd section is to list any questions that the issue raises for you. The purpose of the 3rd section is to list any tasks that you should undertake as a result. Anyone who has graduated with a business-related degree should already be familiar with this process.
Organizing structured notes separately
You should then transfer your notes to a separate study notebook, preferably one that enables easy referencing, such as a MS Word Document, a MS Excel Spreadsheet, a MS Access Database, or a personal organizer on your cell phone. Transferring your notes allows you to have the opportunity of cross-checking and verifying them, which assists considerably with understanding and interpretation. You will also find that the better you are at doing this, the more chance you will have of ensuring that you achieve your study objectives.
Question your understanding
Do challenge your understanding. Explain things to yourself in your own words by writing things down.
Clarifying your understanding
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your understanding.
Question your interpretation
Do challenge your interpretation. Qualify your interpretation by writing it down.
Clarifying your interpretation
If you are at all unsure, forward an email to your tutorial support unit and they will help to clarify your interpretation.
Qualification Requirements
The student will need to successfully complete the project study and all of the exercises relating to the Technology Invoked Change corporate training program, achieving a pass with merit or distinction in each case, in order to qualify as an Accredited Technology Invoked Change Specialist (APTS). All monthly workshops need to be tried and tested within your company. These project studies can be completed in your own time and at your own pace and in the comfort of your own home or office. There are no formal examinations, assessment is based upon the successful completion of the project studies. They are called project studies because, unlike case studies, these projects are not theoretical, they incorporate real program processes that need to be properly researched and developed. The project studies assist us in measuring your understanding and interpretation of the training program and enable us to assess qualification merits. All of the project studies are based entirely upon the content within the training program and they enable you to integrate what you have learnt into your corporate training practice.
Technology Invoked Change – Grading Contribution
Project Study – Grading Contribution
Customer Service – 10%
E-business – 05%
Finance – 10%
Globalization – 10%
Human Resources – 10%
Information Technology – 10%
Legal – 05%
Management – 10%
Marketing – 10%
Production – 10%
Education – 05%
Logistics – 05%
TOTAL GRADING – 100%
Qualification grades
A mark of 90% = Pass with Distinction.
A mark of 75% = Pass with Merit.
A mark of less than 75% = Fail.
If you fail to achieve a mark of 75% with a project study, you will receive detailed feedback from the Certified Learning Provider (CLP) and/or Accredited Consultant, together with a list of tasks which you will need to complete, in order to ensure that your project study meets with the minimum quality standard that is required by Appleton Greene. You can then re-submit your project study for further evaluation and assessment. Indeed you can re-submit as many drafts of your project studies as you need to, until such a time as they eventually meet with the required standard by Appleton Greene, so you need not worry about this, it is all part of the learning process.
When marking project studies, Appleton Greene is looking for sufficient evidence of the following:
Pass with merit
A satisfactory level of program understanding
A satisfactory level of program interpretation
A satisfactory level of project study content presentation
A satisfactory level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
A satisfactory level of the practical integration of academic theory
Pass with distinction
An exceptional level of program understanding
An exceptional level of program interpretation
An exceptional level of project study content presentation
An exceptional level of Unique Program Proposition (UPP) quality
An exceptional level of the practical integration of academic theory
Preliminary Analysis
Core Objective
The core objective of Workshop 2 is to test and evaluate the processes used to manage technology projects and suggest good practice alternatives and additions.
The work required before this workshop starts with assessing the process of recognising future risks and issues. The team can start reviewing tools and outcomes from STEEPLE or PESTLE and who in the company is responsible for managing these outcomes and presenting them at business strategy meetings. Examining the sources of information should reveal what magazines and trade publications enter the business and how relevant articles are identified and added to any knowledge base. Ideally, this should be digital for easy search and retrieval. Relationships with academic and research institutions and any memberships held by the company or individuals with trade bodies or professional institutes. A simple landscape map would be helpful to develop to identify any gaps within the project studies.
A short workshop with colleagues would also be helpful if there is no STEEPLE or PESTLE analysis or the last one completed is over 12 months old.
Determine if the strategic objectives are documented and when they were last refreshed. Are the objectives laid out to be applied to projects the company is planning or already undertaking?
These objectives should be available with the project portfolio if developed and maintained in the business. Determine who is responsible for managing the portfolio if it exists and review how the criteria for ranking and prioritising the projects are applied.
For projects that involve product or service development, review how these have been presented to the company’s customers, for example, what level of research was done early in the ideation process, what cost was expended before a design was agreed upon, and how fast any investigation was completed.
Next, examine the process used to identify and select technologies that have been applied in the business and how effective they were;
• Engaging staff and management alike
• Avoiding subjective and one person’s voice decision-making
• Using resources, both people and money and avoiding budget overruns
• Encouraging the adoption of any new processes or new skills.
If this project was relatively complex, did the process take longer than expected? Was the consensus that the correct solution was adopted?
Research if any of the project implementation plans included a section for post-implementation handover; if they did, the capability to deliver the required solution was developed based on the strategic objectives and the anticipated new business capabilities. Was there evidence of any relationship between the business capabilities promised what was needed from the organization and how it would be achieved?
Further investigation around technology selection is the management of both risk and benefits. For risk management, is there an enterprise-wide process, or is it that particular aspects of the business, such as Health and Safety or Legislative compliance, are managed within a relevant department? Project risk may or may not be handled according to spend and the level of senior management oversight.
Review what benefits assessment is undertaken and if this is followed into a monitoring process to be balanced against costs. A review of the business case was built around the benefits and how this was meant to be realised. If a monitoring system is found, how is this managed, and by whom and how well are the managers and staff required to deliver these benefits bought into them?
The final piece of analysis is in the company’s communication approach. Determine what channels are regularly used and for what purpose. Examine the skills base to assess the level of reliance on external capabilities. What is the story of formal and informal communication, and how much is two-way communication valued? What training Is available to support staff wanting to improve, and are internal mentors used to support staff development?
Case Studies
Mnqeta, Qawekazi Wanda. “Possible Futures for Transport in South Africa towards 2035.” 2018, www.core.ac.uk
2018-10-10 12:40 SUREAQUA as part of the Norwegian Government’s Long-Term Plan for Research and Higher Education for 2019-2028. – Sureaqua. www.sureaqua.no
LSBF Singapore launches School of Technology and new programmes in partnership with the University of East London – India Education | Latest Education News | Global Educational News | Recent Educational News. www.indiaeducationdiary.in
Using horizon scanning to understand the evolving East London graduate market | IFF Research. www.iffresearch.com
Walmart’s Fintech arm acquires two financial services companies, Super App Quest. www.octagonmoonrise.org
JEFF BEZOS, Venturepreneur, Founder of Amazon.com (success story, great entrepreneurs, successful Internet entrepreneurs, new business models) Case Studies on Great Internet Entrepreneurs, Internet Business. https://1000ventures.com/business_guide/cs_entrepreneurs_bezos.html
A Comparative Analysis of eBay and Amazon – Is selling on Amazon profitable? www.5y1.org
Remote Care in Action: Results from the NHS. www.openaccessgovernment.org
MHRA consults on bespoke regulation of ‘point of care’ products. www.pinsentmasons.com
Unlocking international markets for family-run businesses. www.brunel.ac.uk
Case Studies | Business and Partnerships | Newcastle University. www.ncl.ac.uk
United Kingdom : University and Newcastle United Foundation announce new partnership. (2018). MENA Report.
Girls Get It! camp to expose girls to STEM disciplines – Syracuse University News. www.news.syr.edu
Pinterest Customer Story | Qualtrics. www.qualtrics.com
Under Armour + Qualtrics – Improve Products | Qualtrics. www.qualtrics.com
Global Retailer – Founders Intelligence. www.foundersintelligence.com
Unilever – Founders Intelligence. www.foundersintelligence.com
Infosys – World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). www.wbcsd.org
First-of-its-kind US offshore wind project. www.erm.com
Mollie: Are Shared Values the Most Important Quality in a Technology Partner? | The Fintech Times. www.thefintechtimes.com
. “Heavy Charged Higgs Boson Production at the LHC.” 2015, www.doi.org
Our top picks: the ten best internal communications and employee engagement case studies – McCann Synergy: McCann Synergy. www.mccannsynergy.com
Papers
Regulatory Update: August 2022. https://www.ejpps.online/post/vol27-3-regulatory-update-august-2022
. “Strategic Intent Organizational Ambidexterity and Performance: a Test of the Moderating Role of Perceived Environmental Uncertainty.” 2010, www.core.ac.uk
. “The Story of V-START: The Veterans Strategic Analysis and Research Tool.” 2018, www.core.ac.uk
Yackel, Christine. “Operation Compassionate Care.” 2012, www.core.ac.uk.
Dubai’s Political and Economic Development: Assignment free sample. www.anyassignment.com
How Strategy Shapes Structure. www.hbr.org
Henry, C. (2021). Leadership and strategy in the news. Strategy & Leadership, 49(3), 46.
Testimonials and Feedback – Performance Consultants. www.performanceconsultants.com
Enterprise Architecture: Essential for Digital Transformation | Planview. www.planview.com
“Fake it before you make it” met pretotyping | Floris Meulensteen. www.florismeulensteen.nl
Project Management Services. (2020). MENA Report.
Marlowe Consulting | Case Study. www.marloweconsulting.com
Thames Tideway Tunnel – Improving Delivery Models. www.infrastructuredeliverymodels.gihub.org
Enterprise Risk Management case studies – World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). www.wbcsd.org
Risk management – WBCSD Publications. www.wbcsdpublications.org
Why Cybersecurity is also important for Sporting organisations? – Sports Gossip. www.sportsgossip.com
Van den Bosch, Steffie. “Business at Risk: The Governance and Disclosure of Sustainability Risks.” 2022, www.core.ac.uk.
Course Manuals 1-10
Course Manual 1: Horizon Scanning
As the changes in the business environment become faster, it becomes increasingly important to look into the future and understand the influences and direction of any changes before they happen. This does not mean we are in the game of trying to predict the future but looking for signs of potential instability.
Using the outputs of horizon scanning is a systematic method for
• Spotting causes of uncertainty.
• Improve the business’s preparedness and agility to respond
• Gain a broader view of the business’s risks, threats, and opportunities.
• Exploiting opportunities
• Understand what developments are being considered and the drivers behind them.
• Feed into the business strategy and keep it fresh.
The UK Futures document describes three Horizons, number 1, where you are currently taking action; number 2, Visible trends for strategic consideration and number 3, weak information but planning required. Defining the subject for horizon scanning is essential and can be exploratory; what issues are being flagged up, or what issues are we facing and making the research issue centric?
What you need to be gaining from horizon scanning will be the following.
• Deepen the business’s understanding of the driving forces affecting the future strategy.
• What gaps in understanding does the business have that could drive new research areas and define the driving forces.
• Using horizon scanning to gather and mobilise various stakeholders to discuss issues and how to deal with them.
• It provides better information to support more difficult policy issues that will arise in the future.
• Improve the resilience of any strategy.
Key fundamentals when implementing horizon scanning are.
• Understand that this process is there to change mindsets and challenge assumptions, meaning the outputs might only sometimes be readily accepted.
• Avoid asking questions about what you know or want; you seek to look for unknowns.
• Part of any horizon scanning exercise’s success will be the sponsorship quality for the process within the stakeholder group.
• Create and maintain a robust research base.
• As a process that has no absolute formal standard, it is essential that you clearly define the terms of operation and the language being used.
• Balance the stakeholder group across all disciplines, step outside your usual cadre of specialist and departmental leaders with generalists, and ensure good diversity and even geography.
• When reporting, focus on the implications of the research rather than the detail and the conduct of the process
Horizon Scanning is one of the tools that can help businesses prepare for future risks. It may be supported by PESTLE (political, economic, societal, technological and legal ) or STEEPLE (societal, technical, environmental, political, legal, ethical). Using one of these tools will enable the business to ask the right questions when considering the subject topic we are considering. For example;
• What is the country’s political situation, and how can it affect the industry?
• What are the prevalent economic factors?
• How influential is culture in the market, and what are its determinants?
• What technological innovations are likely to pop up and affect the market structure?
• Are there any current legislations regulating the industry, or can there be any change in the industry?
• What are the environmental concerns for the industry?
PESTLE (or PESTEL)
• Political – assesses the degree to which any government may influence the economy or industry; through taxes and trade tariffs, for example.
• Economic – typical considerations will be inflation rate, interest rates, foreign exchange rates, Unemployment Policy, consumer confidence and economic growth patterns, which might influence foreign investment.
• Social – relates to the social environment of the market, including cultural trends, demographics, population structure, Income distribution, lifestyle and fashion changes, and labour/social mobility.
• Technological – pertains to innovation in areas such as R&D investment and support, automation and the level of technical awareness in the market. Examine how these can impact the operating model of the business.
• Legal – this has both an internal and external aspect to it. Externally there will be laws about the country the business resides in for employment safety and competition and also business rules maintained by the company itself.
STEEPLE has broadened the scope of the analysis to include two new categories, environmental and ethical, which aligns the study with the ESG sustainability standard.
• Environmental – typical factors that must be considered include climate, weather, geographical location, global climate changes, and, more specifically, reaching net zero.
• Ethical – is the range of social values that shape the business behaviour and map them to the country moral code you are operating in.
Following the work using PESTLE or STEEPLE, you can map the drivers operating in your environment. Cluster similar information which contributes to existing evidence or provides a list of novel issues. It is essential that you achieve a narrow focus for a scan, so begin with a list of the crucial problems you think the business is facing arising from your Drivers analysis; from this list, determine what seems to be the common topics underlying these issues, which should lead to the core question(s) you need to answer.
From the topics, we can develop themes and group these into the most prominent ones. This list will enable you to define your question set from the top three issues. Once you have a question you want to answer, the next step is to determine the field of interest; for example, if the question is what the customer trends in 2030 be, do you want to limit this by gender, product/service or geographical region? Do we want to examine this question locally or globally? Finally, how far into the future do we want to look?
The next step, having defined a question to ask, is who should be involved in scanning to look for answers or signals. Undertake a stakeholder mapping to profile the potential team using criteria that check the relationship to the subject, age, gender, educational and ethnic backgrounds; this should also be applied to external resources and include their geography and profession. We do this to ensure true diversity within the team and avoid any bias when the primary data is reviewed in the next stage. Having assembled a team to conduct the scanning, brief them on the reasons for doing this, the frequency of reporting and the use the outputs will be put to.
Manual gathering may be aided with automated structured searching of information sources, including personal networks, desktop searches, conferences, news articles, social media, publications, and grey literature. Due to its sensitivity, this last type of literature is usually held behind private networks, so it may be difficult to access. Personal networks help in this regard, as might the option to enter a data-sharing agreement with the company, institute or person involved.
Part of the preparation should be identifying the significant sources of information and guidelines on how to do this research, mainly if this is an ongoing exercise; therefore, regular updates are requested. Using RSS feeds from particular news or science sites is a valuable tool.
Building this landscape of potential information needs to consider threats to the business, what is coming over the horizon that can affect the industry and opportunities, and what data suggests any new direction the company could take new products/services and markets.
Potential sources for information
• Publications and Professional Web Sites will be associated with your industry, general press and media. Seek to understand who is considered an expert in your area of business. Also include futurists who will bring forward innovations and new development that might suit your industry.
• Professional Bodies – these should be organisations that are directly related to your industry but also those indirectly linked through the supply chain, as some changes may appear there first. For example, using Graphene in concrete production will significantly impact construction.
• Industry Leaders – there will be companies considered leaders in the industry whom you should source information from but also seek leaders in parts of your business model logistics, warehouse management, office design collaboration tools and product design.
• Competitors – track competitors and maybe use trade bodies to facilitate joint sessions to examine what is over the horizon for the industry
• Customers are a vital source of information through the complaints channel, opinions on social media and media focused on customer trends. Consider the different dynamics of each customer segment you address in your business model and look beyond. Be aware of shifts in values between generations but be wary of picking up on short-term trends.
• Internal focus groups or suggestion schemes – always a rich source of information and will provide a diverse view from senior management.
• Technological and Global Perspectives – sources for this information, particularly IT-related, provide a high level of knowledge and authority of opinion is well argued. Included in this group would also be futurists. Global perspectives will address trade, employment, migration and legislation.
In summary
• Think about your specific circumstances to decide where to start
• Think about what is readily available to you or could easily be researched
• Think outside the box – don’t just think about your core business and your industry
• Map change drivers to help inform your organisation’s future policy strategy and delivery
• Don’t be afraid to work with others – set up peer groups of people in the same industry
Having defined the question and the issues that relate to that question, hand out single issues to each stakeholder to initiate the scan. As part of defining the question and the related topics, build a data management format that will enable the collation and compiling of data as reported weekly. You will set a timeframe for the scan and apply a timeline to review the results. The sorting and collating process may identify a requirement to extend the search into new sources or refine the scan’s target. This might result in identifying other risks or links to other issues, which changes the focus of the scan.
At the review point, present the outs to the stakeholder group for discussion and refinement; if this is a baseline scan, then you will analyse and prioritise with objectives such as timeframe scope and broadness of topics reducing the number of issues through workshops and using a voting system. Finding a visualisation technique to place the risks against a time frame, novelty, plausibility, and impact is beneficial. The Risk Radar is shown below and is one popular method.
Some risks might not have strong enough signals to indicate the threat or opportunity level but may be considered low probability and, as such, are wild cards. They can be kept in for future scans.
Using the information from horizon scanning should be part of the risk management process and be subject to the standards espoused under ISO 31000; however, for some of the longer-term risks and their associated increased level of uncertainty, further modifications will need to be applied. Longer timeframes in horizon scanning mean more significant uncertainty about the impact and likelihood of the risk or opportunity. Refrain from over-focus on trends and missing unforeseen innovations and emphasising previous results, ignoring weaker signals, over-rating known risks, and under-rating complex and difficult-to-understand ones. Becoming subject to groupthink and must remain vigilant to risks or opportunities. In this latter category, their cases studied where digitisation as a disruptor can be seen as a threat to core business. But by innovation, the threat can be turned into an opportunity. BMW is a case in point, developing its business model to embrace software development and supply in specific niches.
The final review will have placed the risk in a timeframe and assessed the level of impact so that decisions can be made on what to do about the threat. Ideally, the presentation to the board needs to map against the risk culture inherent in the company, balancing risk optimisation and the reward for acceptable risk.
Management should use this information to provide resilience to the organization but also be able to identify and act on opportunities. Presentation to decision-makers must refrain from low-level detail, focussing on concise information and high-level segment. Be prepared to answer detailed questions, were possible to anticipate these in advance. If trending data is used, this must be presented with solid risks or opportunities; otherwise, you may miss the innovation that disrupts the trend.
Threats will mean different actions depending on the company; applying scenario models to define the threat is wise. For example, what would the impact be if we had a 10-hour shutdown of services resulting from a cyber-attack? If you have included experts in the scanning process, asking them to present with you to the board is very valuable.
As well as regular reporting of the status of the risk register and changes, this output will inform the strategy through Strategic Alignment, thereby leading to actions to be executed as part of the operational plan. Generally, a risk summary should be expressed on one page with an agreed set of risk metrics; these metrics will align with best practices and the shareholders’ expectations.
Results can be presented in tables, an example in Re-insurer Swiss RE has two rows looking at 0 to 3 years out and more significant than three years; each column then shows risks in High, Medium and Low potential impact within their business areas;
• Property
• Life and Health
• Casualty
• Operations (Legal & Regulatory)
• Financial Markets
This provides a single-page representation of Emerging Risks with a potential impact and timeframe.
Embedding this process within business as usual will provide several benefits.
• Improving the cognitive agility among decision-makers, extending timeframes and thinking differently
• Encouraging collaboration within and outside the organization
• Early detection of weak signals within the system can lead to a rapid and focused response
• Set up to detect patterns and look for trends; the process does not try and predict the future
The impact of change is unpredictable, and horizon scanning is founded on principles of mapping the landscape, monitoring change, using scenario modelling and validating results. More an aid the thinking within a stakeholder group from the extended enterprise. This avoids silo thinking and, when feeding the strategic management process, will, if approached open-mindedly, lead to discussions and decisions on disruptive change. Horizon scanning, therefore, ‘helps people to question, challenge and continually think about future planning to help people quantify the risks that they face’ Institute of Risk Management 2022
Case Study: Examining future transport scenarios to drive innovation in the UK – RAND Europe
The challenge
The UK’s roads, railways and airports are some of the most congested in the world. In the past, countries have addressed such problems with additional infrastructure investment.
However, this strategy has its limits: land is finite, government resources are constrained, and the literature has shown that building one’s way out of congestion is impossible.
With these considerations in mind, we examined how emerging technologies might help to make the UK transport system more efficient and effective.
Approach
We used a futures methodology that systematically views travel activity, looking at scenarios incorporating insights from critical activities generating travel.
Drawing on expert interviews, we identified six technologies that were likely to impact the transport network. We then developed three future travel scenarios, incorporating these technologies and social and economic factors that may influence future travel.
The scenarios were used for consultations to determine which technologies and innovations would be most valuable across various plans.
Outcome
Drawing on insights from policymakers, industry and academia, the scenarios helped to identify key policy and investment interventions to support their innovation.
There needs to be a clear relationship between technology’s widespread interest and its potential to create value. We highlighted that decision-makers should know how to assess technology advancement, and potential impact, including in the appraisal of transport investments, to ensure new technologies have the best outcomes for society.
Case Study: Helping to inform the future of research and innovation In Norway
The challenge
The Research Council of Norway (RCN) has five core strategic areas to deliver high-impact research and innovation (R&I): health and welfare; oceans; green transition; technology and digitalisation; and cohesion and globalisation. All five areas are intrinsically linked to societal challenges within and outside Norway.
The COVID-19 pandemic, and its impact on a global scale, has served as a stark reminder that these challenges need to be urgently addressed, not least to ensure that countries—and R&I systems—are better prepared for the future and to help build resilience.
RAND Europe and DAMVAD Analytics conducted a foresight study to provide evidence for the RCN’s input to the 2022 revision of the Long-Term Plan for Research and Higher Education 2019-2028, which specifies the Norwegian government’s ambitions, key objectives and priority areas for research and higher education.
Approach
We adopted a mixed-methods, participatory approach to the research involving a variety of methodologies, such as trend analyses, literature reviews, stakeholder interviews, focus groups, an online survey of the public, crowdsourcing ideas and information from experts, and future scenario analyses and workshops.
The core foresight work involved future scenario analyses and workshops that allowed us to examine what might happen in the next 20 years in Norway’s different strategic areas and broader R&I systems.
Scenarios of distinct and plausible future states were used for workshop discussions to explore and validate potential missions and structural measures that the RCN and other stakeholders could consider developing and implementing.
Outcome
The study examined the trends shaping developments in the five strategic areas, analysed the critical barriers and enablers, and identified uncertainties and policy challenges associated with potentially transforming the strategic areas.
To help address some of the societal challenges related to the strategic areas, we articulated 20 priority ‘missions’ (or targeted, challenge-based policy actions) and associated focus areas representing a range of potential areas of emphasis about the missions for further consideration by the RCN and other stakeholders.
We also proposed a set of 10 underpinnings, system-level structural measures to help develop a resilient R&I environment in Norway. Also, we addressed the broader performance of the Norwegian R&I system in terms of the RCN’s overarching objectives.
The work contributed to developing a robust evidence base for the RCN’s input to revising the Norwegian government’s Long-Term Plan for Research and Higher Education. The study also helped inform the RCN’s internal decision-making, strategies and organisational activities.
Case Study: Horizon scanning for the Defence Science & Technology Laboratory
The challenge
Modern society is increasingly complex, dynamic, and rapidly changing. Through globalisation and interconnected technologies, these trends are also becoming increasingly disruptive by blurring the boundaries between defence and the private sector, effectively placing much research and development (R&D) and radical innovation outside the control of governments and security.
As such, the UK Ministry of Defence commissioned RAND Europe to undertake horizon scanning of science and technology (S&T) developments to identify early signs of potential disruption.
Approach
In this ongoing project, we developed a bespoke horizon scanning framework that provides the MOD with a monthly update of S&T developments. We seek to go beyond the typical hype to ask the “so what?” question in a robust, evidence-based manner. This allows the MOD to understand better current and emerging S&T trends and their implications for UK Defence and Security.
As part of this project, we prepare and implement on-demand thematic or technology-specific workshops to further examine S&T developments and their implications for the MOD or wider HMG.
Outcome
The monthly S&T feed has informed MOD’s strategic technology priority areas. Drawing from S&T items reported by RAND, the MOD has also commissioned further research on other areas of inquiry (e.g. emerging technologies with utility for logistics or horizon scanning for future threats).
We have also supported future research capability development within Dstl by sharing lessons learned from RAND’s horizon scanning projects to help Dstl conceptualise novel and bespoke horizon scanning concepts.
Case Study: Understanding the East London Graduate Market
Challenges and objectives
Using Horizon Scanning to assess the University’s portfolio in the context of the local economy and align the strategic priorities with local employer needs. UEL was founded in 1892 and is a careers-led institution looking after students’ skills, emotional intelligence and creativity to thrive in a constantly changing world.
In June 2017, the university was awarded a bronze TEF award. The DfE statement concluded that progression to employment and highly skilled work was below the established benchmark. Given this, and the university’s important role in creating local employment opportunities, research was needed to identify:
• Skill needs of local employers of the next ten years
• The local community needs in the next ten years
• How employment will look in the ten years (gig economy, self-employment trends)
• Growth sectors in the East London area
• New employers moving to the site and the job opportunities they could bring
• Competitor analysis to drive the context.
Approach
As experts in skills, labour market and higher education data, information and trends, IFF was uniquely placed to provide the knowledge and experience UEL needed. The solution comprised a multi-staged methodology:
1. Horizon scanning activity – the aggregation, analysis and interpretation of a bank of existing secondary data and reports relating to current labour market needs and future forecasts.
2. Driver mapping – the identification of key trends and factors shaping the long-term development of the labour market.
3. A review of UEL’s degree programme provision as well as that of their direct local competitors.
4. Focus group discussions with local employers.
Impact
The UEL portfolio development strategy has been used to help them implement ‘Vision 2028’, a 10-year plan to transform UEL’s curriculum, pedagogy, research impact and partnerships to make a positive difference to student, graduate and community success.
New framework to enable the supply and increase the availability of innovative new medicinal products made at the point of care to patients.
Preamble
Technology enables the creation of new medicinal product types with features such as concise shelf lives in the range of 30 seconds to a few hours, necessitating manufacturing at the point of care (POC) and other highly personalised products. The products with these features include Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs), blood products, 3D-printed small molecules and some medical gases.
Through horizon scanning and examining trends in information obtained from requests for regulatory and scientific advice, borderline classification opinions and the presence of some products in clinical trials, MHRA identified a wide range of medicinal products in development that will require POC manufacture. The issue with these products is that they do not fit the current ‘standard model’ of manufacture and supply. It typically features the centralised manufacture of large batches of stable products at a few manufacturing sites.
The change that is needed
The current legislative framework is geared toward the centralised manufacture of medicinal products, which, for each product type, is manufactured in a relatively small number of sites, each at a large scale. This is primarily because the products have a long shelf life and are distributed globally to a mass market.
Current regulations require each manufacturing site to be named on the Marketing Authorisation and to inspect and authorise each site; horizon scanning identified a need for a new regulatory framework to develop POC manufacture and supply in the UK. This framework will accommodate the needs of medicines products manufactured at POC but will also provide control measures equivalent to those currently in place for medicinal products manufactured in factory-based locations; this will ensure that POC products have appropriate quality, safety, and efficacy attributes.
Approach
Following internal discussions, we engaged extensively with stakeholders involved in developing, manufacturing, testing, clinical trials and licensing POC products in the UK. We organised workshops in 2020 to explore the technologies and products that apply to POC manufacture and the control measures needed to support their safe development.
In March 2021, we held a stakeholder engagement event with over 50 attendees from across the healthcare sector to build on the learning points from the previous meetings. At this event, we presented a high-level view of a proposed regulatory framework for POC manufacture, centring on the concept of a Control site. This Control site would be named on clinical trial and marketing authorisation applications and oversee all aspects of the POC manufacturing system, including the individual manufacturing locations and activities. The proposed regulatory framework is based on and links into current regulatory systems for medicines approvals, clinical trials, evaluation of regulatory compliance at manufacturing sites and safety monitoring.
Based on discussions and feedback from attendees of this event, we produced a consultation document, which went out for formal public consultation for six weeks in the summer of 2021. Responses were significantly positive, and there was positive support for the framework to apply across the full range of manufacturing scenarios, from modular manufacture to home-based manufacture – see diagram below.
Outcomes
Through horizon scanning and review of the regulatory and scientific advice signals received, we identified a need to amend The Human Medicine Regulations 2012 and The Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004. These changes are required to create a new framework to enable the supply and increase the availability of innovative new medicinal products made at POC to patients.
Legal instructions are being developed to amend these two areas of UK medicines legislation; these changes are made possible by the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021. These new Statutory Instruments will be laid in Parliament in 2022. At that time, guidance documents will be developed in consultation with stakeholders.
The UK will be the first country to introduce a tailored framework for regulating innovative products manufactured when patients receive care. MHRA is in discussion with a range of international regulators to support the development of a similar framework in those territories to allow patients to access POC products.
Ian Rees, the regulatory science expert who is leading the work for the MHRA, said:
“This is a clear example of proactive and responsive regulatory action, where the MHRA identified a step-change in approach to medicines development and manufacture that will benefit from and require changes to the regulatory framework.
Exercise
• Identify crucial issues and risks that face the company
• Define the question we would ask
• Discuss possible stakeholders
Course Manual 2: Research Sources
The company must establish a research structure and a means to manage the outputs to enable Horizon Scanning. Technology solutions for this requirement exist, and your choice might depend on your technology stack; for example, if the company extensively uses Microsoft, then extending the capability of your SharePoint implementation would be the most effective. Key considerations would be.
• The use of the knowledge base in the case of horizon scanning will be internal and specific external stakeholders.
• Understand how the tool will display information from a search and how robust is the search function.
• Define how many users will need to access and use the knowledge base, and this will be just one of several Knowledge bases.
• How customizable is the tool in terms of templates and criteria
• How easy is it to upload information
• What reporting capabilities does the agency have
• How well does it integrate into your other software?
The design of the knowledge base needs to reflect the scanning process, meaning that the template hierarchy will start with the overall question, and the second tier will reflect the risks related to the categories in your PESTLE/STEEPLE analysis. Each stakeholder will be provided with a structured template for reporting which will reflect the search criteria the company expects to undertake. Extensions beyond the original risk set should be expected and aligned with the envisaged risk.
The next stage is establishing the sources of information and relationships or routes to obtaining this information using the list discussed in the previous section. We will expand on the work required to initiate these sources;
• Publications and Professional Web Sites will be associated with your industry, general press and media. Seek to understand who is considered an expert in your area of business. Also include futurists who will bring forward innovations and new development that might suit your industry.
o Publications directed to your industry must be researched and evaluated If the content looks suitable. This will typically already be distributed within the organization, but no information capture will be required. Align each publication with one or more of your stakeholders, ensuring that they review the content with the risks/issues assigned and marking out any other information they consider worth noting. This should be included in the regular report. Ideally, weekly based on when the publication was read. Not all publications will be monthly general press might be daily, including broadsheet newspapers and subject-focused magazines such as The Economist. Always be aware of any bias.
o Professional Websites map the professions in the organization, from accounting, engineering, testing, health and safety, logistics, procurement and HR. Align the professional publication and website address and align with the stakeholder representing that profession. Reporting should be on news articles, blogs, case studies and research; the stakeholder must abstract information relevant to the industry. Encourage more profound research on relevant topics through direct contact with authors and editors.
• Professional Bodies – these should be organisations that are directly related to your industry but also those indirectly linked through the supply chain, as some changes may appear there first.
o Collaboration with other companies through the professional network will facilitate a route to growing the company’s network. The options can be:
– Forums choosing topics that align with the risks and issues that the company has identified for horizon scanning
– Standards committees staying ahead of upcoming legislation by being part of the profession’s advisory group or internal discussion group will provide invaluable insight into up-and-coming regulatory and political thinking. Particularly in areas such as the environment, cross-border product and safety standards and trade tariffs
– Research Task Groups Professional bodies will often conduct their horizon scanning, maybe in conjunction with government departments; this leaves the option for participation in research groups. Another excellent opportunity for networking and creating information-sharing partnerships with like-minded organisations
• Industry Leaders – there will be companies considered leaders in the industry whom you should source information from but also seek leaders in parts of your business model such as logistics, warehouse management, office design, collaboration tools and product design.
o Engaging with industry leaders will require one or more of your chosen stakeholders to utilise or expand their network. Establishing a relationship at a C Suite level will need to offer mutual benefit to facilitate any information-sharing. Think of options to conduct joint research through a recognised university you know.
o Study the key risks/Issues identified in the scanning definition and map those related to business and operational areas. Request that the stakeholder associated with that area identify who is taking a leading stance on that issue. Conduct searches which combine the case and the target company to abstract any published work. Alternatively, the stakeholder can approach the target company with a questionnaire.
o Trade bodies, particularly those with certification responsibility, will have lists of members; a workshop on your subject can be organised through the trade body with facilitation by a third party and share the post-workshop results.
• Research Institutes – linking with a University is an accepted way of creating a source of information either through employing students as a stakeholder group to conduct data gathering and searching using University facilities, conducting experiments, or undertaking fundamental research into specific technologies. Setting up the correct partnering agreement we discuss later will focus on the mutual and maybe physical benefit for the University, the cultural match and the matching of expectations on delivery and use of any IP. This approach may also enable access to government grants, which usually require an academic partner.
• Competitors – track competitors and maybe use trade bodies to facilitate joint sessions to examine what is over the horizon for the industry
o Identifying competition is accessible within your industry and market space; the choice being made on their market position vis-à-vis the company, the company you lose to the most, fastest-growing though this is a lagging indicator.
o As part of the general media review, search criteria should contain the competitor’s name.
o Conferences and Exhibitions. Both these forms of networking have suffered during the pandemic but are starting to pick up pace now. The organization around these events has developed with pre-event marketing and setting of appointments. Exhibitions enable a more informal stance to be taken on research. Innovations can be on show, highlighting opportunities and threats.
• Customers are a source of information through the complaints channel, opinions on social media and media focused on customer trends.
o Collaboration with customers can take a couple of forms;
– Customer Forums are regular customers co-opted into product/service reviews, alpha and beta testing, and opinions on market trends. This group should be considered part of the extended enterprise and nurtured; profiling them and understanding any bias will make results from the group more meaningful.
– Customer Focus Groups can be off-shooted from the forum. Still, it is sometimes helpful to bring together a completely random group to act as checks and balances to any regular customers who might have gone ‘native’ as they understand your business and culture.
o Customer Complaints are a rich source of information if handled well; using multiple media channels, including SMS and video, patterns may emerge from the customer’s expectations regarding service and functionality. Looking at outliers will be helpful for future scan subjects.
o A more comprehensive analysis of customer opinions from social media or customer satisfaction surveys is sentiment analysis. This goes beyond the average rating and examines the words used in reviews better to understand the customer’s view of the brand. Carefully crafted surveys will enable the analysis to detect changes over time and possible signs for future expectations.
• Employees – always a rich source of information and will provide a diverse view from senior management.
o Suggestion schemes are a formal process for capturing employees’ ideas for improvement or innovation. We have tended to link these to a reward system in the West, whereas in Japan, where schemes have been very successful, it is seen as part of the ‘team’ culture, and therefore, ideas are brought forward that are more varied in impact. Sorting through the data from these schemes will bring forward some issues/risks and provide insight into candidates for stakeholder positions that do not come from management. Thereby satisfying the need for diversity.
o Further development of the involvement of employees is the use of focus groups around issues and risks related to operations. Pulling together a cross-functional team and prompting discussion with troubles and problems from the scan. Facilitating this session with an external will help employees express themselves and uncover valuable facts and sources of information or patterns they can see.
When setting up the research landscape, technology-specific Research companies are recommended. Leading examples are Gartner and Info-Tech, who regularly publish tech trends reports and surveys. Carefully selecting your subject, you can get foresight radar which identifies leading players in all branches of technology. These companies have subscription services, but you will also see abstracts and free reports from leading vendors to support their products. Alongside these, there are numerous comparison sites, particularly for software. Information from all these sources will be very beneficial when it comes down to technology selection.
Futurists provide a valuable foil for this information as they will view technology from a societal, global and workplace perspective.
Two examples of a futurists output to feed your research – Bernard Marr
Three digital challenges every company must address
We are at the very start of the most opportune and exciting time for businesses in our lifetimes. Artificial intelligence (AI) and other transformative technologies like cloud, edge and quantum computing will revolutionize industries and society. And organisations that are ready to reap the benefits will set themselves up to emerge as leaders of this brave new world.
But with these unprecedented opportunities come some substantial challenges. Working patterns and corporate cultures are shifting as employees with the knowledge and experience to bring about these changes seek greater flexibility and improved work/life balance. Cyber attacks increase in their frequency and severity as increasingly digital organisations become more exposed. And as the urgency of moving towards carbon neutral and net zero targets increases, sustainability becomes an ever-more pressing priority.
To explore these challenges, I recently spoke to Kate Porter, senior director of segment insights and strategy at Intel’s Commercial Client Business Group. Porter was happy to shed light on the strategies and tactics being adopted by her customers and other leading enterprises as they prepare to face them. The 18 years she has spent with the company have given her a great deal of insight into the way successful businesses react to emerging technology trends – as well as the mistakes to avoid! As part of this I’ll also be exploring the benefits of Intel’s ‘Built for Business’ vPro® platform, and looking to see how it addresses some of the issues raised along the way.
Hybrid Work Infrastructure
Businesses had been preparing for the move towards hybrid and remote working for some time before the 2020 Covid-19 outbreak. The emergence of online working, “cyber-nomad” culture and collaborative working platforms like Teams and Slack were all signs of the times. However, many were still taken by surprise by the speed of that year’s transformation, as well as the myriad ways it impacted corporate cultures around the world.
Porter tells me “What we all learned in 2020 was that it sometimes just takes a large environmental event outside of your control to shift from ‘sometime in the future’ to ‘seemingly overnight’ … the smaller organizations that hadn’t modernized their infrastructure weren’t as resilient, and many of them weren’t able to transform through that.”
Since then, much has been said about hybrid work, as well as the ongoing arguments between those that are happy with the new arrangements and those that still feel centrally located, face-to-face workforces are preferable.
As time passed, the focus on the conversation started to shift towards the ongoing skills shortage facing high-tech enterprise. As well as those that are traditionally not so high-tech, but becoming increasingly aware of the importance of digital transformation in the today’s world.
Porter asks, “Last year there was a significant war for talent … how do you retain and recruit top talent by ensuring you continue to have those flexible work policies that enable work from anywhere?
This has manifested in a resistance to moves by bosses in some industries aimed at encouraging a return to office-based working.
“So I think what businesses are recognizing is … it’s not one or the other … all remote or all in the office … it has to be some blend of the two in order to ensure strong collaborative experiences are helping move the business forward, and to ensure employees are still feeling like that needs for flexibility is being met.”
Adapting to this new dynamic often means businesses must make some significant changes to their technology infrastructure. Network downtime and limited out-of-office connectivity can have a significant impact on productivity and the ability to collaborate.
Porter suggests that businesses start tackling this issue by first identifying the “high impact” remote team members and developing a thorough understanding of their out-of-office computing experience.
“Are they enabled with the right PC technology to allow them to be highly productive? Are they having issues … with connectivity, their software not running smoothly, it could be the operating system is not up to date”.
Equipping these high-impact team players with the most up-to-date and future-proofed tools ensures that their time is spent being productive, rather than dealing with issues caused by outdated hardware or software incompatibilities. PC’s built using the 13th Generation of Intel vPro are designed for business class performance to offer up to 2x better productivity and improved user experience compared to machines that are just three years old.
“It’s a really a great time to say ‘how do we get them into a highly productive environment?’ because these are the shapers of our business,” says Porter.
Cybersecurity
Several factors have conspired to create the “perfect storm”, leading to increases in both the frequency and severity of cyber-attacks directed at businesses. As well as the move to hybrid and remote working previously discussed, these also include the ongoing digitization of life, work and society, and the emergence of technologies like AI and cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies provide cyber criminals with effectively anonymous methods of extorting digital cash from companies. At the same time, AI is enabling new, sophisticated forms of social engineering attacks. We have already seen “deepfake” technology used to clone voices, which are then used to persuade employees, friends or family members to transfer funds to accounts operated by the thieves.
Porter tells me “The reality of remote and hybrid work has changed the nature of cyber security … the walls of the office have really crashed down.”
Successful strategies used by organizations attempting to shore up their defenses range from the mundane but critical – keeping hardware and software up-to-date and applying the latest security patches – to more sophisticated.
“One thing Intel has done,” Porter continues, “is partner with security vendors in the ecosystem … to run your software better with different intelligence engines, so we can do more hardware scanning at a level that’s below the software.”
According to Intel, PCs running on their vPro platform have the most comprehensive out-of-the-box security solutions. This includes hardware-based AI security algorithms, and ransomware detection systems. Benefits that users can expect include a 93 percent increase in efficiency at detecting ransomware attacks, and a reduction of 21 percent in the number of impactful security events.
While technology solutions play an important role, the human response is often just as – if not more – critical.
She says, “Companies are training their employees in increasingly creative ways.”
For example, many organizations now deploy courses that engage employees with simulated phishing and social engineering attacks. This could involve sending them an email that attempts to persuade them to divulge passwords or other sensitive information.
“As soon as you click it, up pops a window that says ‘had this been a legitimate attempt you could have inadvertently exposed company assets.’ That kind of experience really sticks with an employee.”
Sustainability
The most important challenges of all revolve around reducing the damage done to environments and the planet through our business activities. Often this focuses on reducing the carbon footprint, but cutting waste in all areas and striving towards “circular” production and economics methods are increasingly important in many sustainability strategies.
Porter tells me “A couple of years ago there was the thought … it’s mostly about power efficiency and mostly about material choices, to make sure they are sustainable choices.
“But … it is actually a much wider consideration than just those two factors.”
While striving for sustainability and driving down emissions is certainly critical from an environmental perspective, organizations like Intel are increasingly aware that there are business benefits too. As well as the obvious financial savings that can be made by reducing waste and increasing recycling and reuse, buying choices are increasingly driven by consumer perception of a company’s environmental and ethical stance.
Porter says “It’s everything from the manufacturing processes of the material vendors …and that transparent supply chain so you have trust and certainty … the ethical manufacturing and then all the way through the material choices … how much energy and water is consumed.
“And then obviously having visibility on the use of the device throughout its lifecycle, allowing it to be repaired in an intelligent way so it isn’t prematurely disposed of … and all the way through to the end of life and retirement, ensuring there’s visibility in terms of the material that were used and how they can be recycled.”
From green manufacturing practices and performance per watt optimizations, to automated power management and remote support features for larger enterprises, Intel raises the bar on sustainable computing during every phase of the PC lifecycle with tangible benefits for businesses.
Many company leaders reiterate the importance of measuring the benefits of these technologies that drive sustainability improvements. As part of this, it’s important to view sustainability across the full life cycle of the device. For example, a single use of Intel® Active Management Technology to support a PC remotely, instead of dispatching a technician via truck, saves carbon emissions equal to 2 years of use of that PC. Remote device management that avoids technician travel (or employee travel to return hardware into the office) makes a real difference.
The difference between generative AI and traditional AI; an easy explanation for anyone
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a buzzword across sectors for the last decade, leading to significant advancements in technology and operational efficiencies. However, as we delve deeper into the AI landscape, we must acknowledge and understand its distinct forms. Among the emerging trends, generative AI, a subset of AI, has shown immense potential in reshaping industries. But how does it differ from traditional AI? Let’s unpack this question in the spirit of Bernard Marr’s distinctive, reader-friendly style.
Traditional AI: A Brief Overview
Traditional AI, often called Narrow or Weak AI, focuses on performing a specific task intelligently. It refers to systems designed to respond to a particular set of inputs. These systems have the capability to learn from data and make decisions or predictions based on that data. Imagine you’re playing computer chess. The computer knows all the rules; it can predict your moves and make its own based on a pre-defined strategy. It’s not inventing new ways to play chess but selecting from strategies it was programmed with. That’s traditional AI – it’s like a master strategist who can make smart decisions within a specific set of rules. Other examples of traditional AIs are voice assistants like Siri or Alexa, recommendation engines on Netflix or Amazon, or Google’s search algorithm. These AIs have been trained to follow specific rules, do a particular job, and do it well, but they don’t create anything new.
Generative AI: The Next Frontier
Generative AI, on the other hand, can be thought of as the next generation of artificial intelligence. It’s a form of AI that can create something new. Suppose you have a friend who loves telling stories. But instead of a human friend, you have an AI. You give this AI a starting line, say, ‘Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away…’. The AI takes that line and generates a whole space adventure story, complete with characters, plot twists, and a thrilling conclusion. The AI creates something new from the piece of information you gave it. This is a basic example of Generative AI. It’s like an imaginative friend who can come up with original, creative content. What’s more, today’s generative AI can not only create text outputs, but also images, music and even computer code. Generative AI models are trained on a set of data and learn the underlying patterns to generate new data that mirrors the training set.
Consider GPT-4, OpenAI’s language prediction model, a prime example of generative AI. Trained on vast swathes of the internet, it can produce human-like text that is almost indistinguishable from a text written by a person.
The Key Difference
The main difference between traditional AI and generative AI lies in their capabilities and application. Traditional AI systems are primarily used to analyze data and make predictions, while generative AI goes a step further by creating new data similar to its training data.
In other words, traditional AI excels at pattern recognition, while generative AI excels at pattern creation. Traditional AI can analyze data and tell you what it sees, but generative AI can use that same data to create something entirely new.
Practical Implications
The implications of generative AI are wide-ranging, providing new avenues for creativity and innovation. In design, generative AI can help create countless prototypes in minutes, reducing the time required for the ideation process. In the entertainment industry, it can help produce new music, write scripts, or even create deepfakes. In journalism, it could write articles or reports. Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize any field where creation and innovation are key.
On the other hand, traditional AI continues to excel in task-specific applications. It powers our chatbots, recommendation systems, predictive analytics, and much more. It is the engine behind most of the current AI applications that are optimizing efficiencies across industries.
The Future of AI
While traditional AI and generative AI have distinct functionalities, they are not mutually exclusive. Generative AI could work in tandem with traditional AI to provide even more powerful solutions. For instance, a traditional AI could analyze user behavior data, and a generative AI could use this analysis to create personalized content.
As we continue to explore the immense potential of AI, understanding these differences is crucial. Both generative AI and traditional AI have significant roles to play in shaping our future, each unlocking unique possibilities. Embracing these advanced technologies will be key for businesses and individuals looking to stay ahead of the curve in our rapidly evolving digital landscape.
We have only just started on the journey of AI innovation. Recognizing the unique capabilities of these different forms of AI allows us to harness their full potential as we continue on this exciting journey.
A university partnership could be a part of your research landscape, providing opportunities such as access to leading academic researchers, willing and skilled students, laboratory space, and partnership options that provide access to funding bodies. One of the keys to success will be to take a long-term view of the relationship and recognise the difference in missions, cultures and structures.
What are the benefits to both parties to considering a collaboration? Below is a selection.
• Development of the organization with early talent selection. The partnership provides a pipeline for industry and career opportunities for students from internships, and sponsorship, leading to full-time roles.
• They are broadening the educational perspective. Partnerships create the opportunity to better align the educational experience to the workplace; a must for medical practice such as paramedics. In other industries, horizon scanning can help place technologies in context and attendant risk, threat, and opportunity.
• Financial benefits can arise with access to public funding for research and development, commercialisation of innovations and potential equity in new enterprises.
• Flexible and agile additions to operational resources. With a focused application of university resources such as laboratory space and facilities, well-trained resources that need low levels of briefing can be managed by university staff.
• Product/service assessment with no bias. Using an external resource to conduct the activities, such as pretotyping, can be performed faster, and the results presented are not coloured with personal perspectives emanating from work experiences and business knowledge.
There are several forms of university-industry partnership; we look at ones that will benefit horizon scanning.
• Research Project – Horizon Scanning will be conducted continually with changes in the risk landscape reported. This may identify a need for specific research on a single subject in more depth; for example, weak signal outliers need to be validated as trends. This can be an ideal vehicle for student projects as long as the timing suits both parties. Being part of the ongoing project will help ease any conflicts in schedules.
• Position/process project – as part of the development of the horizon scanning process, there will be requirements to fill full or part-time posts; working with a university can facilitate that recruitment, provide funding to the student and institution and enable to mould both the position and skills profile. The output from Horizon scanning is a crucial part of the process and will require the efficient use of the latest data presentation tools. Deciding which device can be aided by this partnership enables the business to use educational access before buying a full licence.
• Information Development & Sharing – by its nature, horizon scanning is an information development process bringing data from various sources and testing it against specific risk and opportunity scenarios. It may be beneficial to share this information with other companies in the industry to broaden the perspective. This process is much easier if facilitated through a trusted third party such as an academic institution.
• Alliance – long-term partnerships can be formalised to enable all the above collaborations with an agreed contractual framework.
When entering any agreement, the company must apply an appropriate structure; we outline some key elements below.
• Outcome – a part of the horizon scanning process, this may be an overall outcome of providing research results as a stakeholder; it might be to supply an interim role or internship or manage an information sharing initiative.
• Curriculum – understand and stipulate how the request will fit into the University curriculum; for example, will this form part of the student’s work experience, form the basis of a research project, or enable industrial sponsorship?
• Scale – this will be determined by the type of partnership as defined above, though a long-term partnership will facilitate the generation of multiple projects throughout its duration.
• Time – the duration of the partnership; in the case of a project, this might be measured in months, whereas the alliance will be measured in years.
• Content – the horizon scanning will be bounded by defined inputs and outputs, including the questions, risk/issues under consideration and scenarios chosen. The roles-based collaboration will have defined responsibilities and key activities and measures. The role of stakeholders is defined as part of the scanning framework.
• Location – where the work will take place, and in most cases, this will be a hybrid of business and academic institution-based.
• IP management -horizon scanning adds to the body of knowledge and, therefore, will have attendant IP, which must be carefully defined in ownership. The academic institution will, in many cases, want to promote its work and the partnership and may wish to publish outcomes. This can conflict with business norms and needs to be managed immediately.
• Management – How the collaboration will be managed cuts across all the above. Questions such as who will play which roles? What are the available capacities and capabilities? How will you communicate, and how frequently? What level of trust exists presently? Where do the cultures not align?
Remember, this type of collaboration is an organisational design problem and should be managed in line with measures and strategic objectives related to this element in the balanced scorecard. The benefits ratios for successful collaborations are impressive, with a rate of return on investment of 40 times.
Case Study: Internationalisation for the family business
Preamble
Prowise was founded in 2015 by Managing Director Rikesh Kothari and his wife and employs eight people today. The firm first became interested in Help to Grow when considering new strategic directions.
Prowise’s Help to Grow learning journey included strategic growth, positioning within the ecosystem, developing people as an asset and technology as an accelerator.
Prowise is entering a new growth phase, targeting international sales and aiming to get its products listed in more retail outlets and online stores, so the business needs to develop its skills.
“When we started, all we had was an idea. Every couple of years, our goals change. We want to expand and grow, and we need some guidance to help us move forward”, said Rikesh Kothari.
Approach
Brunel’s Help to Grow Management Programme helped to boost the performance and resilience of Prowise Healthcare in the following ways:
• The strategy and Innovation module guided Rikesh to review Prowise Healthcare’s business model regarding current and future market opportunities.
• The module on Digital Adoption helped him understand what stage their business has reached on the pathway to digital adoption from digitisation to digital transformation and identified priority areas for development.
• The vision, Mission and Values module helped him to explore the role of Prowise Healthcare’s business vision, values and brand in supporting organisational culture and employee engagement to achieve positive outcomes.
• Developing a Marketing Strategy module guided him to Explore the avenues of market Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP) in a competitive environment and business. Also, he applied the knowledge of customer persona to understand his customer segmentation.
• Rikesh identified the appropriate strategies for leading change inclusively and engagingly and developed a growth plan to implement approaches that enhance employee engagement with the knowledge he gained from the Employee Engagement and Leading Change module.
• Workbook exercises on Efficient operations (Module 10) guided Rikesh to navigate through practical tools to engage employees to build a continuous improvement culture, challenge existing operational performance frontiers and create new performance frontiers unique to your business.
Outcome
• Working closely with Brunel HTGM’s facilitators, Prowise Healthcare adopted an internal resources management system to track resources and improve its internal processes.
• The business engaged four social media influencers to explain the product’s journey from sourcing raw ingredients in India to home delivery and to highlight the products’ natural origin.
• New features were introduced on the firm’s website to attract 30% more customers: WhatsApp, newsletter service, Subscribe and save options and refer a friend scheme.
• Frequent updates on the company’s website increased sales by 25%
• The company committed to 100% recyclable products by 2024. Prowise product packaging is currently 95% recyclable, with the elusive final 5% represented by printing inks.
• The marketing and nutrition teams were expanded to increase the brand value of Prowise Healthcare.
• Through its Help to Grow’s alum support network membership, the company aims to hire Brunel graduates for its future positions.
Case Study: Research the importance of Protein and why older generations don’t consume enough in their diets.
Preamble
Protein4Life was a collaborative research project led by Newcastle University. It examined the drivers and barriers to increased protein consumption from the age of 40 and into later life beyond 70.
A natural symptom of ageing is loss of muscle mass and strength. Good protein intake can minimise the loss. This, in turn, reduces the risk of frailty and weakened resistance to disease and infection. This has a direct healthcare cost in the UK over-70s of £2.5 billion annually.
Seven companies from the food and drink industry contributed to the research:
• Campden BRI
• Nestlé
• Mondelez International
• Sainsbury’s
• Pladis
• Bradgate Bakery
• Premier Foods
They provided expertise around the technical challenges of adding more protein to products. They also shared feedback from their market research into customers’ attitudes towards protein.
“ Seven companies from the food and drink industry contributed to the research providing expertise around technical challenges and customer feedback.
Conveying the importance of protein
Kerry Whiteside, Innovation Project Manager at Bradgate Bakery, which is a part of the Samworth Brothers group, says: “We supported Protein4Life because it’s the right thing to do. It’s about getting older people to eat the appropriate amount of protein for their biological needs. We looked at the food industry can help that process by developing products that meet that protein need.”
The findings of the Protein4Life research show that while public health messages about salt, sugar and fat are getting through to people, there is a widespread need for further education about the importance of protein.
Emma Stevenson, Professor of Sport and Exercise Science at Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences says: “Besides the poor understanding of the benefits of protein, another barrier to protein intake is cost. Many higher protein foods are expensive and may not be part of the habitual diet of many older adults.”
She explains that there are also issues around palatability and that older adults tend to lose their appetite. “So, the goal is a protein-rich food that tastes good, isn’t too filling and expensive.”
Changing diets
The hope is that the food industry can use the guidelines to provide tasty higher-protein foods that suit older adults.
Emma and the Protein4Life academic team, including colleagues at Bristol, Sheffield, Liverpool and Aberdeen universities, plan to apply for more UK Government funding with industry partners. The work will look closer at the multiple benefits of higher-protein products.
Case Study: Hydroponic Vertical Farming
Preamble
FYTO Ltd is a Newcastle-based start-up that uses hydroponic vertical farming to bring an ultra-local supply of low-carbon food. Their business is built on the belief that there is no reason why food should travel further than it has to.
FYTO contacted Arrow when they realised they needed specialist advice to take their business further.
FYTO has two objectives. One concentrates on developing hydroponic systems for food production, and the second aims to supply growing units to help customers grow their fresh produce.
But bringing food production closer to the consumer in a sustainable and ecologically friendly way is a complex task, which proved all the more challenging once the FYTO team realised that there were gaps in their knowledge and online opinions were conflicting.
Precisely, they needed a specialist to explore the intricacies of plant-light interactions and how to measure associated plant phenotype characteristics.
Approach
The Arrow programme aims to match North East SMEs with Newcastle University experts who can provide knowledge and expertise to help them innovate.
For this project, Arrow connected FYTO with two academics from the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences (SNES), Dr Ankush Prashar and Dr Dave George. Specialising in agriculture, Ankush has an in-depth understanding of imaging systems for crop monitoring, and Dave has experience with lighting requirements for vertical farming.
The project involved looking at what research has been done on lighting system recipes for optimal plant quality and how imaging can be used to identify when plants are stressed. FYTO could then apply these learnings to improve their custom system. Arrow gave FYTO rare access to incredibly specialist academic knowledge, which was fully funded and easy to access.
The Arrow programme also provided a Senior Innovation Associate with a scientific background (Dr Rebecca Hanna) to manage the project, conduct the literature research, and facilitate conversations through meetings and field trips. Finding the time and resources to focus on innovation around day-to-day operations can be a struggle, making the project much more accessible for all involved.
Outcomes
By combining the expertise of both Dr Ankush Prashar and Dr Dave George, FYTO received the following:
• An extensive report on light-plant interactions
ongoing consultancy and guidance in the form of meetings
validation of designs and decisions regarding broad spectrum horticulture lighting
• But that’s not all. Following the success of the Arrow project, funding has been secured to continue this collaboration as they begin initial experiments, hopefully leading to larger funded projects. As well as research, Ankush and Dave are involved in university teaching and plan to link FYTO to student projects and placements.
The FYTO team have also been introduced to other academics to broaden their local network and additional opportunities to collaborate with Newcastle University. An example of this is that FYTO will be working with a team of marketing students from Newcastle University Business School (NUBS) to learn more about building a social media presence and creating a content and engagement strategy.
Case Study: Improving Research and Education By Bringing the World of Practice On To Campus
Preamble – 2007 – Present
A new model for creating a relational, rather than transactional, University-Industry relationship is reviewed. The model focuses on having the University build a long-term strategic relationship with the industry collaborator across the inter-related areas of research, curriculum, internships and community engagement. This model has greatly benefited both the University and the Industry collaborator – such as new academic programs, joint research efforts, and many internship opportunities.
Background: In 2007, JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) and Syracuse University (SU) set out to transform how students are educated, focusing on better-preparing students for technology careers in global organisations. This vision, established by the Chancellor of SU and the Chief Operating Officer of JPMC, had initial objectives:
•Transform the way technologists are trained in the classroom and on the job
•Drive innovation in university education and financial services technology
•Deliver long-term value to JPMorgan Chase, Syracuse University and the broader community
•Create a sustainable model for world-class university-industry collaboration
Outcomes
Project Results – Curriculum
The domain of Global Enterprise Technology (GET) was developed. This domain focuses on sizeable complex information systems typically not covered via traditional university courses. The following programs have been created:
• GET minor – an undergraduate minor with courses from three schools within SU (Information Studies, Engineering, and Management). More than 200 students are enrolled in the child.
• GET Immersion Experience (IE) Extended Internships: an eight-month paid internship for undergraduate students. IE interns remain full-time students through residencies combined with distance coursework. GET IE courses leverage learning opportunities that one can only appreciate while working full-time within an organization. The program includes other companies (such as CISCO, Ernst & Young, nationwide) and students from other universities (including the University of Delaware, Rutgers, and The Ohio State University).
• GET Certificate of Advanced Study: a graduate-level five-course program. Courses can be applied towards a master’s degree in Business, Information Systems, or Computer Science.
Project Results – Internships
All internships provide value to the student (work experience), to the company (GET curriculum enables more productive students), and to the university (enhanced student learning). JPMorgan Chase has filled a substantial portion of its recruiting pipeline from these programs. The opportunities include:
Academic year internships: 70+ students are doing real work, part-time, in the tech centre.
GET IE: Paid 8-month internship while taking courses that leverage the work context. Summer internships: traditional 10-week summer internships at various JPMC locations.
Project Results – Community Engagement
Our joint efforts on community engagement have included:
Supporting at-risk youth: Both organisations have invested time and employee volunteer hours to help keep at-risk high school students (e.g., mentoring programs).
Veterans Technology Program: an online Veterans Technology Program called GET Vet for veterans pursuing a career in technology. The tuition-free program began in the summer of 2011.
The Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF): The Institute, launched jointly by SU and JPMC in June of 2011, serves as a national centre in higher education focused on the social, economic, education, and policy issues impacting veterans and their families post-service.
Keys to Your Success: The three Guiding Principles outlined in the 2006 Living Studies have all been leveraged:
1. The university-industry collaboration should support the mission of each collaborator:
a. SU: Research funding, improved curriculum, and experiential learning for students
b. JPMC: Pipeline of talent (via internships) and knowledge via research projects
2. Focus on fostering appropriate long-term collaborations between universities and industry.
a. The long-range commitment enables both organisations to understand the other party’s objectives better and identify efforts that provide that elusive “win-win” opportunity.
3. Streamline negotiations to ensure timely conduct of the research:
a. A master collaboration contract was executed, and a research project template was created, which facilitates research efforts.
Lessons Learned:
Due to the long-term relationship, ideas across the workstreams (curriculum, research, internships) have been cross-pollination.
Within our model, employees have enjoyed volunteering their time at the university. This model made it easier for employees to find the appropriate avenue to share their expertise.
Exercise
• Identify present research sources and ownership
• Identify any gaps
Course Manual 3: Strategic Alignment
The following sub-process concerns the topics of Business Model Operating Model, horizon Scanning outputs, balanced scorecard, and departmental KPIs.
Having evaluated and determined the data-gathering landscape to support the decision-making, we now apply a model to align all the elements of the business to produce a coherent plan. The horizon scanning process will provide a future view of issues and risks, combined with an internal and external view of the issues and risk the business faces now provides core information. This can be referred to as situational analysis.
Four recognised models can be applied to strategic alignment, but all will provide the following fundamentals.
• Setting long-term objectives
• Understanding the factors that will influence the market, industry and business so the strategy can address them
• Reviewing options for delivering the strategy and prioritising them
• Monitoring the results and adjusting the system were necessary
The four models are;
1. Basic Strategic Planning model – best suited to start-ups and small organisations, the core process starts with the Mission, vision and values, set goals (mainly financial for 5, 3 and 1 years), uses a template for strategic themes such as sales and marketing, product development, Technology development, training and funding. Against these, it will set out key milestones mapped to the goals and the activities required to meet the milestone.
2. Issue-based Strategic Planning Model – essentially an add-on to the basic model providing greater depth of analysis through SWOT using the output from this exercise to identify gaps in planned activities and the milestones and goals being set.
3. Alignment Strategic Planning Model – the core of this approach is to seek alignment between strategy and resources, linking strategy to execution. This process will use short-term risks, issues, and tools, such as business and operational models, to set objectives, goals, and activities needed to implement change.
4. The scenario-Based Strategic Planning Model effectively sets out options based on future risks and issues defined by horizon scanning. It will always be used in concert with other models but allows stakeholders to debate and assess the likelihood and impacts of these risks becoming threats or opportunities.
While the basic model is unsuitable for mature companies, the other models are valid and will be used in the process put forward. Having established the data gathering process to inform of the business’s risks and issues, the next step is to evaluate the impact and likelihood of these happening. The list of risks and problems can be readily analysed using the SWOT model bringing senior managers and executives together in a brainstorming session.
This will effectively address the near-term risks and issues but not provide any future vision. To do this, we need to use a method that uses uncertainties that will have been uncovered in the horizon scanning process and project these forward.
Scenario Planning performs this function, not a form of forecasting based on past results but by reviewing the impact of market disruptions using trends and qualitative data. Using scenario planning can help the business think more creatively and the option to bring new ideas for the future. It can be applied to optimise resource allocation, identify the need for lowering production costs, thinking critically about future trends. Though there are various forms of scenario planning, we will focus on the alternative futures using the horizon scanning outcomes.
The key steps are;
• Choose a timeframe –the timeframe will be influenced by factors such as competitor activity, technological advancements, product lifecycle status, Political conditions at home and abroad, and environmental considerations.
• Abstract the External forces – taken from the PESTLE analysis conducted that was fed into the horizon scanning activity.
• Identify critical driving forces – from the horizon scanning, select pairs of risks or issues that will most impact the business, and define the extreme for each. Focus on factors such as who has an interest in these. Who will be affected by them? Who could influence them? Presently driving forces are customers, suppliers, competitors, employees, shareholders, and governments. For each, we need to understand their role in the driving force, interest in it, position, and progress over time. Each chosen pair can form a scenario, only attempting a few techniques.
• Map the Scenario – using an x-y graph, map the two uncertainties; each end of the chart represents the extremes of the uncertainty, thereby creating four scenarios. Scenarios can be developed for society and structure, Markets and customer behaviour, technology and Innovation, Industry competitive structure and your organisational capacities and core competencies.
• Evaluate the scenario – discuss each scenario within the management team, establishing where the business is presently and which direction the company might take over the timeframe.
• Identify any strategic adjustments required – based on your assessment of the future direction, work through what changes in strategy and policy might be needed and forward these into the overall process.
Key considerations when managing scenario planning, focus on a few scenarios, ensure diverse feedback by requesting input from any of the external contributors to the horizon scanning and undertake a regular review, mainly if you have detected any changes.
Following the scenario planning exercise, it is always worthwhile to test the present alignment of the strategy before defining how to adjust it. What is strategic alignment, all elements of a business, from market strategy to organisational design and culture, are arranged to fulfil its long-term purpose best. This alignment must make sense from several perspectives, from the enterprise level to the business unit, department and individual team members. There is a simple test (proposed by Oxford University Said Business School) to review the entire business or a division or unit within it. It asks the industry two questions.
1. How well does your business strategy support the fulfilment of your company’s purpose – the purpose or mission is what the company is trying to achieve, and the process is how you are trying to achieve it; through products, services, markets and the company’s differentiation from its competitors. Score the strategy based on the stated priorities on a scale of 1 to 10.
2. How well does the organization support the achievement of your business strategy – this covers all capabilities, Resources, and management systems. For example, if customer service is a key priority, then this must be reflected in the day-to-day behaviour of staff and the business rules that orchestrate that engagement. People, structure, culture, and processes must flex and change agilely to maintain alignment. Score this question the same as the first one.
I use a four-box matrix with the X-axis measuring the degree of alignment with one not aligned and ten fully aligned. The Y axis measures the organisational effectiveness, with the numbers reflecting alignment. The diagram below shows the leadership challenge represented by appearing in that box.
The best chance of winning – appearing in this box means winning in your chosen field; this will manifest in more than superior financial performance, better working climate, above average staff engagement and a more substantial commitment to values; less departmental conflicts.
A Microsoft survey backs up this assertion; Poor alignment affects employment and motivation, with staff that understand their role in delivering the strategy and the company’s overall purpose being three times more engaged in delivery and four and half times happier at work.
ARM is possibly one of the best-performing companies you’ve never heard of. Its microprocessors are used in over 95% of the world’s smart devices, including iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. Superior technical innovation is at the heart of its strategy and organisational design. ARM organises by maximising knowledge-sharing and collaboration opportunities throughout its ecosystem comprising thousands of external partners. Its core staff of only 3,500, based mainly in Cambridge (UK), share a singular purpose and set of values that supersede functions, occupations, and roles. There are few barriers to spontaneous collaboration among technical teams.
Best of Intentions, but incapable – appearing in this box means implementing the strategy will be difficult. The company might experience poor customer attraction or retention, higher operating costs and organisational dysfunction.
Poor engagement also leads to the following syndromes Quiet Quitting, Bare Minimum Monday, Quiet Firing, Great Resignation, and Mass Layoffs, making the organization dysfunctional.
Barclays has been criticised intensely for its culture, governance, and risky behaviour that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis. A series of scandals, such as foreign exchange fixing, has resulted in it receiving record fines, regulatory scrutiny, and highly negative publicity. A report commissioned by Barclays in 2013 revealed a corporate culture that wasn’t fit for purpose, tending to “favour transactions over relationships, the short term over sustainability, and financial over other business purposes.” It revealed a complex and siloed organization with competing operating assumptions, values, and practices. The result was a fertile environment for reckless and risky employee behaviour running contrary to the overarching vision and values of the enterprise.
Boldy going nowhere – the lack of alignment between strategy and purpose can lead many capable businesses with good people who can fail without the overarching goal that helps guide strategy changes.
Kodak is a famous example of a competent blue chip business brought low by confusion about how best to fulfil its purpose in the digital world. Although they developed digital photographic technology, too many people in the company focused on the core organisational competence of film. Instead of seeing digital cameras as a new way to execute the corporate purpose of capturing “Kodak moments,” they hewed to their existing, film-centric strategy. That left them out of sync with the changing preferences of consumers for digital media and instant sharing.
Not long for this world – a failure on both axes will lead to crisis, even if it is not immediately apparent. Strategies cannot deliver on customer needs, market conditions, or competitor capability, and the organization cannot deliver against any strategic priorities.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was a flagship bank feted for its stellar financial performance. It proliferated in the late nineties and early 2000s, transforming itself from a regional Scottish bank into a national British bank with the acquisition of National Westminster Bank in 2000, finally and fleetingly becoming a global universal bank with the purchase of ABN Amro in 2007. At its peak, RBS employed 170,000 people and operated in more than 50 countries with annual profits of £10.3 billion. In 2008, however, RBS failed spectacularly and was nationalised by the UK government to prevent its collapse.
Many have speculated since about the failures of its leadership under its bullish former CEO, Fred Goodwin. Goodwin was notoriously combative, with a “Fred says” autocratic management style. RBS was also famous for its “strategy of not having a strategy,” being largely opportunistic and relying upon aggressive plays, agility, and audacity to outpace peers. Supercharged inorganic growth — especially the acquisition of ABN Amro — meant that RBS grew quickly, with multiple operating structures and sub-cultures. RBS outgrew the ability of its command-and-control leadership structure to govern complex and diversified activities across international operations effectively. Many poor business decisions resulted in an accumulation of unsustainable, toxic debt.
We are looking for top-down alignment where the departmental managers get their proprieties and measures from the business purposes, strategic KPIs and priorities, not from their interpretation of the priorities based on their understanding of the requirements. Setting their priorities might be at odds with the overall business. Survey results indicated that only 39% believed that teams in the organization shared the same perspective of how to succeed in the industry, Executives less confident 29%, and managers 41%.
Checking and evaluating the business purpose can be achieved by revisiting the customer value proposition using the one-page canvas. Studying the market fit with the business’s information on competition and customers and then applying these outcomes to the Business Model canvas.
Shannon Susko, as part of her 3HAG methodology, also advocates defining the purpose and core values to aid the process of management alignment.
In setting priorities, the business must define what needs to change to deliver the business model. Blue Ocean Consulting states that the company must define three propositions to ensure strategic alignment value: the customer, profit, the operating model, and people, the motivational perspective. Testing the value perspective from the CVP can use hypotheses to engage customer opinions and ideas. This can range from product/service functions to pricing and delivery.
The profit proposition focuses on the differential between the price the market will pay and the delivery cost. The perspective is on the efficiency of operation, including the supply chain and logistics of delivery.
An operating model will only be as good as the staff delivering it and the IT infrastructure supporting them. IT alignment has become essential in this process as the impact of digitalisation is central to many businesses’ forward plans.
By conducting this type of analysis, a business can search for ways of doing business that enable differentiation on more than just cost. Mapping each strategic element within the company compass against a competitor or the existing norms will help to identify the opportunities and threats.
The market map put forward by the 3HAG approach shows the players and the relationships between them, suppliers, customers, trader associations, intermediaries and the business. Drawing the relationships between these actors and their influence on the interaction will highlight what changes can succeed within the company’s market.
This market map should be supplemented with the process map, showing the relationship between the fundamental business processes and their interactions to support the critical profit and cost goals defined from the market map. This map will enable the business to identify the process-KPI relationships and the relative impact on the profit proposition.
Bringing the outcome of all this work into one-pager provides a good reference tool for all employees and can act as the bridge between strategy and execution. Ideally, this document covers the core purpose, core values, process KPIs and differentiators, market positioning, and financial outcomes over a target period.
As mentioned earlier, the alignment needs to go beyond the pure operational into IT and its infrastructure because this is now fundamental to all processes. The alignment comes with four perspectives;
1. Strategy Execution: this perspective views the business strategy as the driver of both organization design choices and the logic of IS infrastructure (the classic, hierarchical view of strategic management). Top Management is the strategy formulator; IS Management is the strategy implementer.
2. Technology Potential: this perspective also views the business strategy as the driver. However, it involves articulating an IT strategy to support the chosen business strategy and the corresponding specification of the required IS infrastructure and processes. The top management should provide the technology vision to articulate the logic and choices about IT strategy that would best support the chosen business strategy, while the role of the IS manager should be that of the technology architect – who efficiently and effectively designs and implements the required IS infrastructure that is consistent with the external component of IT strategy (scope, competences and governance).
3. Competitive Potential: this alignment perspective is concerned with the exploitation of emerging IT capabilities to impact new products and services (i.e., business scope), influence the critical attributes of strategy (distinctive competencies), as well as develop new forms of relationships (i.e. business governance). Unlike the two previous perspectives that considered business strategy as a given (or a constraint for organisational transformation), this perspective allows the modification of business strategy via emerging IT capabilities. The specific role of the top management to make this perspective succeed is that of the business visionary, who articulates how the emerging IT competencies and functionality, as well as changing governance patterns in the IT marketplace, would impact the business strategy. In contrast, the IS manager role is one of the catalysts that identifies and interprets the trends in the IT environment to assist the business managers in understanding the potential opportunities and threats from an IT perspective.
4. Service Level: This alignment perspective focuses on how to build a world-class IT/IS organization within an organization. In this perspective, the role of business strategy is indirect. This perspective is often viewed as necessary (but more is needed) to ensure the effective use of IT resources and be responsive to the growing and fast-changing demands of the end-user population. The top management’s role in making this perspective succeed is prioritising and articulating how best to allocate scarce resources within the organization and in the IT marketplace (in joint ventures, licensing, minority equity investments, etc.). In contrast, the IS manager’s role is one of business leadership, with the specific task of making the internal business succeed within the operating guidelines of the top management.
Henderson and Venkatraman proposed the Strategic Alignment Model above, and these four steps enable strategic fit and functional integration. We have discussed the strategic fit above, and this section looks at the available integration of business and IT strategies.
When performed effectively, strategic alignment will prevent operational managers from struggling to align everyday operations and strategic objectives. There are different rhythms between each of the layers of management Strategic, measured in years; functional, measured in months and Tactical, in real-time. Aligning the objectives and measures will prevent ‘silo’ thinking and enable managers to exercise their judgement, particularly when considering ‘real-time’ decision-making. The top-down approach also makes for more effective collaboration.
To ensure that the company maintains the flexibility to respond, front-line employees must not lose contact with the strategic achievements, and senior executives lose touch with what is happening on the ground by supporting this natural set of timing layers with an additional communications channel between those operating at strategic and tactical levels.
Through this channel, the company can.
• Reinforce strategic intent and priorities.
• Connect cross-functional teams around processes.
• Enable knowledge-building and sharing.
• Build an ecosystem on collaboration and team building, supporting the early identification of issues and their resolution.
• Increasing agility and the business’s ability to adapt to changing operational conditions
In summary, strategic alignment links strategy and execution, providing an unambiguous clarity of purpose and using common sense to motivate all team members. This means that regardless of job role, each contributor understands the company’s priorities, knows how they contribute to the organisational goals and can relate what they do daily to meeting the broader goals.
Case Study: How to achieve strategic alignment – a case study of Dubai
Amid the Middle East, Dubai created a blue ocean in national progress and development, which allowed it to rise from a small pearl-fishing and trading post to become a vibrant economy and ‘The City of Dreams’ – one of the top tourist destinations across the world. Unlike many of its regional peers, which have developed unstable regimes and oil-dependent economies, Dubai has diversified its economy to become a politically stable economic powerhouse. Dubai thrives on trade, tourism, transportation, mass communications, construction, finance and a host of other growing sectors – with a business climate of optimism and expansion. Dubai has defied the expectations of conventional wisdom and has exhibited strong growth, sustained political stability and exceptional economic diversification.
The big question is, what led to this transformative change in Dubai? Contrary to expectations based on local trends and regional development patterns, how has Dubai achieved a diversified economy and a high degree of political stability, making it one of the most attractive destinations in the world, not just for visitors but also for expatriate residents? How did it break out of the expected oil curse to create one of the fastest-growing economies in the world?
The underlying winning formula is the strategic alignment of its value, profit, and people propositions around differentiation and low cost.
Dubai aligned three strategic propositions.
1. Dubai’s Value Proposition
At the heart of Dubai’s success has been a value proposition to foreign investors, unlike those of other emerging economies. The value proposition begins with a dozen world-class free trade zones with unbeatable investor incentives. To stand out further and simultaneously lower investors’ costs, Dubai has also expedited its regulatory process in contrast to Shanghai, which at the time imposed a complex and opaque legal system on foreign investors and required incoming companies to be familiar with China’s norms, customs, and politics.
Shanghai was used as a strategic reference to show how Dubai’s value proposition has been compelling to foreign investors despite its much smaller domestic market size.
2. Dubai’s Profit Proposition
How does Dubai generate revenue to support the state, given that corporate and personal taxes are negligible? It has found differentiated revenue sources while lowering its cost structure. Instead of exploiting conventional income channels such as corporate and private taxes, which would discourage foreign investors, the government has invested in the infrastructure supporting investors’ activities – shipping and port services, transport, tourism, etc. These investments have allowed the government to profit directly from its unique, low-cost value proposition.
Dubai’s profit proposition has been not just differentiated: economic development and government profitability are bolstered by the simultaneous pursuit of low costs. For example, in Dubai, expatriates always remain expatriates: 80% of its growing population is now foreign. By restricting citizenship, the government has kept its social liabilities to a minimum.
Oil-based Arab economies were used as a strategic reference, as they are most comparable in their geopolitical, social, and government revenue-generating mechanisms.
3. Dubai’s People’s Proposition
Dubai has become a cosmopolitan state with more than 3 million people from over 100 countries around the globe.
1. How has Dubai preserved its Arab traditions and fostered social tolerance in its citizens while accommodating vast numbers of foreigners, many of them from the West and Asia?
2. With no social benefits or citizenship rights, how did Dubai attract foreign talent central to the government’s ability to execute its strategy?
The answer to both is that it created people propositions for both constituencies that have delivered differentiated value and lower costs. The people proposition embraces both economic and emotional factors because these factors can either bring value to people or be a significant cost to their livelihoods.
Dubai’s past was used as a strategic reference to depict how Dubai’s new strategy has made a difference to citizens.
Case Study: Tata Nano – example of strategic misalignment
The Tata Nano was hailed as the people’s car at its launch. Produced by Indian automaker Tata Auto, the Nano garnered more media attention than any other car launch in the world at the time, achieving the most significant sales uptake in the history of the global automobile industry. Over two hundred thousand orders poured in within two weeks of its launch in March 2009.
There was good reason for the Nano’s initial success. Tata Motors had thought hard about what Indian buyers wanted, valued, and lacked in India’s existing transportation options. The Tata Nano offered safe, comfortable, reliable, and respectable all-weather transportation for Indian families.
At the same price as a two-wheeler, it put an automobile within the reach of most Indians for the first time. Tata Motors matched this compelling value proposition with a persuasive profit proposition. A series of cost innovations in design, manufacturing, marketing, and maintenance resulted in a differentiated and low-cost profit proposition.
Yet the Tata Nano, an initial success, failed to meet sales targets and public expectations.
What went wrong?
It had a brilliant value proposition. A viable profit proposition. And a strong people proposition for employees and suppliers. This setback arose mainly from a significant weakness in the people proposition for the external stakeholders whose cooperation Tata depended on.
Resistance from the local community eventually forced the manufacturing plant to relocate across the country, incurred enormous costs for the company, and disrupted its original distribution plan, leading to less-than-satisfactory sales results.
Instead of using non-traditional channels to make the Tata Nano reach Indian families throughout the country as planned, Tata Motors resorted to traditional dealerships to display and sell the Nano as they were distracted by the plant relocation. As a result, the car was shown only in large showrooms in big cities.
As typical two-wheeler buyers were reluctant to walk into a large car showroom, the “people’s car” reached existing car owners looking to buy a cheap second car.
As the reputation of Tata Nano shifted from being the “people’s car” to the “cheapest car”, as perceived by existing car owners, two-wheeler owners were further turned off as they wanted better mobility and an upgrade in their socioeconomic status.
The mistakes made in the people proposition eventually backfired on Tata Nano’s value proposition.
Case Study: How Intuit Applied This Model to Escape Siloed Thinking
Intuit is a successful and long-established global financial tech company. You may use or have used their products professionally and personally.
That’s because they have three distinct lines of business.
• Individual/personal – CreditKarma, Mint, Turbo tax
• Small Business – Quickbooks, MailChimp
• Finacial Professionals – Prosereis, Lacerte Tax
For decades Intuit added to its product lines and siloed these three distinct lines of business. But this needs to be added to one crucial point.
The individual may also be a small business owner or accountant. A small business grows into a more significant business, eventually moving from silo 2 to silo 3.
There needs to be more clarity on who needs these tools. And that need may be a progression. Yet, as siloed tools, they were not sharing the components of strategic alignment.
As a result, each one saw one type of audience without recognising the overlap and progression—to the point that a B2B or B2C customer didn’t even realise all these tools come from the same company.
Because of this lack of realisation, customers wouldn’t naturally progress, upgrade, and add products.
Intuit needed to leverage the trust it built with customers in each vertical to upsell and expand. This allowed competitors to “steal” customers already using Intuit’s other products.
This model worked for a while. But the weakness of these non-aligned verticals became more apparent as tech companies moved to a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.
Within the SaaS model, people expect a suite of tools they can access all in one place. They hope to add from that suite as needed.
Intuit needed to unify its three verticals from the top down. To accomplish this, we helped them progress through a series of stages:
1. Unify the Message
The company needed to define what it would mean to become one company to all customers. That message had to come from the top, and each line must be able to communicate it.
2. Establish a Communication Cadence
Because of the siloed nature of the business structure, we needed to open up the communication not only between each vertical and the strategic leader (C-suite). We had to establish communication between leaders across the three verticals.
3. Drive Value Across the Whole Customer Base
With cross-vertical communication established, each silo thinks not only about its product line. They’re thinking of the company as a whole.
How does this new product we want to launch integrate and overlap with the others? How can we use that overlap to sell customers the idea of expanding their suite of tools?
4. Increase the Value of The Brand
By unifying the siloes to deliver the most outstanding value to customers, Intuit increased the value of its brand in the eyes of financial experts, shareholders, employees, and customers alike.
5. Lead by Example
In a short time, the company has become an example of achieving strategy alignment even as a massive, global company. They regularly invite others to see how their once-misaligned units work together
Case Study: Elevating Employee Engagement – McChrystal Group
Engagement is often seen as this elusive secret ingredient that is difficult to measure and even harder to develop. McChrystal Group partnered with a technology company of more than 2,000 to help leaders understand the proper drivers of engagement among their workforce, identify areas that needed focus, and then improve engagement by addressing the propensity to firefight and a culture of reactivity that led to burnout.
Reigniting Innovation With a Focused Strategy – McChrystal Group
An aerospace and defence manufacturer long considered an industry leader and innovator had lost market share to competitors and was experiencing multi-year declining revenue from its primary customer base. A new CEO brought a bold vision for the organisation’s future and partnered with McChrystal Group to reinvigorate the organisation’s performance and return it to its culture of innovation by developing a comprehensive strategy and aligning all teams around it. As a result, the organization could competitively pursue and ultimately win a multi-billion-dollar contract that would return the company to growth and market leadership position for years to come.
Exercise
Individually write on Post-it Notes what you think the company’s purpose is and what core values support that purpose. Use one note per value. Add your Post-it notes to the relevant column and review them. Consolidate similar or similar ones to arrive at one core purpose and up to 8 core values.
Course Manual 4: Portfolio Management
The previous section walked through the process of ensuring alignment between the different aspects of the business, from its purpose, values to profitability and staff motivation and engagement. This next section discussed how following this activity, we examine the gap between the vision and the strategic objectives to define a set of projects we need to complete.
This exercise will yield more projects than we have the time or resources to complete, and many businesses need a robust way of analysing these and, in some cases, saying no. Project Portfolio Management is the process we will explore to satisfy this requirement. We need to be able to answer questions such as;
• Do I have the resources/budgets available for this new project?
• Is there a similar project I can use to model after this one in my portfolio?
• What current projects might act as a barrier to completing this project?
• Are the stakeholder’s expectations realistic? Where can we compromise?
• Does this project help reach our overall objectives as an organization?
Project Portfolio Management complements the other two disciplines of Project and Programme Management; each is described as Project Management doing projects right, Programme Management doing projects together, and Project Portfolio Management doing suitable projects. Doing this also provides an internal view of what good looks like.
The definition of the critical steps within Project Portfolio Management stated by the Project Management Institute provides the ideal link to connect to the Strategic Alignment work;
• Clarify Business objectives
• Research Ideas previous section
• Map projects to strategic criteria
• Validate the portfolio
• Management of the portfolio and adjust
The strategic business objectives will have been defined and tested as part of the alignment work. The next step is to gather the potential options and determine the strategic criteria against which the projects will be assessed. Remembering that the PPM process is to help manage risk.
The strategic alignment exercise will result in the communication of the strategy agreed upon; this will prompt several executives and managers to put forward project ideas. There should be other sources such as customer feedback, staff suggestion schemes and process failures, market issues and complaints. There will also be existing projects which will need to be brought into the portfolio, especially if this is the first time the project portfolio technique is being used for the first time.
To process the projects put forward successfully, the company must apply a set of agreed criteria. These criteria might be financial, qualitative, or a combination. Only using some form of assessment and relying on the loudest voice will not result in a balanced portfolio or good outcomes. Analysis has shown that financial measures are the poorest predictors of implemented project performance.
Typically, financial measures will be based on Return on Investment, net present value or Payback Period. In contrast, non-financial measures relate to market, customer, environment, sustainability, process efficiency and product/service differentiation. New product /service measures include uniqueness and differentiation with superior customer value, hitting an attractive market, and leveraging company strengths.
The criteria will be unique to the business, and the financial measures must be scored and weighted. An ideal number of crierion is recommended to be between 4 and 10, and the scoring range and weighting must be agreed upon with a stakeholder group from across the business.
Set out a timeline for the submission of projects, use a simple template to gather the information that is required to conduct the assessment; this will include costs and people’s time, and support this data-gathering process with interviews so that a better understanding of the thinking and the person/team behind the project is obtained. It is assumed that one person is allocated the responsibility of managing the development and future management of the portfolio.
After reaching the date for closure of submissions, transfer the detail to a template that enables scoring to any non-financial measures and validation of any financial predictions. The next task is to achieve and rank all the projects in order of merit. Organise a stakeholder group representing the whole company, agree on the rules of debate and scoring, and minimise personal bias. Following the scoring and weighting of all projects, rank them in order; then select projects and calculate the cumulative totals for resource utilisation. Select projects until 80% of resources, money, or people are exhausted. This cut line is called maximisation. Review the remaining tasks, and those projects that do not satisfy financial requirements can be held for review and maybe re-engineering. This will leave some projects that fall short of the ‘maximisation’ process and will form the reserve list.
This will not ensure that the portfolio is balanced, so in terms of managing risk, the next task is to apply some real-world experience. Some popular comparisons will be Risk versus reward, Strategic versus Tactical, market segmentation versus product segmentation, and time to completion versus time to profit. Using bubble charts makes it easier to use the information and revise the portfolio.
The next step is further refining this project portfolio by assessing its feasibility. The research should have gathered the next level of detail regarding scarce resources, such as skills. The initial resources assessment must be based on FTE calculations; specific skills must be identified, including those provided by vendors in the project. Any interdependencies between projects that will compete for the same resources must be understood.
These skilled resources must be profiled in terms of knowledge and required capability, and, where necessary, mitigating actions must be taken to address the shortfall with training, mentoring and additional subcontracting resource. These actions will inevitably bring more cost and timing delays to the projects in question, requiring a change in timing for some projects. This feasibility assessment will be an interactive process, and in the case of resource bottlenecks, bring forward projects that release resources, maybe for retraining, for example.
Once a feasible portfolio is signed off, complete a programme and individual project timelines using recognised project management principles and tools. Each project will have a manager, and the portfolio manager will be required to manage the programme. Some companies apply a Programme Management Office PMO to maintain principles. This approach results in a 38% improvement in projects reaching their goals and 48% fewer failures.
At this stage, we now have a set of projects that can be resource levelled and understand the dependencies. Before kicking these off, it is advisable to attach measures of progress that reflect more than adherence to dates and completion of tasks from traditional Project Management reporting. The projects arising from the strategic objectives and the alignment process should have developed a balanced scorecard reflecting financial, customer, and internal processes and organisational and IT capability measures. Correctly defined, these measures should be both leading and lagging, mainly economic and in project terms, 12 months after completion.
Using Objectives and Key Results OKRs might provide a solution that achieves the intermediate progress measuring. Either method will work and enable each project to be monitored during implementation. The key is that any indicator is not linked to financial outcomes but to impacts that can be attributed to the project. For example, a project focused on improving customer retention and service might use Net Promoter Score to measure sentiment from day 1 of the project and have targets set at quarterly intervals.
Now in the execution phase, the portfolio will still need to be managed using data from project managers on
• Activity completions or delays
• Resource conflicts
• Team morale
• Technological complications or failures
This reporting will need to reflect the different perspectives of all the parties;
• Executives – know what project managers to reach
• Project Managers – easy access to team members
• Team Members – improved communication with leadership and other teammates
• Stakeholders – kept in the loop with reliable and consistent feedback
Part of the management role will be to adjust the portfolio as projects meet the real world. As Mike Tyson famously said, ‘Everyone has a plan until they punched in the mouth’; so planning is indispensable, but the plan has to be agile; portfolio managers will have to reallocate resources, rescue projects that have lost their way, re-engineer some of them, maybe cancel them if they are proven unworkable and introduce new ones as the strategy evolves. All these actions will be managed under a governance framework that enables reporting up and down the project hierarchy from Steering Committee to Project Managers to resource holders in departments—processes to document and control escalation throughout the project structure and a complete change control system.
Further control tools, such as RACI, can be applied to ensure complete clarity of ownership of activities. RACI stands for Responsible for the delivery of the movement, Approval of the completed activity, Consulted to support completion of the training, and finally Informed of the action and its fulfilment.
A full review of the portfolio reflecting on progress and meeting the selection criteria must be completed at least annually, but if possible, quarterly. In Workshop 1, we discussed using Stage-Gates to manage the different phases of projects. The selection criteria used to select the portfolio projects should form part of the GO-NO GO gateway since, at each stage, the project will refine the information available and raise the quality of the decision-making.
In summary, the application of effective portfolio management is.
• Objective decision-making and sound investments.
• It provides the ability to say no.
• Continuing the alignment of strategy and execution.
• Embeds a long-term commitment from executives and managers.
• Provides for simple and transparent processes when deciding what projects to support and why.
• Underlying strong governance provides a framework that helps to manage the impacts of inevitable changes.
Organisations that combine effective project portfolio management with good project management achieve these results:
• Faster time to market
• Higher productivity
• Less chaos
• A strategy that gets implemented
The management of project portfolios can become complex and will benefit from the use of specialised software. This is particularly relevant if the level of project investment is significant and several perspectives need to be managed from the enterprise, IT and the execution of the projects.
Gartner state that, by 2025, 70% of digital investments will fail to deliver the expected business outcomes due to the absence of a strategic portfolio management (SPM) approach. The application of PPM in the strategy-to-execution process will enable a business to be better aligned and faster in adaption, thereby;
• Respond in an agile way to large-scale disruptions.
• Speed the delivery of new digital initiatives.
• Realise more value from digital initiatives.
PPM tools enable a business to manage various projects, from digital products, physical products, business capabilities, IT services, projects and applications. They allow users to link and cross-reference multiple portfolios for reporting and tracking. PPM tools must support three key requirements execution monitoring, enterprise-wide programme and portfolio management and IT portfolio analysis.
The first of these elements relate to the alignment with strategy and the need for stakeholders to know that the business is pursuing strategies, achieving the stated value creation and meeting the strategic goals and also providing the ability to adapt the portfolio to complete changes that arise. What is required is to manage the strategy definitions, investment plans, strategic objectives and desired business outcomes. Ideally, the application will map the dependencies and results from all projects covering products, services, business capabilities, programs and applications.
Effective reporting will support prompt collaborative decision-making regarding the portfolio as strategic intent, goals, and achievements can all be seen together, along with previous actions and changes that have been implemented. For example, seeing budget impacts early can lead to management decisions that avoid the ripple effect that one project can then affect others.
At the enterprise level, the functional requirements focus on managing integrated and interdependent portfolios. Whereas the in-execution administration will be reviewing an individual portfolio and adjusting the projects within that portfolio, at the enterprise level, leadership is tracking the outcomes and alignment of different portfolios and the impact on each other and external impacts on each one. Though the information being tracked is the same, the additional capability will be scenario planning and testing the ‘what if’ question before changing individual portfolios.
The final functionality is the management of the IT portfolio which requires that parts of the It portfolio are connected to business objectives, such as IT Investments, IT assets, IT projects and Programmes, applications and digital products. IT managers must understand the costs, effort, feasibility and interrelated effects of any changes to the IT landscape that business strategies propose.
There will be an existing Enterprise Architecture, which will be under constant update and maintenance. Therefore, changes to this as part of any future business and operating model must be factored into the forward plans. Opportunities may be presented within a new EA that can remove areas of redundancy or waste.
Reporting and the presentation of data are critical functional needs, dashboards explicitly that can provide a quick overview of complete portfolios but enable drilling down into specific areas within a project.
In summary, PPM can be the key to better predictability and increased agility to match the real-world rate of change, enabling businesses with project portfolios to
• Connect and coordinate with all team members and provide real-time status updates.
• Track, share and store data, files and feedback.
• Answer questions and solve problems faster.
• Quickly and easily mine data that can be shared with stakeholders.
Case Study
Preamble
The Volvo Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of trucks, buses, construction equipment and marine and industrial engines. It also provides complete solutions for financing and service. The Volvo Group employs approximately 100,000 people, has production facilities in 18 countries, and sells products in more than 190 markets.
CHALLENGE: MANAGE THE PORTFOLIO OF INVESTMENTS
In the early 2000s, Volvo acquired several brands and companies across the globe for scale, synergies, and geographical expansion. In 2012, the goal was to drive cost efficiencies.
And reposition Volvo by consolidating the various brands into one company, The Volvo Group. While the unification had its benefits, it also presented challenges with performance.
To become more customer-focused, simplify its portfolio, and speed its project execution, the company realised it must gain control of its investments. In 2016, the corporate goals shifted to maximising investments through better prioritisation and aligning initiatives with the group’s strategies.
The Volvo Group has three different investment portfolios: The Product Portfolio with 10 billion SEK (1.1 billion USD), the Industrial Investment Portfolio with 4 billion SEK (440 million USD), and the IT Investment Portfolio with 3 billion SEK (330 million USD). Managing cross-portfolio dependencies was nearly impossible with such a large organization of many different business units. The company wanted to improve how it managed its portfolios across the enterprise while ensuring better data quality and accuracy for more informed business decisions.
Approach
The Volvo Group looked at four key capabilities: improving the yearly cycle, integrating real-time decision-making and re-balancing, improving IT application rationalisation, and ensuring good data quality.
Based on these requirements, The Volvo Group chose Planview® Portfolios.
The team at Volvo mainly positioned the tool within strategic planning, portfolio balancing, execution, and application management. Planview Portfolios provides the group with a consolidated view of all its projects and organises them based on how they will be executed in the different business areas. This transparency and consolidation of all ongoing and planned projects helps them measure project performance, re-balance, and fine-tune project portfolios.
Projects are prioritised based on budgets and alignment with corporate strategy, and decisions are now traceable.
One of the keys to The Volvo Group’s success was its partnership with Planview to develop a global configuration blueprint with common logic for using the software. With the standardised configuration foundation in place, it could offer more flexibility for divisions to define their processes and business rules. Reports were also customised; however, the bulk of the Planview Portfolios capabilities was implemented immediately.
We need to understand our current plans to analyse and optimise. This is critical to Volvo because 80% of our projects are running, and 20% will be new yearly. Planview Portfolios gives us this transparency.”
The group has been successful in phase 1, which includes implementing the product projects, the industrial portfolio, and the process and IT portfolio into Planview Portfolios. It has also started in the application management area with plans to implement more. The Planview Portfolios cloud solution and the group’s commitment to its blueprint sped execution. The step-by-step approach enabled them to replicate the process quickly in other business areas.
Outcomes
Since implementing Planview Portfolios, The Volvo Group has achieved:
• A shared repository of all projects with complete transparency
• The ability to monitor budgets versus actuals
• Consolidation of the portfolio
• Breakeven on solution investment with the replacement of two legacy tools
• An improvement in the quality of reporting with standardisation
Exercise
Whiteboard, Post-it Notes and Pens
• Define Existing Project Portfolio
• Set out up to 5 strategic criteria.
• Mark the portfolio with criteria 1 to 5 and sum.
Course Manual 5: Concept Testing
Introducing any new product, service, or process is a complex and daunting task that needs careful planning to be successful. The statistics make grim reading; from a product point of view, less than 60% of product launches happen on time, with over 40% delayed by over a month, yet over 25% of total revenue and profits come from successful new products. A Harvard Business School reports that preparation is a critical process.
There is a similar set of statistics relating to implementing new processes and adopting new technology, with failure rates above 70%. Rather than external customers and competitive products and services, there is a need to manage internal customers and expectations, but no less risk. The critical requirement is that the business connects with its customers internally or externally before its launch or implementation.
Considering concept testing in the context of product or service development, the business must understand its position within the ideation-development-launch lifecycle. It fits between idea generation and product or service development within the remit of market research. It uses ideas from the ideation phase and presents them to the potential audience.
The diagram below shows the key steps.
• Collating ideas from staff, customers, competitor analysis and technology developments and research
• Defining a method of testing from surveying or the pretotyping options
• Audience selection
• Conducting the test
• Analysing the results
• Moving concepts forward to add to the project portfolio for planning.
• Modifying the image for further testing and maybe changing the test mechanism
• Parking the idea for future reference when the market is more mature.
Compared to traditional Market Research, which tends to request input based on the business’s preferred criteria, concept testing is a two-way dialogue exploring how viable a concept is to them. Getting feedback on what they want and uncovering functionality the industry still needs to consider. In this way, you can continue to use the same customer audience any number of times for different concepts; the company will build a picture of biases and be able to mould the construction of the forum to suit specific targets.
This close cooperation extends the scope of the enterprise and could include suppliers if they are providing specialist skills to the product or service. Bain & Company stated, ‘Poor test-and-learn execution has been known to hobble a company’s fortunes for years to come.’
So, what benefits might the business gain from concept testing? Objective data is invaluable and, with planning, will provide the level of granularity to support decision-making. For example, having customer feedback on a physical product so you can complete a Quality Function Deployment matrix dramatically enhances the design outcomes. Gaining support from senior leaders and colleagues will be encouraged if there is evidence of positive feedback from potential customers.
What can the business gain from concept testing? From conducting simple surveys through pretotyping (which we discuss later) to Minimum Viable Products, concept testing is cost-effective and flexible. Insights from the process will provide insights across several subject areas such as prices, weight and feel of the product, features/functionality, and User interface. Product managers will use data gathered to refine the product and, through multiple iterations, optimise the offering.
If the business changes the audience, then different insights can be gained. Ideas that gain approval with one product can be used to benchmark new ideas. Including customers in this activity strengthens relationships, building loyalty and brand equity. This Open Innovation approach demonstrates that the business values them as customers; broadening this circle to include lapsed or non-customers ensures that you do not innovate in a way that suits only your present customer base.
Some examples of what can go wrong if concepts are not thoroughly tested.
In 1957, Ford spent the equivalent of $3.1 billion on the “car of the future,” the Ford Edsel. While Ford conducted consumer polls, they failed to implement feedback and many of the touted new features were unreliable.
Coors made a similar blunder when they attempted to enter the bottled water market in 1990. The packaging and branding of Coors Rocky Mountain Spring Water were similar to Coors beer, which frightened many of Coors’ target demographic.
Looking at survey-based testing, the survey design is essential to guarantee that the results will provide the information the business needs, for example, identifying the acceptability, desirability and interest in the concept. Being able to compare with existing products and testing the likelihood of purchasing. Testing the likes and dislikes of the functions of the product, scoring attributes such as quality, value for money and durability of the present alternatives. Checking the awareness in the target audience of substitutes or complementary products.
If there are existing products, are they used the same way the concept is envisaged to be used? Check the price sensitivity of the idea if there is a comparable existing product and how they buy the product, ad-hoc or subscription. Is there any segmentation within the market that needs to be explored?
The respondents buying history, adoption type, are they early adopters or more in the early majority, which will impact both marketing and take-up; what considerations do they take into account to make purchase decisions like when, how many per purchase, subscription to level out spend; and finally in this profiling what other brands do they associate with and buy from.
The survey must explain the value of the concept and what innovation makes this a different proposition from the competitive brands or alternative products. Explore this through attributes and benefits; these can be directly associated with its use in what it can enable the audience to do and maybe additional health or security benefits.
The common mistakes made in designing and implementing concept testing surveys include the following.
• Running the concept in isolation – not considering if this survey would be worth repeating as the idea develops within the product lifecycle.
• Putting too many ideas into one test – designing the survey so it is complex and tiring to complete; even stable customer forums that are used to surveying will be unwilling to spend more than 10 minutes per survey.
• Dropping the concept if the results turn out the wrong way –might point to the need to develop the idea or check if a different audience can be formulated to survey. Also, if the concept I before its time, it can be parked for later investigation when the user market has realised the opportunity.
• Assuming the audience thinks like you – avoid jargon and technobabble, your understanding of the need will be greater than the audience’s. Secondly, don’t push the solution, open questions. Remember that you are trying to gather objective information.
• Make allowance for geographies – Use audiences from different geographies that might need translations in the native tongue or replace words with images.
Beyond the survey audience, the business might consider focus groups where face-to-face interaction is introduced. Keeping the sessions short and varying the audience composition can address a more comprehensive audience range and the interaction between different segments observed. If the sessions can be videoed, then this can be viewed after the event in a more analytical way. The same rules will apply to the design and management of the focus groups, such as;
• Careful design of the session with an introduction to the concept(s) and identifying what you want to determine from the sessions.
• Refrain from marketing the solution but enable the participants to explore the concept at their own pace and interact, mainly if this is a physical representation or mock-up.
• When discussing the concept with the group, ensure the questions are open.
• Opening the session encourages the participants to collaborate and support each other if the idea is poorly understood.
As digital technologies have driven up innovation, new methods have been applied to better manage the initial phases of product/service development. When he was Google’s Engineering Director, Alberto Savoia developed the practice of pretotyping, which aims to help companies build the right product before designing how to build it right.
Alberto states that Testing the initial appeal and actual usage of a potential new product by simulating its core experience with the minor possible investment of time and money.
The idea is to fail quickly and often to get the right product or service. Alberto came to this conclusion when he understood the statistics in Google from R&D that 70% of new products fail; that same engineering team, with a similar budget, that developed Google Maps developed Google Wave, which no one has heard of.
Most products fail even if competently executed, called the Law of Market Failure. To beat this law, the business must test the market objectively, rigorously and quickly before investing in development.
The team at Stanford University promotes seven strategies to fight the law of market failure.
• Obey the law of market failure, accept that this law exists, and you need to fail fast and many times to select the right it
• Make sure you are building the right one.
• Don’t get lost in thought land; getting opinions from friends, colleagues and non-engaged parties is easy, but these do not represent objective data.
• Trust in your own data.
• Pretotype it.
• Say it with Numbers.
• Think Global, test locally.
Pretotyping is a process that tests whether we should build a product or service, and more a set of experiments; these should be quick, simple, and low cost and try to answer four questions.
• Will people be interested in it?
• Will they use the way we expect?
• Will it solve their problems?
• Will they use it more than once?
Prototyping, on the other hand, is an archetype of the final product and tries to answer four different questions.
• Can we build it?
• How much will it cost?
• How long will it take?
• Will it work functionally?
The best product ideation and development practice is that Pretotyping and prototyping operate together. When developing any product or service, companies will need to complete a business case, and traditionally, in its initial stages, this is developed from forecasts and assumptions. By applying pretotyping techniques, the business can validate many assumptions, bringing the following key benefits to the business case.
• Demand validation value and likely reception by the target market.
• More precise definition of crucial functionality priority to meet the value proposition and shorten development timescales.
• Revealing risks may supply chain or complexity.
• More accurate budgeting and resource estimates.
• More accurate ROI calculations.
Pretotyping can be conducted in several ways depending on the product concept being proposed. The table below shows these, and case studies are included in that section.
Planning your experiments is critical. Below are some steps that can help to build that plan.
• Use workshops in the ideation phase to develop the potential concepts.
• Agree on a pretotype and conduct the experiments with a sample size of users, customers or potential customers.
• Gather and interpret results, develop insights, and determine whether concepts can be combined or eliminated. Capture the outcomes of interpreting these results and document them as learnings.
• Assign time and resources to this work; this level of market research takes time.
The table below shows how two concepts can be tested using a split test; solution alternative 1 is a pay-per-product service. Solution alternative 2 is a subscription service with more social features and a community-building focus. The pretotyping approach chosen is Fake Door, using the wireframe modelling techniques available.
Solution1 Pay-per Product
Solution 2 Subscription Service
The subscription service will have the same features as the pay-per-product solution, with the following exceptions, modifications, and/or additions.
What type of experiment will be used is a split test to determine.
• What features do they like?
• How often would they use it?
• What they would pay for.
• Which service trumps the other?
Research will be crucial when considering introducing a new value proposition to validate the assumptions made when developing the proposal. From a customer value proposition, at most, five hypotheses must be satisfied if the value proposition is a good market fit.
For example, IBM proposed a value proposition of providing speech-to-text software; two hypotheses need to be satisfied for this to be a good market fit.
• IBM can develop software that can provide a 99% accurate translation of speech.
• Users would want to speak to their computers rather than type.
Using the Mechanical Turk approach of typists listening to the user talking into the computer on the other side of a wall, they typed the words onto the screen of the user’s computer. There was great accuracy in the presentation, not surprising, but all users wanted to avoid talking to their computers and would instead type. This meant the value proposition needed to be validated and proven at less than $10,000; developing software to test would have been $250,000 plus and taken nine months.
Technology has significantly enhanced the options for presenting new ideas to colleagues and customers, starting with 3D CAD, which can produce rendered visualisations of new products, walk and Flythroughs in conjunction with AR hardware, and fast re-engineering using formula-based design and component libraries. Wireframe models, with user interface design and screen layout, can do the same for software applications.
3D CAD can be extended beyond the pure digital representation using 3D printing capable of using materials beyond plastics, like concrete.
Case Study: Pinterest
Preamble
In internet years, Pinterest is a veteran. Founded in 2009, its first incarnation was a place to ‘pin’ or save things you found online. But as internet trends developed and social media platforms became the publishing house for a new generation of creators, Pinterest has become a hub for original, creative content.
Making Market Fit an Unfair Advantage
As the team at Pinterest looked to develop its products, they needed to find out how to make Pinterest the preferred platform for content creation. So, they went straight to the source and put their creators at the heart of their roadmap.
Pinterest turned to Qualtrics to not only help them understand their creators’ experiences better but also what they needed from their products to gain a richer, more rewarding experience that kept creators coming back again and again despite new platforms emerging almost weekly.
Approach
Through user research, Pinterest’s team identified the precise motivations behind its creators. They found their users needed not just posting tools but innovative tools.
The team at Pinterest asked its creators to prioritise potential product developments to tell them what was most valuable to them. Their feedback was the starting point for developing an entirely new feature set. Under Armour
Outcomes
• 100m+ new active monthly users
• #1 preferred content platform for creators
• 48% YoY revenue growth
Case Study: Under Armour
Preamble
Under Armour knows that if you’re going to be a new player in an existing category, you need to develop a breakthrough product that changes the game. And you can’t build breakthrough products without experience data from actual customers. That’s why Under Armour turned to Qualtrics XM.
How do you develop high-performing products athletes can’t live without?
Under Armour turned to Qualtrics Experience Management to develop breakthrough products that customers can’t live without
Building a robust product testing solution
While product testing has always been a part of the Under Armour process, technology limitations could have improved their ability to scale the testing program. With every product manager maintaining their data database, there weren’t enough testers or actionable insights to support the brand’s mission of consistently building performance products athletes can’t live without.
With a centralised directory on the Qualtrics platform, Under Armour quickly went from about 100 product testers to over 10,000. In addition to having more testers and more excellent representation across the countless activities that Under Armour’s customers participate in, Qualtrics’ filtering capabilities make it easy to ensure that the right product is distributed to the right athletes every time.
For any Under Armour employee, the testing process is now as simple as logging on, finding the specific group of athletes needed, and then it’s a click-and-ship process to get the product to them. Within days, athletes provide real-time feedback that’s effortless to share across the development, design, and marketing teams.
Listening before leaping
The new testing solution proved invaluable as Under Armour developed the HOVR Infinite shoe for runners. Because runners obsess over their shoes, which was new territory for the brand, the team knew that if they didn’t get the formula exactly right, they’d miss the mark in costly fashion.
With a shortened feedback loop and the ability to conduct more testing rounds than ever, the team could refine the HOVR cushioning platform quickly, and professional runners were singing the shoe’s praises with glowing terms they hadn’t used before. The HOVR Infinite received a 2019 Runner’s World Recommendation Award within weeks of its release.
Outcomes
• 100% growth in the running shoe category
• 100 times more product testers
• 2000+ products evaluated annually
Case Study: Stanford Examples
Cars Direct
Would people buy used cars online (in the late 90s)? Bill Gross bought some ads in a newspaper advertising CarsDirect, a new way to buy cars online. He had no car inventory but created a simple website to see if people would go for it. When people clicked on a “buy” button, they bought the car at retail and delivered it to the customer. Over a weekend, he sold a few cars. He lost money on every transaction but validated the business model for his idea.
Jeff Hawkins created a wooden version of the Palm Pilot to test two key hypotheses: 1) Would I carry something with this form factor (i.e. pocket-sized) around? 2) What would I use it for? He learned that the form factor was just right and would use it primarily for calendars, address books and simple note-taking.
Google Glass was first introduced to the world via a YouTube video that showed not what the actual glasses looked like but what the world would look like through the glasses. People who found the vision (pun intended) of Google Glass compelling had an opportunity to sign up and pay $1,500 to receive an “Explorer Toolkit.” This way, before producing a single consumer-ready Glass, Google could gauge the Initial Level of Interest (ILI) and gain other valuable feedback.
BestBuy pitched a tent in one of their store parking lots and advertised locally for a new service (NextPlay) to see if people would be interested in swapping old electronic gear in exchange for store coupons. It worked, and the service is now available in all stores (and not in tents!)
Sacrificing their apartment for one night, Airbnb founders created a simple website offering an alternative to hotel rooms: An air mattress + simple breakfast for $80/night (a bargain in San Francisco.) To their surprise, three people signed up quickly and collected $240 on their first night. Airbnb is now valued at over $10B!
The first version of the iPhone did not support cut-and-paste; it offered a minimal number of apps; it did not support notifications or the über-popular Microsoft Exchange email back-end; and it required iTunes to activate/use it. But people wanted it so much that they did not care about the missing functionality–a great indicator of interest.
With a used employee shirt bought on eBay to look like an IKEA worker, Upwell Labs’ founder sneaked in a few prototypes of his new product into an IKEA store and displayed them to see if people would buy them. They did! He proved that his new product would sell in a store … without owning a store.
Tesla’s Elon Musk took an existing car (a Lotus roadster) close enough to the all-electric roadster he had envisioned, ripped off the internal combustion engine, put an electric motor in it (along with a slightly different body), and drove it around. Now he had an artefact, a sexy and fast one, to show around. People were interested in the new car, but would anyone be interested enough to buy one? He needed data, not opinions. So he asked people who expressed interest if they were interested enough to write him a $5,000 deposit check to be on the waiting list for one.
Exercise
Course Manual 6: Technology Selection
There will be several areas of technology where a selection process will be required, such as changes in materials, manufacturing processes and environment. However, the choices will be less complex than the application of digital technologies, which impact the business’s operations and how we deal with customers and suppliers. So, we will concentrate on the approach to these technologies in this section and then discuss the differences to other technologies at the end.
The rapid development of digital technologies is challenging the traditional approach to technology selection; besides the fact that it is very wordy, typically between 12 and 24 months, the statistics regarding the process make grim reading: 70% of projects fail to deliver business value, more than 40% of vendors do not respond to overly complex Request For Proposal RFPs.
The process is fraught with issues such as.
• Overloaded RFPs kill momentum.
• Vendors manage the demonstration and obscure product capabilities.
• Decision-making is not data-driven.
• Negotiations are weak.
• Stakeholders are dissatisfied.
The outcome is wasted time and effort and applications that continue to disappoint.
The explosion in digital technology relates to the commodification of software, more SaaS services and more technology solutions. This is compounded by business users becoming more aware and able to buy local solutions within their operating budgets, the painfully slow selection process before implementation and a diverse and mainly incompatible software and hardware portfolio.
Process Description
When considering replacing your selection process, recognise the issues that prevail within most traditional methods and that the process must embrace not just the software but vendor capabilities, Internal skills, business commitment and benefits assessment.
The process needs to address the cons below
• Biased Content Marketing from vendors.
• Use of marketing collateral to make decisions.
• Sales demos run by keyboard jockeys that avoid known issues in the system or poor design.
• Canned responses to Requests for Proposals.
• Senior decision-maker or Me-Too vanity project effect.
Ideally, any process you employ must
• Use independent research as its basis.
• Utilise third-party comparisons that are data-driven.
• Investigative interviews exploring the software functionality
• Testing and trail configurations based on your use cases
• A clearly defined selection process
There will be various technology projects, from relatively small and contained to enterprise-wide applications. The methodology must be agile and capable of providing the correct level of guidance and enabling support from consultants in the case of more complex requirements.
Statistics from a leading methodology show that decision-making can be reduced to weeks, not months, project satisfaction and implementation are in the high 80s, and integration across the whole IT estate is better than 70%. Six-figure sums can be saved in final negotiations.
Any methodology must satisfy a set of fundamental principles to make it robust enough, be collaborative and guarantee that it will gain commitment from the business. These are
• Focus on critical business needs
• Challenge the status quo
• Rely on solid data, not stakeholder bias
• Avoid functional requirements overload, match to project size and scope
• Use collaborative techniques to build consensus
• Apply investigative techniques by fully understanding the automated process and exploring software capability with good interviewing.
Designing or choosing a suitable methodology requires several vital elements to be present. The first of these is defining the project’s relationship within the business landscape, fully defining the scope of implementation and defining the stakeholder group that needs to be engaged. This requires a standard approach to defining the area and the appropriate selection process to evaluate any technology; a short assessment of the business needs follows.
For this part of the process to be successful, it is critical that IT fully understand the impact that some aspects of the software and hardware estate are having on the business performance, right down to the departmental level. Simple satisfaction assessments based on the portfolio can track these measures as part of business as usual and reported through management channels.
The internal knowledge base must be capable of guiding and supporting research into potential solutions using reliable third-party sources. The business need assessment must be linked to the business objectives developed during the strategic alignment exercise and focus on the critical needs and the impact that any technology change must enable. With the group of stakeholders defined and using a timeline template appropriate for the project, the stakeholders can be appraised of their role, decision-making timeline and the process. A kick-off meeting can establish any gaps in awareness, providing opportunities to buddy up or provide access to suitable information sources in the form of reading, audio or video.
The next stage must cover an in-depth understanding of the marketplace, capabilities and trends. The latter category is essential to avoid missing critical developments and identifying vendors that might not have an aligned vision as we advance. The development speed means that underlying technologies quickly become redundant, referencing the movement in database technology from the dominant relational structure to Big data.
It is also vital that the business understands the vendor movements through mergers and acquisitions. Many customers have found that their software has been added to another vendor’s stable and has become a sunset product where little or no development will occur. Understanding how software development and different versions are managed is also critical regarding the robustness of the vendor’s internal systems and the number of version changes to be collected annually.
This information is available through analysts’ reports, which, with structured needs templates, the business can define a shortlist quickly.
A comprehensive picture of the present Enterprise Architecture must be available to minimise portfolio overlap. Empowering departments to seek alternatives to issues they have with processes and systems provides momentum. Still, it can lead to confusion with scope creep driven by vendors looking to address more functions within the enterprise. In addition to this perspective, a comprehensive set of data on the critical business dimensions should be maintained at several levels, from the overall enterprise, businesses and divisions to end-to-end processes. This data will relate to basic numbers such as employees, countries of operation, currencies, transaction volumes, master data (customers, suppliers, parts, etc.) and critical business rules.
For example, Salesforce began as a sales team management tool to manage leads and opportunities, leading to quotations and sale completion. ERP systems have always managed Sales or Customer orders and have extended the functionality to quotes. This precursor to the ruling means it does not sit on the sales ledger and is not subject to financial transaction constraints, making the inevitable changes easier. This creates an overlap and requires careful design of the handover process, responsibilities, and ownership within the end-to-end process.
By mapping the end-to-end processes down to level 3 and then mapping each application footprint, the overlaps will be easy to see. This activity must be applied to the logical data model to determine the master and slave applications managing Master Data. Use the overlap areas to debate the scope of each application and identify the interface requirements between them.
Map each project under consideration along a timeline and as a roadmap; at this high level, you can review skills bottlenecks and funding needs. The final element of this stage is the business case; several templates are available for this purpose. The minimum will be the projected costs, timescales, resources, outcomes, accountability and post-implementation metrics.
The completed road map must demonstrate to management and decision-makers the relationship between projects in the portfolio, any interdependency, resource requirements and associated bottlenecks, process impacted, and the ownership and business outcomes expected.
This process lends itself to applying stage-gate principles; selecting the number of gates to fit the methodology from here means that three will be sufficient to cover the remaining stages.
The next stage is the evaluation of the potential contenders using a data-driven approach. This part of the methodology will use a template that maps the functional requirements against the end-to-end process definition at level three. These requirements must be as close to best practice and standard functionality as possible, allowing for configuration. The level of customisation must be below 10%. In some SAP implementations, up to 40% customisation has been applied, impacting costs and timescales. Still, the usage of these customisations is less than 10%.
The level of customisation will increase when the challenge of old process design is not made. Both streamlining and automation will significantly impact process design from the point of view of what activity is performed, who does what and when that activity is performed. This is the most essential part of the technology identification process. The selection of stakeholders and the decision-making mandate will be crucial. For example, for practicality, a key stakeholder is not included, maybe due to time pressures or a desire to make the final decision independently. This will invalidate the whole evaluation phase and lead to overall stakeholder dissatisfaction.
Use your process models and compare them to vendors’ best practices and market features. Discuss the gap analysis internally amongst stakeholders and agree to move as close to available functionality as possible and identify critical requirements that must be met. Note the level of change in a change log, be that process, business role or business rules. Within each process, rank the importance of the functionality out of a score of five or ten about each function chosen. Then, apply a weighting across all the functionalities in that process out of 100. Refer back to strategic objectives and mission-critical features to support this scoring.
An additional option to support the understanding of mission criticality can be Critical Success Factors, which define what the business must or needs to do to achieve the mission. This is discussed and can be developed as part of strategic alignment or at this stage. Applying CSFs at this stage is done using the process priority template that will guide the stakeholders on how the processes rank against the CSFs and the present quality of delivery.
Comparing the Process Priority and Mission-Critical analysis will ensure consistency and that the technology applied suits the proposed changes that have been identified. This means the technical solution must satisfy the E and D category items falling into the Mission-Critical category.
The template should enable each stakeholder to apply their scoring and for these to be summed and averaged. Initial evaluations can be performed using online videos and reading marketing and analyst reports. By sticking with market features, the ranking of analysts can be applied to your internal review for comparison. If you use outside resources, this will be a face-to-face contribution. The time to completion of this stage, reaching a shortlist of four options, should be the guiding metric.
Functional ranking can be aligned to MoSCoW rules Must, Should, Could and Won’t; which provides a structure for ranking functionality from Must meaning mandatory, Should and Could ranking for friendly to have or desirable and Won’t may be readily available in any system.
If you have agreed to use stage-gate principles in the process, Go-NO Go criteria might include;
• Mission-Critical processes identified
• Process Priority understood
• Vendors scoring above the minimum threshold have been identified and researched.
• Research has enabled desktop scoring to be completed
• Change Log started
The next stage in the process is selecting a vendor, using the functional requirements template, and applying additional requirements relating to the project approach, technical and business skills, post-implementation service level agreement and vendor culture to be scored and weighted. If the vendor is a partner of the software author, then further requirements will need to be evaluated relating to software updates and fixes and the Service Level Agreement between the two parties.
For the mission-critical processes, develop use cases that define
• Who will conduct the transaction(s)
• What they are trying to achieve
• What output is required
• What possible routes through the process might occur?
Use these to define an agenda for Vendor review, which will involve all stakeholders; to ease resource pressures, the plan will be arranged around use cases and, therefore, groups of departmental representatives who can be switched as use cases are reviewed. Using the information in the use cases, walk through the solution’s delivery of that requirement, validate the data required, user permissions, and search and reporting options.
The review should enable the business to explore the delivery of the critical functionality more fully, preventing the vendors from spending time expanding on features that are not mission-critical and all vendors have. Shorter presentations addressing the acute use cases with follow-up questions from the stakeholders involved in the use case will enrich your vendor knowledge and keep the stakeholders engaged.
To keep vendors on their toes during the review, include
• Requesting a change in visualisation or presentation
• Asking to change the underlying data
• Adding additional data to the demo set
• Questioning the collaboration potential
• Reviewing the audit trail or switching user profiles
This will prove the suitability or not of the top 4 vendors from the desktop review. The next step is to fully evaluate the requirement with your data set and configuration, testing the Proof of Concept with the front-line staff who will conduct the transactions. Identify any issues in the proposed solution offered by each vendor, record on the scoring template by up or downgrading the original score, and add comments to indicate the reasons.
Request references for critical areas of requirement, which will include;
• Project Approach
• Service Levels
• Capability of both business and technical
• Customers who have implemented specific mission-critical processes
If you have agreed to use stage-gate principles in the process, Go-No Go criteria might include;
• Non-functional requirements were added to the vendor template with ranking and weighting applied.
• Investigative sessions are undertaken with a shortlist
• Desktop ranking refined
• Proof of Concept undertaken
• References received and validated
The final part of this step is to reduce the shortlist further (if it is more than two vendors). Using the results of the assessment template, operate a workshop that must
• Understand the reasoning behind significant scoring differences; debate these and define whether they should move the team average.
• Review any differences in ranking between functionality and vendor capability and culture. Agree if functional leadership will always trump the potential working relationship.
• Finalise ranking, and if more than two vendors have been considered, contact the vendors outside the top two and thank them for their contribution.
The last stage involves discussing prices, start dates, team and system configuration with the vendors. Before embarking on these activities with both vendors, benchmark prices for module costs per seat, cloud hosting charges, cost of technical consulting support per day and business consulting support per day.
Select a subset of the selection team to undertake this activity, which ideally should be done back-to-back. During each session, negotiate prices, resource days and payment terms, indicating throughout that you are doing the same with another vendor you could name.
A summary and review session will provide the content for a specification document that can be used to check against the vendor’s contract and specification documents. Undertake some research or engage a contract expert to support your review of the vendor documents; ensure that any future price rises have been indicated in the papers.
Good contract negotiations are governed by some basic don’t dos, such as never revealing your budget, conceding that that vendor offer is reasonable, discussing your schedule until it is beneficial, always include all agreed contract details, keeping more than one option on the table until the contract is signed, and do not agree to the vendor undertaking a valuation or ROI.
Apply the figures from the negotiations and develop a cost budget spread over the project timescales, adding estimates for internal staff costs and non-vendor support through external consultants. Set out the decision-making timeframes and the proposed implementation start date.
If you have agreed to use stage-gate principles in the process, Go-NO Go criteria might include;
• Prices benchmarked
• Initial proposals received and evaluated
• Second negotiations completed
• Contract review undertaken
• Project Budget prepared
A practical methodology will reduce the time to decision-making, improve the quality of the decision and save up to 50% of the final project costs.
Case Study
Preamble
The client needed a flexible, web-based CSR solution that would allow them to collect global data. With multiple data points across the sustainability sphere and ambitious plans to expand the scope of what they contain, they needed a solution to allow them to grow.
Industry
Transport
Employees
4,600
Services provided Software selection Data collection & analysis
Approach – An evolved system for evolving needs
Our client needed something that wouldn’t just deal with one arm of sustainability but could also enable them to expand the scope of the solution as their CSR ambitions evolved.
As experts in sustainability software selection, we were tasked with finding clients an agile, cost-effective system that would allow them to quickly make sense of their CSR data and communicate their sustainability successes to customers and staff.
We clearly understood the requirements through a series of technical workshops and meetings, offering the team a shortlist of CSR software options. They chose to go with ThinkStep. Their sustainability reporting and management solution would allow them to define their KPIs and corporate performance targets and utilise the built-in functionality to create vibrant graphical representations of their sustainability targets and chart progress against them.
Once implemented, we worked on system optimisation, extending the scope of the system to match their evolving needs and improving efficiency and effectiveness as we went.
Impact Sustainability targets hit, then exceeded, from year one of the project!
• Help select the right software solution for their complex business requirements.
• Technical expertise at speed
• Enhanced reporting capabilities, allowing them to visually demonstrate their KPIs and corporate performance from one central dashboard
• Transparent performance management
• Increased efficiency and data effectiveness through system optimisation
Post-project, our client was also able to extend the scope of their system to match their evolving requirements and continually improve the efficiency of their sustainability software
Case Study: Fever Tree
Fever-Tree is the English translation for the name of the Cinchona tree, the bark of which provides the original key quality ingredient for the company’s tonics, Quinine.
Fever-Tree is the world’s leading supplier of premium carbonated mixers, with distribution to markets worldwide. The company currently has about 100 employees globally. In 2017, revenues were more than £150m, with annual YoY growth of more than 60%.
The Problem
Fever-Tree has increased as its premium products have become a massive market success. The company utilised multiple systems and spreadsheets to manage a £100m+ turnover organization. They found that there were silos of information around the business. They could not quickly obtain a single version of the truth or a 360-degree view of their organization.
In February 2017, Fever-Tree realised that they needed an ERP System to drive change and support growth in the business. Gradient’s first involvement was to carry out an initial discovery phase to help determine the requirements of a new system. Angle followed this by supporting the vendor selection process whereby Fever-Tree decided to move forward with the NetSuite system from NoBlue Ltd. Finally, Gradient provided project management services through the implementation stage.
The Approach
The relationship between Fever-Tree and Gradient began in February 2017 when we were asked to support the decision-making process. This eventually led to Gradient providing project management services with a successful Go Live in February 2018.
Gradients were able to work with Fever-Tree throughout the lifecycle of the project. It began with gathering requirements and successfully implemented the chosen system, NetSuite.
Actions
• We worked with key staff to determine the “As-is” processes and the systems in use to manage those processes. From here, we evolved what the future should look like, “To-be”. An overall Statement of Requirements was produced for Fever-Tree and approved.
• Consideration and advice are available on how to move from “As-is” to “To-be”.
• Managed the selection process, triaging the vendor responses to provide Fever-Tree with a list of suitable systems to match their requirements. Supported throughout the demo process in an advisory role to appoint the successful vendor, NoBlue Ltd.
• Provision of project management services to support the implementation process. Coordinating the Fever-Tree team with the vendor, managing data requirements, test scripts, training and reporting requirements.
• We are supporting the migration process and deployment plan for a successful Go-Live.
Benefits
• The new ERP system has delivered the ability to view the information in real-time. A single source of information now provides vital management information for Fever-Tree.
• The system allows the customer to grow straightforwardly. You can add and consolidate new entities live, eliminating some manual steps at month-end reporting.
• The replacement of numerous spreadsheets to help manage supply and demand planning.
• Improved financial management is provided through the use of a standard costing mechanism.
• Clearer visibility of debt positions for customers, similarly where there are multiple customers under a single umbrella using multi-currencies.
• Ability to view quantities on hand at various locations on a live basis.
• It improved interface abilities with customers, suppliers, producers and logistics companies.
• Ability to track any transaction, including customer orders, on a live basis and identify which stage the transaction is in its life cycle
Case Study: Pinnacle Premix
The Ever-Evolving Agriculture Industry
The modern agricultural landscape has significantly evolved, demanding stringent compliance, enhanced sourcing methodologies, and efficient tracking systems. As companies like Pinnacle Premix, a California-based provider of animal feed premixes, navigate these waters; technological innovation becomes imperative to maintain a healthy operational margin.
The Challenge: The Need for an Efficient ERP Solution
Pinnacle Premix, founded in 2014, had an ambitious vision: a diversified agricultural operation catering to various farm-to-market needs. From farm planting components to commercial animal feed, their expansive service range demanded a robust enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The initial selection of an ERP provider proved detrimental to Pinnacle’s growth, lacking the necessary accounting and production capabilities integral to the competitive world of animal feed. Consequently, Pinnacle sought an ERP solution that addressed their immediate concerns and foresaw potential industry challenges.
Enter SYSPRO. By Jan. 1, 2017, Pinnacle transitioned to SYSPRO ERP, a decision catalysed by recurring operational hiccups with their previous provider. SYSPRO’s offering was comprehensive, tailored, and resonated with Pinnacle’s needs. Their modules spanned financials, inventory, sales, and even lot traceability, ensuring that Pinnacle had an all-encompassing tool to steer their operations seamlessly.
Exercise
Whiteboard, Post-it notes and pens
Course Manual 7: Delivery Capability
Once a project portfolio is agreed the next step is to evaluate the organisation’s capability to deliver the projects. This will require assessing all resources needed to complete the portfolio, including finance, staff time and skills. A delivery model is recommended to be defined, which will recognise the role of internal and external resources and the organisation’s Operating model.
The development of the project portfolio will provide a strategic view of the importance and impact of the projects included in the portfolio. The delivery assessment will then test the feasibility of the delivery based on the delivery models applied to each project.
What is the reason to apply a delivery model? Why does it matter? Businesses heavily invested in R&D will state that they have a separate organization for delivering projects and may use production and testing resources. The rationale is that the strategic objectives and measures of success will be very different between projects and operations. This is the case in significant capital projects such as public infrastructure, government IT projects and private companies delivering capital projects such as chemical plants, oil and gas plants and marine vessels. Spending public money comes under greater scrutiny, and therefore, in recent years, several high-profile projects have been reviewed to develop best practices.
Delivery assessment is an evidence-based approach to evaluating the best method for delivering a project considering the capability and capacity of the internal resources, defining the model between the business and external providers. This does not replace traditional project development activities like budgeting, supplier evaluation, supply chain analysis, and Internal and external skills assessment. Described as a delivery model, this does not replace the Target Operating Model, as this will represent the whole business, with each project contributing to achieving the vision.
Best practice has indicated that the process of undertaking a delivery assessment requires that the challenge be framed so that the appropriate personnel can be assembled to conduct the evaluation and objectively define the correct model. The business will have performed a strategic alignment and a project portfolio analysis. The team that has delivered this work should have the right mix of skills to complete the assessment. Depending on the complexity of the projects within the portfolio, the business must decide how many estimates need to be undertaken. The project portfolio work will have defined the top priority projects; each will require a delivery assessment.
Abstract from each project: the driver for change, the identified key risks, and the impact on the business. A clear set of rules must be applied to the assessment process so that the results from the assessment and the decisions made have a robust basis.
In addition to the high-level statement of each project, there must be a TOBE process description and map that can highlight the following;
• Functions impacted
• Target Process KPIs
• Changes in business roles expressed in terms of tasks to be completed, scope of decision-making, and responsibilities; differences in business rules applied.
• What level of data enrichment is anticipated and the level of data management required; Any proposed changes in data responsibility must be flagged.
• Technology overlaps between proposed solutions and, therefore, vendors.
Best practice indicates that a ‘should cost model’ is part of any assessment; this does not replace the budgeting process but enables a long-term view beyond initial implementation to be taken. This model should encompass;
• Hardware costs (on-premise or cloud)
• External support across several categories, including consultancy, system configuration, software development, process redesign, Report building and training
• Licencing per user (purchase or SaaS)
• Project management
• Support costs
Having clarified the challenges and impacts of all the chosen projects, the next step is defining the delivery model. The key elements to consider are how best to deliver the projects by combining internal and external resources with effective management;
• Internal capability and capacity
• External capability and capacity
• Costs and Timescales
• Ownership and Responsibility
• Risks and Opportunities
Each of these topics must be expanded in a template to enable a quick assessment of the options; a typical expansion can be seen below.
Internal Capability
• Skills Review against a profile related to the project scope can include code writing, project management, system configuration, change management, reporting data management and cyber security.
• Identify any opportunities for training, mainly if it satisfies a strategic objective.
Internal Capacity
• Identify any scarce resources when one or two staff cover a crucial requirement and may need to be backfilled.
• Identify opportunities to develop more capacity with training and mentoring from the lead resource(s)
External Capability
• Introducing a new application will require specific configuration and development skills only available through the software author or accredited partner.
• Market knowledge of your industry and, ideally, previous experience of implementation within the industry
• Process knowledge related to the industry.
External Capacity
• Number of consultants fitting the profile required.
• Relationship to consultants: full employment or on contract.
Costs
• Hardware Costs both on-site and in the cloud
o Desktops
o Mobile devices
• Software costs
o Application licences per user and type
o Desktop environment
• Consultancy costs by category based on estimates.
• Staff costs are expressed as backfill costs for estimated resource needs.
Timescales
• Expressed in the phases of pre-implementation, configuration and testing, post-implementation transition and stabilisation and continuous improvement
Ownership & Responsibility
• Three models are possible
o Delivery is primed by an external organization that is the natural lead, for example, an ERP system provider.
o The business primes delivery
o Leveraged model
• Each model will have a unique framework of responsibilities and roles that must be clarified to ensure that.
o Everyone knows who is responsible and accountable for what
o Understand the interfaces and how best to manage them
o Ensure that there is an appropriate level of collaboration between all parties
o Apply the correct measures of performance, SLA throughout the delivery organization
Risk and Opportunities
• Risks will be related to business change, process design, customer experience, skills availability, vendor constraints and vendor maturity.
• Regarding budget and time, risks associated with project management must be assessed through the dimensions of communications, interface management, fragmented responsibility and accountability.
• Risks to be rated High, Medium, or Low
• Opportunities will be related to increasing organisational capability, resource redeployment, retraining, and product and service development.
Critical steps in the framework
• Frame the Challenge
• Define scope, options and Data inputs
• Strategic and Operational evaluation criteria
• Service delivery lifecycle considerations – risk and impact
• Transition and Mobilisation –
• Strategy and Policy – People and Assets
• Assess whole life costs
• Conduct a cross-functional review
• Recommendation/Approval implementation
Complete the template for each model above if you believe they are valid. Then, each stakeholder must review each model’s suitability against several criteria relating to strategic alignment (covering policy on people and assets), Project transition, long-term delivery beyond initial implementation, and whole-of-life costs.
The right-hand side of the template will then have a column for each criterion above with a scoring box (out of 3) and a weighting. As a team, review the outputs and determine which delivery model has come out on top.
The pre-requisites for conducting a successful delivery model assessment are;
• Clear strategy, purpose and scope of each project under consideration, understanding the measures of success and the parameters of the supply side
• Apply good governance and manage the stakeholders within the scope of each project.
• Clean data on volumes, resource availability and capability and the impact of process change
• Robust Cost analysis can be delivered using reliable data.
It has been recognised that the delivery model’s critical element is the potential partners’ capability and capacity. Poor attention to this will result in inappropriate and insufficient power and ability. Typically, projects might suffer from the following;
• Reduced ROI as poor client-side communications, which require more contractor involvement and maybe a loss of control and lack of responsibility taken by the contractor
• Increasing Risk resulting from a lack of client-side capability as the project develops and a requirement to manage new functionalities and services.
• Poor alignment of technology and change when purchasing and implementing technology with insufficient attention to change management and the adoption of the new capability
When defining the delivery model, four perspectives come into play under the following headings: Corporate Strategy expressed in terms of risk appetite, growth targets, and commercial approach; Organisation in terms of experience, organisational structure, governance, and make or buy attitude; Project context which has the dimensions of finance, risk profile, relationship to other projects in the portfolio and complexity; External Factors such as regulation, market conditions, supply chain maturity, technology maturity and skill/job market. Earlier, we discussed the relationship between the client and the contractor, and that decision will be influenced by the four perspectives above.
How do the four perspectives influence the application of the delivery model using example company profiles;
Profile 1
• Happy to manage higher risk projects, an aggressive growth strategy, looking to dominate the marketplace; good governance and experience within the company; has managed projects successfully; understands market growth, but finding skills is difficult.
• The outcome is that there will be strong governance and management provided with an internal Project Management Office; the preferred model will be client-led with vendor input restricted to specific skills; training and development of own skills base is considered crucial and recognising that some of the developed talent might move on if the skill is scarce.
Profile 2
• Takes limited risks; growth targets are modest and prefers to be seen as something other than an industry leader; experience is mainly from within the company; good governance and has successfully managed a limited number of projects; Good market understanding and will invest in training.
• The outcome will be a mixed delivery model with close collaboration with the vendors; two sets of project managers from the client and supply sides will be tasked with working together, and the transfer of skills will be limited to those that enable the future delivery model to operate without the vendor input.
Profile3
• Prefers to take no risks and would like a vendor to take responsibility for change and adoption; growth is not planned projects tend to either MeToo or, due to external pressure such as system sunsetting to trigger action, has a price-driven commercial approach; business experience outside the company is limited, governance is relatively unstructured and many projects have failed or overrun; organization development is not a strategic objective, market understanding is little and supply-side knowledge has come from colleagues or business contact.
• The outcome will be a supply-side dominated delivery model with a single project manager from the vendor providing updates to the management committee; training will be limited to specific maintenance tasks, and all adoption and change tasks will be expected to be delivered by the vendor.
These profiles are at the extremes of the characteristics but enable you to explore how a delivery model might be designed and chosen.
We have defined the framework for conducting a delivery capability assessment to ensure we have a capable organization post-project implementation requires an understanding of the construction of the operating model, which has five layers;
• Organisation
• Process
• Governance
• Technology
• Information and data
These topics form part of the detail within the delivery model assessment template under Internal Capacity and Capability. The key elements to be assessed for each layer are defined below, and the assessment must establish the ASIS position and the TOBE so a gap analysis can be performed before deciding how the delivery model will satisfy the requirement.
Organisational Layer
• Departmental structure
• Programme and Project management
• IT Management
o Cloud Services
o On-Premise
• Business Performance Management
• Change Management and Continuous Improvement
Process Layer
• Business Process Model to level 5
• Documented procedures and policy/Rules
• Process Ownership
• Business roles (skills, scope of responsibility, decision-making mandate)
Governance
• Project management principles
• Budgeting
• Departmental Mandates
• KPI target setting
• Strategic alignment
Technology
• Hardware updating and maintenance.
• Software Updating process.
• Mobile device management
• Cyber Security.
• Digital Skills
Information and Data
• Data Management process and rules
• Operating reporting
• Business Analysis
• Process Performance data presentation
To illustrate this, the table below shows a possible gap analysis; with one column showing the ASIS position and the other the TOBE, with mitigating actions determined by the chosen delivery model which in this case is the Client playing a leading role and project managing the vendors and growing the internal capability.
By reviewing the mitigating actions, it is possible to identify actions that need to be taken internally, such as training, technology adoption and change management; development of process models and process ownership of end-to-end processes; and introducing a Business Performance Management department. Whilst external support will be sought for IT Management and the implementation of new applications such as Business Intelligence.
It is recognised that major projects will progress through a lifecycle, meaning that not all the capabilities identified will be required to be in place on day 1. Capital infrastructure projects lasting years are typical such as Nuclear Power stations, Rail Infrastructure such as CrossRail and large manufacturing plants like the proposed Car Battery Giga-factories.
With this level of internal development, a timescale will need to be applied to the target operating model as the project progresses, mirrored by the delivery model, particularly when the growth of internal capability is part of the core of the delivery. This will relate to items such as cut-off dates for removing external expertise and support.
Case Study: Building a Project Delivery Capability in the NHS
Preamble
The challenge
The NHS is experiencing extremely high levels of transformation and need to deliver change at a pace unprecedented within the organization.
In Health Education England (HEE) the Health Heads of Project Profession developed a programme of work to improve the capacity and capability of project, programme and portfolio management and improve the delivery of change into the health and social care sector. HEE asked Marlowe for support to review and deliver a capability framework that would ensure a consistent, robust and accessible career pathway for professionals and practitioners aligned to professional standards.
Delivery
Subject matter experts completed a mapping of the existing HEE competency framework and assessment against professional body standards which revealed significant gaps in change management, project leadership and people management and performance. Developing a revised, comprehensive competency framework that also reduced the overall number of competencies making it more straightforward, easy to use and more accessible. Existing role profiles and role/job descriptions were reviewed to ensure alignment to the new framework. We collaborated with internal teams to define and develop e-learning modules and a self-assessment approach for all defined capability levels.
Outcomes
• A dedicated NHS HEE Project Delivery Competency Framework to support and develop project professionals for the NHS and improve delivery of projects.
• A practical, robust approach that supports embedding organization-wide Project and Change Management capabilities through consistent, practical skills and knowledge within a framework of clear roles, balanced job descriptions and competencies.
• Early and sustainable adoption of new tools and learning opportunities that support career development and professional accreditation pathways for the Association of Project Management (APM) and the Change Management Institute
Case Study: Thames Tideway Tunnel
Preamble
• London relies on a 150-year-old sewer system built for a population less than half its current size. As a result, millions of tonnes of raw sewage overflow the system each year and end up in the River Thames. The GBP4.2 billion (USD5.7 billion) Thames Tideway Tunnel (TTT) is being built to tackle the problem for at least the next 120 years and enable the United Kingdom to meet European environmental standards.
• The TTT is the largest water infrastructure project in the UK. It involves the construction of a ‘super sewer’ tunnel that will run for 25 km through central London, following the route of the River Thames. The completed tunnel will modernise London’s sewerage system by reducing untreated discharges into the River Thames that arise from sewage overflows by tens of millions of tons per year.
• The program’s scope of works includes two new major tunnels, 7 km and 25 km long, up to 75 m deep across 24 live works sites in central London with complex infrastructure constraints including multiple underground rail lines and stations.
• The tunnel, which is being funded through customers’ bills, was originally estimated to increase bills by up to GBP80 (USD134) per year. Due to the competitive procurement process the increase is now expected to average GBP20-25 (USD33-41) per year.
Problem
• Large, complex programs of this type traditionally experience a lack of a co-operative approach between client and contractor teams arising from lack of cohesion between client and contractor. This leads to scope, cost, and schedule issues that are often inefficiently identified, understood, and resolved.
• Initially, too much financial risk was to be delivered by Thames Water without government support, and the UK Government had little appetite to underwrite all of Thames Water risks and debt.
• Projects of this scale traditionally suffer from an imbalanced risk allocation between the client and contractor due to a lack of investigative works and consultation during the planning process. This precludes the optimal allocation of risk and often results in insufficient contractor appetite to deliver large complex projects, such as TTT, or having contractors price substantial risk premiums into their tenders or inappropriately apply their risk experience from smaller-scale infrastructure projects to large-scale civil projects.
• Thames Water needed to procure this program with a blend of private financing and its own funds, and create a robust delivery model to:[3]
o Minimise reliance on any single contractor
o Maximise risk transfer to contractors where efficient
o Ensure effective incentivisation aligned with the project objectives.
Improvement
• The TTT program saw the project owner, its project management consultants, and delivery consortium members all operating under an ‘Alliance Framework’. The teams co-located to create alignment in outcomes and facilitate easier knowledge sharing and issue resolution, and to encourage issues to be addressed in a collaborative manner:
o Under the collaborative working model, the alliance framework members operated as an integrated team in a collaborative manner where parent company identity was ‘left at the door’. All parties shared a common set of goals and worked under aligned incentives focused on generating program and cost efficiencies and leading health, safety, and wellbeing (HSW), and quality standards.
o To incentivise collaboration and alignment of outcomes the project owner implemented a variety of incentives from HSW, social impact, project controls, and project performance incentivisation at multiple levels from overall program to consortia, to single entity.
o Through project performance incentives, the contractual arrangement was setup for risk mitigation and early identification of potential issues. Payments (including painshare / gainshare mechanisms) provide the project owner and its contractors with financial incentives determined on a sliding scale to incentivise parties to reduce overall program length and improve the management of cost and associated risks.
• Additionally, the project owner was provided with a government support package to provide mitigation against high-impact but low-probability scenarios during construction that would have impacted the financing of the project. The support package included:
o Playing the role of ‘insurer of last resort’ by providing cover for insurable events above the amount the market was able to cover
o Providing equity financing to fund cost overruns above a certain threshold
o Having the option to discontinue the project and compensate equity and debt investors
o Providing GBP500 million (USD694 million) of liquidity in the event of market disruption.
• The TTT program made use of early contractor involvement through a six-month optimised contractor involvement phase (under the alliance framework) after contract award. This allowed the contractor and project owner to collaboratively explore how design elements could be changed to improve the project.
Results / impact
• Environmental, sustainability and social impact: Tideway has conducted an initial social return on investment study which has concluded that for every GBP1 spent on the project there is a social benefit of GBP3.19 through improved natural environment, rejuvenated river economy, and employment of under-represented groups through community investment.
• The co-location of the project owner, its project management consultants, and delivery consortium members under the ‘alliance framework’ created a unique culture that enabled the sharing of ideas and fostered delivery improvement. Co-location also led to the effective management of a divergent group of stakeholders to build consensus. In 2014, the project achieved a Development Consent Order (DCO) for approval for the TTT to be built through 14 London boroughs.
• The collaborative approach, underpinned by commercial incentives, ensured the alignment of outcomes leading to increased collaborative behaviours, such as main works contractors sharing knowledge with each other to improve performance.
• The use of early contractor involvement processes drove efficiencies and innovation into the design and construction phase of the project and reduced the risk of uncertainty for tenderers.
• Advanced design and procurement of power for main sites occurred three years ahead of the award of main contracts due to long lead times. A key success was the design integration through co-location and removing barriers through seamless integration of the project owner, its project management consultants, and delivery consortium members.
Key lessons learnt
• When setting up the commercial model, the incentives need to be such that they create the right behaviours and sustain them over the life of the entire program. A key part of this on TTT was for the client to be flexible, and for all parties to evolve over time as lessons are learnt and the level of trust grows over the program.
• A collaborative delivery team culture drives performance.
• The target price derived from the GBP80 estimate is extremely important to the ultimate efficiency of the TTT delivery and is the foundation upon which the efficiency incentive / risk sharing mechanisms are built. As a result, Tideway has strong incentives to deliver the TTT on time at the target price.
Case Study: Building Project Delivery Capability and robust execution system – Chemical Plant
The Situation
• Old site operating at 20% of historical capacity
• Limited project management and delivery experience and resources
• Critical products being outsourced to third party manufacturers
• Need to bring new products in house
• Outsourcing of all improvement works to contractors
• Inadequate project planning and reporting with an ineffective Execution Control System
• Poor track record of delivering capital expenditure projects on time and to budget
Approach
• Developed and installed robust high level and detailed project planning for all large projects
• Developed a portfolio management view, monthly review and prioritisation
• Implemented an effective Execution Control System that introduced Daily, Weekly and Monthly reviews
• Developed and installed KPIs for: Safety, Project progress and financial performance
• Established capital projects management and improved site contractor management processes
• Deliver leadership and supervisory coaching to transform the performance management culture, focusing on achieving proactive safety and project performance targets
Results
• Overview of all capital projects
• Safe delivery of multiple contractor works
• Clear plan and anticipation of resource requirements
• Quick escalation of issues and resolution
• On time execution of the project in line with the overall plan
• Identification of project critical path and project related risks
• Confidence of site management from group management
• Successful co-ordination and execution of strategic capital projects (on time, within budget
Case Study: Global Retailer
THE CHALLENGE
Define and prioritise new digitally enabled customer value propositions that leverage existing customer reach; find tangible solutions from credible start-ups to form commercial partnerships to implement in market.
The Approach
• Map and structure a vision for 15 leading business models that will be central or adjacent to existing infrastructure and core client needs
• Understand clients strengths and weaknesses in establishing these businesses through internal interviews
• Establish key opportunities and the leading approaches within them for the client to harness through extensive start-up founder and VC conversations
• Prioritise opportunities with the business through workshops with senior stakeholders, bringing to life each opportunity with examples in market
• Design a detailed roadmap and business cases for how to deliver on prioritised opportunities
• Identify key new build opportunities and commercial start-up partners to launch propositions; design pilots delivering four new propositions in market
THE IMPACT
• Two new multi-million dollar revenue lines launched across 15+ countries
• A further business remains in stealth testing mode in Asia
Case Study: Unilever
THE CHALLENGE
To help capture major new growth opportunities and solve strategic challenges for Unilever through start-up partnerships
THE APPROACH
• Capability Design: Co-created the operating model, capabilities, governance and KPIs for Unilever to enable Unilever to test and scale new business models and technologies through partnership
• Start-up Radar: Continuous search for the world’s best start-up partners leveraging a proprietary database and network
• Start-up Partnership Execution: Help to execute a rigorous partnership piloting and scaling methodology
THE IMPACT
A 6 year partnership to date with Unilever partnering with >50 start-ups including:
• Oral care division partnered to launch a digital health service in Europe
• European Supply Chain partnered with freight forwarding solution to deliver huge efficiencies
• Cif partnered with Helpling to launch on-demand cleaning services (also resulting in an investment by Unilever Ventures
Exercise
Whiteboard, Post-it notes and pens
Choose from one of the project profiles below;
• Introducing a new CRM system
• Implementing maintenance service
• Developing a new manufacturing facility
Course Manual 8: Risk Management
Risk management should always be a core part of the strategic management system. Still, with the rapid changes in technology and the greater complexity of implementation introduced with digital technologies, it is even more critical. We discuss the growing standards in this area and how to improve or install a Risk management system.
A significant part of the strategic management process that is being proposed is Enterprise Risk Management, which is different to the traditional view of risk management undertaken at a departmental level and which tends to be reactive rather than proactive. Within a traditional risk management framework, the company will only refer to and manage the insurable risks such as liability, data breaches and employee compensation, all hazards that can put the company at risk.
Enterprise Risk Management aims to identify and treat risks that cannot be insured, such as reputational risk or failure to gain adoption of a new technology. Since money will not help to ease these risks, ERM provides preventative measures to manage these risks. By addressing these risks, companies will increase their opportunities to gain more benefits.
Benefits compliance, assurance and enhanced decision making, leading to better operations, the effectiveness of tactics change projects (tech invoked ), and strategy efficacy.
Traditional risk management goals are to avoid risk, meaning that the approach is reactive and treats risk inconsistently. The less formal risk assessment implies that conventional risk management is less effective than ERM.
Horizon scanning, discussed earlier in the workshop, will provide the content to identify risks and opportunities; this level of information is the platform for decision-making that will enable the company to find suitable preventative measures and look for ways for constant improvement.
A traditional Risk Management structure will be standardised and rigid in its application; being departmental-based, it is one-dimensional. This segmentation means that risks are tackled as and when they appear in that department and dealt with little regard for other departments. In comparison, ERM is more dynamic and flexible and takes a holistic view of Risk.
As a holistic approach to risk management, ERM will operate across the whole business. Where this includes divisions, it will coordinate those activities from those divisions to present a single picture. As a holistic approach, ERM embraces operational, financial, security, compliance, legal, environmental, and reputational risks. Several standards relate to ERM. The two most notable are COSO, the Committee of Sponsoring Organisations of the Treadway Commission, closely aligned to the Sarbannes-Oxley financial compliance standard used in the US and the other ISO31000.
As a holistic approach, ERM requires good communication and a robust process to coordinate across and between businesses. As a strategic approach, any conflicts with local strategic risk management must be carefully managed and, where applicable, integrated into the overall framework.
The view from COSO is that ERM practice has eight core components.
• Internal Environment – this references the company culture and attitude to risk expressed through its employees. This provides the backcloth to the company’s risk appetite and the management attitude to incurring risk.
• Objective Setting – throughout the workshop, we have referred to strategic alignment and ensuring that the project portfolio meets the strategic objectives. These same objectives will be the basis of the objectives regarding risk.
• Event Identification – applying the horizon scanning process will help companies identify events that can have [positive and negative impacts on the company.
• Risk Assessment – as well as understanding what might happen, the ERM framework has an assessment framework that enables the company to assess the likelihood and level of impact on the company.
• Risk Response – both standards have four response categories, and in the case of COSO, there are;
o Avoid – mitigating actions are implemented to stop the activity introducing that risk.
o Reduce – introduce actions that minimise the likelihood and eventual impact of the risk.
o Share – typically, this action is the share the risk with a third party, such as a contractor with a new development or an insurance policy, to reduce the financial impact
o Accept – after reviewing the level of risk, the company decides to take no specific mitigating actions and accepts the projected likelihood and impact.
• Control Activities – these are the actions taken by the company to create policies and procedures to ensure management undertakes operations while mitigating risk. They fall into two types;
o Preventative Control activities are in place to stop an activity from happening. For example, secure areas are only accessible by certain personnel with the correct permissions.
o Detective control is a follow-up activity applied when a risky action has occurred. An example would be an alarm on a process or area.
• Information and Communication – data will be core to managing risk and policy adherence. Sharing data with employees helps to underline policy and encourages greater buy-in to processes and procedures.
• Monitoring – this covers both internal and external auditing of policies and practices. Regular review is recommended as processes constantly change, and policies and procedures quickly do not reflect actual practice. Gaining a certification will enforce this, but the audit frequency will not be suitable in a fast-changing environment.
Considering how to implement an Enterprise Risk Management system, we can refer to the ISO standard ISO31000, considering that the design needs to reflect the complexity of the business and the level of risk it faces. Risk is ‘ the effect of uncertainty on objectives which may be positive, negative or a deviation from the expected’. Risks can arise from Operations, Strategy and Tactics; Strategy reviews the long-term horizon, while Tactics relate to the company’s actions to achieve change. Tactical risks are therefore associated with projects, mergers and acquisitions and product developments.
The example below from a paper published by leading organisations in the field explains how these risks manifest themselves.
Consider the infrastructure of an organization and the implementation of a new IT system. The choice of hardware and software is a strategic decision. If these choices are incorrect, the consequences will not be evident for some time. The associated risks are strategic, and these risks will be taken to achieve benefits. Correct strategic decisions deliver benefits that reach the upside of risk.
The project to install the new hardware and software will be a change initiative that represents the tactics by which the strategy will be implemented. Risks within the project need to be managed so that the project is delivered on time, within budget and to specification. Again, it is possible to achieve an upside in the execution of the project, whereby the project is delivered early and below budget. It is also possible that the IT hardware and software will provide more significant benefits than anticipated.
Once the new hardware and software have been installed, the system will be vulnerable to operational risks, including computer breakdown, data loss, virus attacks and operator errors. These operational risks may be significant, and correct procedures must be designed and implemented to minimise potential disruption.
When implementing an ERM, this is an excellent time to challenge the objectives as they will linked to risks and, therefore, measured and monitored.
The table below outlines the core requirements for an effective Risk Management system.
Reviewing some of these activities in more detail will highlight the work required.
Risk Assessments
This process populates the risk register, gathering information from the knowledgeable parties to support how the risk will be treated and classified. Using a template during this process will help to avoid missing critical information; these can be defined to match the company structure and complexity. The list below shows the possible data headings;
• Name or Title of Risk
• Scope of Risk – details possible events, size and number
• Nature of Risk – classification of Risk, the timescale of impact and description such as hazard, opportunity or uncertainty
• Stakeholders – both internal and external
• Risk Evaluation – Likelihood and magnitude of event and its impact
• Loss Experience – any previous experience of this type of risk
• Risk Tolerance, appetite or attitude
• Risk Response, Treatment and Controls
• Potential for Risk Improvement
• Strategy and Policy Developments
There needs to be a company view on Risk ranking, which can be quantitative, semi-quantitative or qualitative, relating to the likelihood of occurrence and impact or consequences. The level of detail can vary. Some companies prefer the 3 x 3 matrix based on high, medium or low assessments. Increasing the granularity can be implemented by providing 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 matrices.
Further definition is provided through Risk Classification, which defines the source or type based on financial control, operations efficiency, reputation exposure, and commercial activities; the final selection will be unique to the business.
ERM will be a core activity to the strategic management processes within the company, with precise alignment with other activities such as strategic alignment and horizon scanning; be comprehensive in scope and be part of the ‘business as usual’ dynamic enough to respond to the industry changes. It should feed back into the horizon scanning process, confirming or disproving the risks derived from the process.
In this mode, the process is continuous and supports the organisation’s strategy; in the case of technological implementation, it will embrace and report on both the technical and change and adoption risks. This is termed the risk context and must be supported by a risk-aware culture defined in three dimensions: leadership, board commitment and the correct management mandate. The whole organization must embrace risk and take responsibility for those elements they are accountable for, from data integrity and security to shop-floor health and safety.
ISO31000 describes this culture as the risk management context comprising risk architecture, strategy, and protocols. These elements provide the landscape against which the risk management process can be undertaken.
Looking at the management process itself, the key components that need to be present are the 7R’ and 4Ts represented below;
• Recognition or Identification of Risks
• Ranking or Evaluation of Risks
• Responding to Risks
o Tolerate
o Treat
o Transfer
o Terminate
• Resourcing Controls
• Reaction Planning
• Reporting and Monitoring risk performance
• Reviewing the risk management framework
The first phase of this process is recognising and ranking the risks; this will be undertaken through regular reviews and when a hazard or opportunity is identified during a project or function, such as a merger. The 4Ts represent the options to conduct a specific risk treatment, which for many risks might end up as a combination; for opportunities, the company might consider exploitation of a potential cure.
Reaction Planning relates to business continuity and disaster recovery planning.
Risk assessment provides knowledge of the company’s risks from the market it operates in from a social, legal, environmental, and political standpoint. It enables management to align these risks to strategic objectives and thoroughly evaluate value-added activities.
The outcome will be a risk profile that ranks the significance of each risk and its impact, enabling management to apply the correct treatment and align resources to implement them. It presents a coherent, holistic picture across the business, preventing individual departments from taking a divergent view. Gathering the information from stakeholders in those departments and then applying agreed rules for ranking will avoid any subjective bias.
This approach focuses on suitable risks and applies activity and control in the areas most beneficial to the company.
We have outlined the potential risk treatments that can be applied, and their application should provide both efficient and effective internal control. Effectiveness can be measured by the degree to which the risk can be eliminated or reduced; cost-effectiveness is the cost of the power compared to the benefit of managing the risk. Compliance with laws and regulations is mandatory, requiring risk management to understand all that relates to the business.
In any system, there is always a requirement for reporting and communicating the outcomes of any actions; combining a formal reporting system linked with other reports on finance and sales, for example, will ensure that risk is considered the same way as other operational measures.
Whether implementing a new system or reviewing and improving an existing process, the following steps will provide a secure basis to conduct the activity. The first step will be to design the risk architecture, strategy and protocols; this work will be contained in a risk management policy, and the list below includes some of the subject topics that should be covered;
• Risk Governance – internal control objectives
• Risk Strategy – company’s attitude to risk
• Risk environment – risk culture in terms of responsibility and accountability
• Risk Appetite – what risks are acceptable
• Risk Organisation – people and reporting
• Risk assessment – processes and ranking mechanisms
• Reporting Templates and tools – both formal and informal
• Risk Training
• Risk Benchmarks
• Risk Priorities
The board must sign off this document, and as part of that process, the mandate for risk management will be imparted to the business. This document is expected to be regularly reviewed as business environments change and technology becomes available, making internal control more cost-effective.
When introducing an ERM, ensure you have the capacity and capability to support the scope of coverage; the recommendation is that the system is comprehensive, but if this is a new initiative, it is more likely that the introduction will be progressive, starting with the most at risk processes, particularly those that are value-added.
Managing the process can vary from a single part-time manager to an entire department, depending on the size and complexity of the organization. An internal function or external agencies can perform audits, which has been the norm for finance. If the decision is for internal audit, then management must be convinced that there is no risk of compromise within the process. Most external certified standards will require external audits every two years.
The management framework will define the responsibilities for each management level within the business; some positions are highlighted below;
CEO & Board
• Determine a strategic approach to risk and set risk appetite.
• Establish the structure for risk management.
• Understand the most significant risks.
• Manage the organization in a crisis.
Business Unit Manager
• Build a risk-aware culture within the unit.
• Agree on risk management performance targets.
• Ensure implementation of risk improvement recommendations.
• Identify and report changed circumstances/risks.
Employees
• Understand, accept and implement RM processes.
• Report inefficient, unnecessary or unworkable controls.
• Report loss events and near-miss incidents.
• Co-operate with management on incident investigations.
Risk Assessment is a fundamental part of ERM, and several tools can be applied to undertake them. Questionnaires and checklists can be operated as part of project and department reviews; workshops can support these to discuss outcomes from these and conduct the ranking before adding to the risk register. In some cases, an in-depth process analysis might be called for. In this case, using the business process model will aid the research by identifying compliance points and risk areas, such as handovers—formal internal audits such as HAZOP or FMEA and external audits to support ISO certifications. Finally, the tools we discussed in horizon scanning, SWOT and PESTLE, provide suitable methods for grouping and distilling disparate information. Within any assessment, there will be a need to determine the significance of the risk. The appropriate measure for financial risks is money; operational risk might be safety or disruption and maybe loss of orders, reputational might impact share price or customer loss.
Understanding a business’s risk drivers will help ensure that all elements are considered. The FIRM Scorecard is a good starting point for this as it lists internal and external drivers across four sections: infrastructure, finance, market and reputational. It considers strategic, operational and tactical risks together.
Part of the implementation and framework will be a statement of the company’s appetite for risk applied to each risk classification. This is a simple statement regarding health and safety, but this might not be so obvious in other areas, such as product development, supply chain staff training and redeployment. This is one area within the framework where the document needs to be dynamic. The appetite can be expressed by the tolerance allowed for each classification.
Measuring and monitoring should be conducted through the risk register; this document should enable the following;
• Tracking of issues raised as potential risks to be evaluated.
• Managing progress on mitigating actions and outcomes.
• Documenting actions arising from audits and tracking progress.
• Measuring any benefits or targets met.
It is embedded in the operational reporting format with upward escalation if required to strategic meetings. Monitoring should include measuring the effectiveness of existing controls. This will consist of risk improvements, effectiveness of risk management throughout the organization, and tracking risk performance measures.
Testing plans for business disruption is vital in risk management; this covers the critical reactive planning for business continuity and disaster planning.
Finally, measuring and monitoring must track risk awareness, which means being aware of both the impacts of internal changes and the external environment. The critical factors for success in measuring and monitoring are;
• The measures adopted achieved the intended result.
• The procedures adopted were efficient.
• Sufficient information was available for the risk assessments.
• Improved knowledge would have helped to reach better decisions.
• Lessons can be learned for future reviews and controls.
Successful ERM implementations require strong leadership, supported by a culture of ‘no blame’, learning from experience, and unambiguous communication.
The final pieces of the jigsaw are the learning and reporting parts; we will discuss learning in more detail later in this workshop. Both these elements are part of the feedback loop that enables the enterprise to learn from the experiences and establish the benefits accruing from ERM. Measuring not just the cost of controls but the benefits from risk management and the appropriateness of the controls applied.
For example, some feedback can come from the stakeholders’ opinions regarding assessments and audits. The annual review will address any changes required to the framework. Part of the learning experience will be the evaluation of the audit and the sources of risk and the assurance that this provides to the board; any report on this must address risk management, risk reporting and disclosure.
Reporting will have internal and external aspects to it. The former is a mandatory requirement, which should assure external stakeholders that risks are handled effectively.
Reporting should cover;
• Risk management policies
• Achievement of objectives
• Measures of corporate behaviour in areas such as
o Community Affairs
o Human rights
o Employment practices
o Health and safety (including mental health)
o Environment
Risk reporting does provide historical records for losses and trends but, more importantly, is becoming a leading indicator of emerging risks such as cyber-attacks and potential changes in legislation. Lessons learned should be applied to future framework revisions to ensure risk management becomes more effective.
Case Study
“If leadership from the top is a prerequisite for success, then it goes without saying that the sustainability function should sit in the C-suite with its responsible executive. This individual requires the necessary business and sustainability competence and experience to successfully negotiate with other C-suite executives on a peer-to-peer basis. Anything less will lead to a suboptimal result.” Noel Morrin, Executive Vice President, Sustainability
Stora Enso,1 a global leader in providing renewable solutions for packaging, biomaterials, wooden constructions and paper, has demonstrated the importance of corporate governance for integrating sustainability into Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). Stora Enso’s stated purpose of “Do Good for the People and the Planet” embodies the importance of sustainability to the company. Sustainability is fundamental to the investor proposition and strategy. Further, it is integral to decision-making across all of Stora Enso’s operations and activities such as the production and sales of renewable products, buying trees from local forest owners, selling electricity generated at its mills and managing its logistics on a global scale.2
In 2014, the company took steps to more clearly integrate sustainability-related issues in ERM from the board level to its supply chain. Using governance to help integrate sustainability into ERM has strengthened Stora Enso’s management and oversight of sustainability issues and risks. These activities underscore the importance of sustainability for the company: It’s more than a stated purpose; it is deeply embedded in the company’s culture.
Strengthening corporate governance to enable sustainability and ERM integration
Although sustainability has been part of Stora Enso’s business model for decades, the need to integrate sustainability formally into the company’s ERM was catalyzed in 2014 by the discovery of child labor in the supply chain of Bulleh Shah Packaging (BSP), Stora Enso’s 35%-owned equity-accounted minority investment in Pakistan.
Following that discovery, BSP implemented extensive processes to identify and address child labor in the operations of its direct suppliers. In parallel, Stora Enso entered into a public-private partnership with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to strengthen their global policy, to promote decent work and to combat child labor.3 The incident catalyzed the Stora Enso Board of Directors to mandate a governance change and a more integrated approach to risk management that included all aspects of sustainability.
Elevating sustainability to the C-Suite
Following the events of 2014, Stora Enso enhanced its governance model to more fully integrate sustainability across its business. This integration and emphasis was championed by the Board of Directors, the CEO, and the Group Leadership Team (GLT). During 2014, Stora Enso made several changes to its organizational structure, with the aim of bringing sustainability management closer to the CEO and the Group Leadership Team (GLT). It also moved to integrate material Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) topics more deeply into core business and strategic planning.
In 2015, sustainability became an independent function with its own Executive Vice President who reports directly to the CEO and is a member of the GLT. This governance change has been instrumental to embedding even more sustainability within the day-to-day operations of the business, including ERM. The current membership of the GLT is set out below and includes sustainability at the highest level.
Stora Enso’s Board of Directors, which oversees management’s activities, also emphasizes sustainability. The Board has nine members and three committees,4 one of which is the Sustainability and Ethics Committee. This committee oversees the implementation of Sustainability and the Ethics and Compliance Strategy. The Board and its committees regularly review key risks and performance which include a review of sustainability efforts. In addition, Stora Enso’s Board members have strong sustainability credentials which enable them to provide robust inputs.
Stora Enso’s CEO and GLT5 are ultimately responsible for ensuring that sustainability practices are implemented in operations through policies and performance management. On a daily basis, sustainability issues are addressed by the Executive Vice President of Sustainability in conjunction with legal, human resources, sourcing and logistics, wood supply functions and each division (Consumer Board, Packaging Solutions, Biomaterials, Wood Products and Paper). All of the company’s business divisions have their own Head of Sustainability, who reports directly to the Executive Vice President of that division.
Integrating sustainability and ERM functions
Alongside increasing the prominence of sustainability within the organization generally, the company also has taken explicit actions to integrate sustainability and ERM. For example, Stora Enso appointed a Senior Vice President of ERM with relevant sustainability experience to oversee ERM development in collaboration with the sustainability function. Also, an internal ERM working group has been established to coordinate risk management across the organization. Members of the working group include the divisional risk managers and the Senior Vice President, ERM. Furthermore, the ERM function participates in internal forums and working groups on sustainability.
The ERM process is run by divisions based on a set of group-level guidelines that are consistent with the COSO Framework and include guidance on:
– key definitions
– objective setting
– risk modelling
– classification
– identification and evaluation including assessment criteria
– rules on calculating residual risk
– reporting requirements and templates
– determination of risk appetite
Each division is responsible for addressing the company’s sustainability agenda and has the support of sustainability subject matter specialists aligned to each of the company’s ten sustainability issues. The division may prioritize additional division-specific material sustainability issues in consultation with sustainability subject matter specialists. The sustainability subject matter specialists are also responsible for engaging with external stakeholders.
In addition, Stora Enso has embedded sustainability into the Group Risk Policy which builds upon the company’s introduction of the Triple Bottom Line model into sustainability in 2016.6 Triple Bottom Line is an accounting framework that encompasses social, environmental and financial components and which enables companies to measure and understand the value of their assets and performance more holistically.
This framework guides daily operations as well as the achievement of Stora Enso’s overall business strategy and goals.7 The framework addresses ten material sustainability topics (referred to as the 9 + 1 materiality matrix) as identified by Stora Enso: employees and wider workforce; community; business ethics; materials, water and energy; carbon dioxide; forests, plantations and land use; customers; suppliers; investors and human rights. Human rights is considered cross-cutting and is therefore addressed as an overarching theme.
These ten sustainability issues have served as a ‘lens’ for identifying Stora Enso’s Group Risk Universe (see the figure below). All risks are reviewed across the business on a quarterly basis and the risk universe is amended accordingly to adapt to changes.
Challenges to integrating sustainability and ERM
Integrating sustainability within ERM can pose significant organizational challenges. Through Stora Enso’s revised governance model and related actions, it has addressed many of these challenges – and, in many cases, the company has leveraged such challenges as opportunities to strengthen sustainability and ERM and improve outcomes.
Challenges that Stora Enso has faced throughout the integration process include:
– Differences in language used between sustainability and risk functions;
– Differences in approaches and metrics used for quantifying risks across functions;
– Differences in time horizons used for considering sustainability risks;
– Differences in thresholds for risk appetite associated with sustainability risks.8
Developing a common organizational language and understanding is fundamental to integration. Risk management and sustainability professionals often use different terms – which can hinder collaboration across functions.
There needs to be translation or ‘translators’ who can understand the languages and concepts used across functions. At Stora Enso, this process has been facilitated by the Senior Vice President of ERM, who has experience in sustainability. In addition, divisional risk managers and divisional representatives in the ERM working group act as translators within the risk team to coach sustainability staff in using risk language.
In parallel, the company has focused on ensuring ERM professionals have sufficient sustainability knowledge through participation in internal forums and working groups on sustainability. To reinforce this progress, Stora Enso developed a regular cadence for cross-functional dialogue through focused activities such as development of risk appetite and quantification of certain sustainability risks.
Quantifying sustainability risks can involve different processes and metrics from those traditionally used by ERM functions. For example, Stora Enso only monetizes sustainability risks when a sufficient basis exists for determining the costs should the risk materialize. In most cases, the assessment is based on qualitative criteria. Nevertheless, quantification of all risks – sustainability and otherwise – at Stora Enso is conducted according to the same set of risk assessment criteria and principles to achieve comparability across all risks.
Time horizons are often longer for sustainability risks, which has been a challenge to integration. Historically, Stora Enso used a five-year time horizon for risk management which is consistent with the company’s financial strategy. During the integration process, Stora Enso recognized that some sustainability-related risks, such as impacts from climate change, may develop over a longer time horizon, which can be up to 25 years. To address this challenge, Stora Enso identified which risks require a longer-term view and considered these different time scales during risk identification, assessment, prioritization and response.
Stora Enso found setting risk appetite across sustainability dimensions in line with the organization’s corporate strategy was critical to integration. The company uses a pragmatic approach to defining risk appetite, which has become an opportunity for engagement and alignment across functions. Risk appetite is determined across risk categories following standard appetite descriptions and linked to the thresholds of risk impact assessment criteria.
Business outcomes of Stora Enso’s integrated sustainability and ERM model
The company’s revised governance structure and associated processes have laid the foundation that has enabled the integration of sustainability and ERM within a short period of time. Facilitating sustainability and ERM functions to work together has strengthened the management and oversight of sustainability issues and risk management more broadly.
For example, in conducting functional risk reviews, certain sustainability risks which were not escalated earlier have been uncovered, re-prioritized and assigned action plans. Furthermore, using material sustainability issues as the lens through which to consider the risk universe is an important means to build resilience in the company’s business model. The effectiveness of this approach is evidenced through achievements such as the inclusion in the CDP 2016 Climate A List and Supplier Climate A List and the UN Global Compact 100 Index.9
Future plans entail ongoing development and refinement of metrics to support decision-making and a continued emphasis on organizational culture. Stora Enso plans to maintain the journey towards having sustainability understood and managed the same way as finance, marketing and other risks
Case Study: Infosys: Mitigating water risk at India-based hubs
For over 15 years, Infosys – provider of business consulting, IT and outsourcing services – has maintained a plan to mitigate its operational risks related to water supply. Collaboration between the enterprise risk management (ERM) and sustainability functions enables Infosys to address risks at the facility-level while conducting overall monitoring activities at the enterprise level. Implementing measures to save and monitor water availability makes Infosys a steward of its environment while delivering value to its business and stakeholders.
Risk of water scarcity
Infosys employs more than 200,000 people at 116 global development centers, with 40 of its largest in India.1 The rapidly growing Indian population and increased demand for water resources has created a growing concern over water availability in the country. Because of its large campuses in major Indian cities, Infosys considers water stress and scarcity a significant near-term risk to its business operations India.
Water supports the company’s human capital (i.e., cooking, cleaning, bathrooms and drinking) at their campuses and is also necessary for landscaping and cooling towers.2 Water shortages during dry periods have the potential to halt operations at affected campuses, which would negatively impact the company’s ability to fulfill contractual obligations with customers and achieve performance goals.
Response to water risks
To address water risks, Infosys encourages collaboration between ERM and sustainability functions. The Infosys sustainability team conducts detailed risk assessments at individual facility locations while ERM conducts assessments at the corporate level. The company undertakes an iterative process: first assessing inherent risk and subsequently applying control measures and assessing residual risk.
Infosys chooses among five risk response types in line with COSO’s ERM framework: accept, avoid, pursue, reduce, escalate and share. In locations where water scarcity risk is high, avoiding or accepting the risk is not an option. In these cases, the company chooses to “reduce” the risk. Infosys uses site-based water risk assessments and root cause analyses to develop action plans for reducing risks to “low” or “moderate” levels. If actions taken do not fully mitigate the risks, Infosys may decide to reduce the impact by temporarily moving business operations or by reducing their footprint in the affected development center.
Infosys emphasizes the use of root cause analysis so that action plans focus on the underlying problem rather than symptoms. In the case of water scarcity, this approach has helped them determine what is influencing the water shortages: water access, lack of water storage or other issues. Following this analysis, the company implements mitigation measures to address the root cause and reduce risks to acceptable levels. These measures have included:
– Water conservation through reduce, recycle and reuse measures (e.g., water efficient fixtures, wastewater treatment)
– Aquifer recharge through injection wells
– Rainwater harvesting and reuse
– Construction of underground reservoirs that hold water to last for at least five days across locations
– Efficiency programs led by smart water metering program that monitors water consumption and encourages water use reduction
These measures are designed so that Indian campuses can sustain themselves for seven days using stored rainwater and potable water in the case of extreme water shortages. The sustainability team monitors water resources at all campuses and develops tailored responses at each campus.
Monitoring water scarcity
Sustainability and ERM work together to monitor water scarcity across the enterprise.
Sustainability teams collect and use the following types of data to monitor and assess water risk at its campuses:
– Rainfall data over a 10-year period for each geographic area;
– Water table data for each geographic area;
– Storage capacity of rainwater on each campus;
– Availability and cost of water via water tankers for delivery;
– Freshwater usage from municipalities, private providers, ground water and rainwater3
Corporate ERM monitors water scarcity as an emerging risk. It tracks an enterprise-wide metric of “per capita water consumption” using information provided by sustainability teams. Per capita water consumption is calculated by dividing the average monthly water consumption at Infosys locations by the average employee count per month, which is the sum of the swipe counts for employees and support staff in the Infosys offices. Corporate ERM actively tracks this metric to determine if water risk will become a higher corporate level priority in future years.
Business outcomes of managing water risk
Infosys’ risk management approach to water scarcity at the site and regional levels has been critical for realizing value for its customers, employees and communities. The company’s water risk management strategy in India enables the company to:
– Open new campuses in locations where competitors may not be able to operate due to water shortages.
– Maintain continuity in operations using stored water in times of scarcity, which helps maintain customer confidence and profitability.
The outcomes stem from Infosys’ organizational structure, which encourages sustainability to assess and mitigate risk at the local level while ERM maintains an enterprise wide view. Further, root cause analysis of local water issues empowered Infosys to develop effective responses and mitigation approaches at individual campuses
Case Study: The US federal government has approved the Construction and Operations Plan of the Vineyard Wind 1 Project — the first commercial-scale, offshore wind project in the United States.
The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) developed by ERM under the direction of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for this project will become the template and model for all future offshore wind projects in the country. Our involvement in this first-of-its-kind project will be instrumental in the low carbon economy transition in the United States.
The risks associated with a changing climate are increasingly recognized as systemic to the global economy. With growing pressure from investors, regulators, customers and society for business and governments to transition to a low carbon economy, projects such as this, where renewable energy is produced at scale, are essential in making that change a reality.
The Record of Decision, issued on May 11, 2021, includes the authorization to construct, operate and maintain an 800 MW offshore wind energy facility. This project began when the developer submitted its Construction and Operations Plan in late December 2017. As the lead federal agency responsible for evaluating such projects, the BOEM determined that an EIS was required.
ERM served as an extension of BOEM in the preparation of the EIS, which assessed the potential environmental, social, economic, historic and cultural impacts that could result from the construction, operation, maintenance and eventual decommissioning of the project. As BOEM’s third-party National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) contractor, ERM supported the development of a defensible and technically sound EIS, as well as completion of the stakeholder consultation process.
More importantly, ERM assisted BOEM in developing methodologies, procedures and approaches applicable to all future United States offshore wind projects. This document, prepared and managed by ERM, paved the way for BOEM’s approval and provides a positive signal to the global offshore wind industry that the United States is on the path forward with offshore wind development
Case Study: Mollie
The Challenge
The online payments sector is one of the most dynamic markets in the financial world. It’s come on leaps and bounds in the past decade, with advancements in technology constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. If merchants are to grow and be successful, they need to present a variety of payment options.
Mollie helps merchants tackle this challenge, offering a simple and clear API that offers multiple payment methods concisely and uniformly. However, beyond the technology, there are a number of compliance, security and risk challenges that the online payments sector faces. When Mollie partnered with SureCloud, the company already had a dedicated risk and compliance function, but its technology supporting the team needed to be modernized if the company was to take advantage of the growth opportunities it had identified. The company’s primary focus was around integrity, IT, cyber, operational and data privacy risk, and Mollie needed a platform to monitor and manage all aspects in an easy, simple way before they began their program expansion. Mollie wanted an end-to-end solution that would allow them to easily link data together and spot control gaps. User experience was of paramount importance, and Mollie wanted an interface that even non-compliance/risk employees would be able to use effectively with minimal training.
SureCloud’s solution is designed to help organisations like Mollie tie disparate processes together, while fully integrating them in an easy-to-use risk and compliance solution. The primary goal is to eliminate duplicate work, lower administrative overhead, eradicate manual reporting, and reduce the need for additional manual communications such as email-based instructions. This results in better record-keeping, easier decision-making, and the ability for the business to demonstrate how risk, compliance, security and data privacy impact the organization today and any future growth plans. Through SureCloud, businesses can effectively demonstrate and manage regulatory compliance requirements with an interactive dashboard that displays connections to controls assessments, risk and remedial actions.
The Result
Within the next year, Mollie hopes to achieve real visibility of risk and compliance throughout the organization, fully automated control monitoring, and a shift in their processes to become more data-driven.
These are Mollie’s key metrics of success, and so far, the organization is well on track to achieving them with SureCloud. Eline van der Lugt, Head of Risk at Mollie, said, “In SureCloud, we’re delighted to have found a partner that shares our culture, vision, and appetite for simple, clear communication.
SureCloud’s solution has helped us take things to the next level at Mollie. We’re already enjoying better visibility with more detailed information and insights, and this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what will be possible as we continue with the implementation.”
Eline continued, “In an age where compliance and data security are of paramount importance, financial organizations like ours must demonstrate that we’re in control. SureCloud is helping us to gain that control and demonstrate it in a clear, organized way. We’re still in the deployment phase at the moment, but we can already see the incredible potential, and we can’t wait to continue to the rollout; the implementation and support team have been extremely helpful.”
Exercise
Whiteboard, Post-it notes and pens
• Company’s risk appetite – is this written down and communicated? If so, what areas does it apply to, and do you see it being implemented? If not, what is your opinion of what the appetite is across ay;
o Health and Safety
o Product Development
o Financial control
o Technological Implementations
• What risk classifications do you think apply to your company
• Can you identify an example of one or more treatments that are used within the company to mitigate risk
Course Manual 9: Benefit Management
Why is benefits management or benefits realisation management critical? Implementing technology programmes without considering the upside leaves the company in a position where the business can decouple from the project since they need the technical skills to implement, and there is no tieback to the business. With digital technologies, the implementation is likely a transformation requiring a company to commit to the project entirely. In project management circles, there is increasing concern that ‘value generation’ is essential; a holistic view of a project ensures that the realised benefits align with strategic intent. This means that projects should be understood as the mechanism for achieving agreed goals rather than just delivering outputs.
This requires a need to understand the holistic value, enabling a dialogue on stakeholder expectations and a way of providing accountability—this shift in perspective from pure delivery of products or systems to benefits and the generation of value. The challenge, therefore, is linking business strategy to projects, maximising the revenue generated and delivering benefits to the different stakeholder groups.
The solution to this issue is to develop project management principles to extend the focus beyond delivering outputs to include outcomes, including benefits and stakeholder expectations. This approach has been adopted by organisations wishing to achieve better results for IT implementations. Research has shown that there was a path from projects to benefits by combining the outputs from projects to create capabilities that enable desired benefits. Without an effective transition, the outcomes remain only capabilities and sources of potential uses.
The research highlighted three premises for benefit realisation;
• Benefits do not appear automatically when a project is delivered.
• Miracles rarely happen according to plan.
• Realising benefits is a continuous process of envisioning results, implementing, checking intermediate results and adjusting to gain the business benefits.
To change the approach to project management, it is suggested that three key components: firstly, a continuous process of analysis and synthesis during the design and planning; secondly, fully engaging all the stakeholders, understanding their expectations and making the design process more participatory; finally introducing a more dynamic approach to project planning.
Using the analysis approach in design, we can establish the vision of what we want the outcome to be, engaging with stakeholders to ensure we embrace as many of their expectations as possible. We can then synthesise how we can achieve the desired effect, realising that there will be more than one way to achieve it. This approach will improve the predictability of the benefits that can be recognised by testing all the possible solutions.
For example, improvements to business processes could be addressed through several solutions, from streamlining to Robotic Process Automation and business process automation. These solutions will impact the customer’s staff and an external facing process. Examining these impacts will reflect on the potential success of the implementation and the benefit realised. Full automation Might provide a significant cost saving for staff but be unacceptable to customers; therefore, the benefit would not be realised. Plus, the team may need to reallocate and re-training or offering redundancy.
In addition to making these changes to the project design, it is also recommended that the governance structure enables a regular evaluation of the outcomes to ensure that the projected benefits will be realised.
The deeper engagement of stakeholders also addresses the issue of change rejection by seeking their input in the design, reviewing any objectives and looking for solutions. Also, they can see the benefits for the company and themselves by participating in the project before all activities and costs are locked in.
Projects and benefits have many-to-many relationships; this interdependency is well managed through traditional project management frameworks at the activity level but also needs to be understood at the benefit level. Systems implementations are great examples of this complexity; data cleansing and enrichment are critical activities in all systems projects. Robust, clean and complete data is vital to enabling the maximum benefit from system functionality and removing unnecessary manual tasks. Still, it is an activity that is not liked and avoided. When data ownership is unclear, it can be not easy to enforce.
Using benefits mapping will clarify the route to achieving the benefits, the expected deliverables, and the distribution of budget and responsibilities. This can linked to risk management, and when continuous improvement is embedded based on the evaluation cycle, it enables the business to learn and adapt as the project progresses. On top of this ‘agile’ approach, the Toyota approach to deploying strategic intent and high-level policies into project planning and implementation, Hoshi Kanri, provides insight into completing this activity.
Toyota developed this Japanese technique, is called Policy Deployment in the West, is a Lean alternative to the process described her. The overall process involves seven steps which can be seen below.
As the diagram shows, the process is very similar to how we have detailed the strategic alignment and benefits realisation. The main difference is that continuous improvement is an integral part of the process represented in Catchball and the PDCA cycle.
This means that Hoshin Kanri is not executed purely top-down. Reinforcing the mantra that staff need to be involved in goal setting to be motivated to implement activities to reach the agreed goals. Staff implementing goals will think through the implementation details more thoroughly than management, who are focused on objectives. This is the objective of Catchball: a feedback loop which improves the commitment to the execution process.
PDCA is the Deming Cycle, the four steps being
1. Plan – Plan an experiment and forecast the results.
2. Do – implement the plan.
3. Check – validate the hypothesis.
4. Act – if successful, standardise the experiment results and restart the sequence.
The key principles that make PDCA successful are
• Try a few times, as this will generate more improvements and create more value.
• Ensure the experiments are controlled so that the results can be relied upon and provide a baseline for future cycles.
• When running the PDCA cycle, manage the workload across the whole system and try to avoid overloads in different departments.
To implement Hoshin Kanri the key tool is the X matrix shown below this
THIS IMAGE IS TOO BLURRY
This mapping can be performed on a spreadsheet, but during execution, the update of the spreadsheet will be problematical The lean approach is to convert the actions into a Kanban boards as shown in the restaurant example below.
THIS IMAGE IS TOO LARGE AND DETAILS ARE HARD TO READ
As the vision is broken down into programmes, then into projects into activities through the process of Catchball, each level has a set of goals linked to the level above and back to strategic objectives associated with the vision.
These Goals are transferred to the Kanban cards and placed on the board of the relevant team. Ideally, this approach is best operated through a software system that is collaborative such as Miro.
As with all planning systems Hoshin Kanri is based on forecasts, and looking into the future in this rapidly changing world will require a degree of agility in communication that informs all layers within the planning system to react and change plans as required.
The underlying challenges to managing benefits realisation are
• Setting adequate measurements to track benefits.
• Some benefits will be secondary and challenging to predict.
• Transitioning benefits management post-project to the business owner.
Earlier in this workshop, we discussed strategic alignment, ensuring the company’s overall strategic objectives aligned with the projects. The implementation of this work was developed through Project Portfolio Management. Extending this work into determining the potential benefits and dis-benefits leads the process for this phase. This work defines the criteria for the design brief of the project.
The projects in the portfolio have been analysed for their fit to the strategic objectives and best use of resources; this phase now relates to the value creation expected of the project. The exact dimensions used to assess the feasibility and alignment with the business objectives can be applied to determine the value generated by the project.
For example, these dimensions can include
• Customers – service, quality, price and growth
• Business Process – speed, agility, accuracy and effectiveness
• Business Capability – higher value jobs, increased capability, level of innovation
These form the project profile, which now needs to be completed with the value generated by the successful implementation of the project. As detailed earlier, this is best done by defining. A clear vision of the business capability created by the project; we can determine the potential routes to achieving the vision.
For each project, pull together the stakeholders to define the vision for the business capability; this is best done in a workshop with a straw-man proposed so that the business has a target to critique and modify. Once a vision can be articulated, the Key Performance Indicators can be examined, and the values validated, altered or added. Then, for each dimension, rather than review the output required, the team needs to think of the value that can be created through this project. For example, a project to create a customer portal that is available 24/7 might have a KPI related to staffing levels. Still, the value created might be better customer ratings and increased customer growth, perhaps in regions outside the business’s standard time zone.
Following the visioning and allocation of high-level benefit values, the potential routes to achieving the vision could range from internal system development through the implementation of off-the-shelf software to complete outsourcing of the whole process. Again, these routes will be referenced to the strategic objectives to ensure they successfully achieve them.
The diagram demonstrates how this back-to-front analysis builds the change and Value/Benefits model.
From the mapping of high-level value/benefit, we can perform two further analyses, one to identify the changes that need to be enacted and the second to determine what sub-benefits might flow from the implementation. The thinking will be expanded with a broader group of stakeholders looking at the sub-benefits emanating from the design. This work will define the interdependencies, leading to an evaluation structure that can be captured in a benefits template.
For example, creating a customer portal for support with multiple channels will address the 24/7 service offering. However, providing video may enable engineers on-site with specific knowledge to provide support while completing another task.
Next, we need to identify the relationship between the value/benefit that can be generated with the project elements being implemented, understanding that this will be a many-to-many relationship. Multiple relationship charts will be required if more than one route can still be considered.
From all the analyses, the company can build a table of values/benefits related to specific changes that can be made during the project implementation. These can be applied to the project plan when this is developed to determine when within the project timescales these can be delivered. Next, different options are reviewed and ranked to select a preferred option; using this option, the route to achieving these benefits can be defined, and the intermediate stages occur along that route, at which point measures and monitoring can occur.
Further refinement of the value/benefits management can be applied by avoiding the application of single figures for value/benefit generation. It is recognised that the assessment of benefit is not an exact science and, as such, leaves executives reluctant to commit to the numbers, mainly as when these are managed by finance, it is seen as immutable and a defined deliverable.
The approach is to apply a process that classifies the ease of implementation to each value/benefit and categorises the type of value/benefit. IBM and Harvard Business School first muted this approach, and they suggested value/benefit categories as displaced costs, which cover staff costs, materials and operating overheads like energy. Increased Productivity: this covers process speed, reducing quality costs, better use of resources and greater agility. Finally, we have Increased Revenue, protecting new customers, more excellent value per customer and new markets.
Classification, as we discussed, relates to the ease of implementation and how much control and resistance there will be to the proposed change. The classification is applied as High, Medium, and Low, using a percentage to the overall value/benefit; High 70%, a high degree of control within the company to implement the change; Medium, 40%, shows no complete control over implementation, mainly due to resistance, Low 20% little control might relate to changes to be made is suppliers or market take-up of a new product/service.
Each of the value/benefits that has been identified might cut across more than one category, and it might also be spread across more than one classification if the change is complex.
We now have a value/benefits realisation plan that provides the overall and evaluated figures, recognising the difficulty of undertaking the change. The Project Manager or the PMO can then apply this table to the timeline for reporting progress against the value/benefit. By making the Project management function, the individual or the company’s PMO will obtain a project view of progress and not just a financial measure. Value/Benefits financial terms come after implementation, sometimes months later, so reporting needs to focus on more than the money but qualitative measures such as customer satisfaction or increased skills through training. This lag in measuring finance is exaggerated by the delay of up to three months in reporting financial figures. For example, reductions in inventory might be reported annually, and increased sales might take months to appear on the bottom line.
Once the project is complete, the value/benefits generation will still be in progress, maybe up to 12 to 18 months before the project outputs have been delivered. Therefore, we need a transition process that conducts a handover to the business through process owners or operational managers. The project handover is a process and not a date, and this means that the handover process should begin at the start of the benefits realisation phase as the company engages with the stakeholders involved.
Completing the Benefits Achievement Plan will align the value generation with the project outputs and associated timeline. This plan can contain the following elements.
• Type of benefits and description
• Units of measure (not always financial)
• Value agreed (based on achievement of the change)
• Timescales of achievement (early measures might be required)
• Where will the value/benefit be recognised
• Who is responsible for the value/benefit being realised
• What action will be implemented if value/benefit is not reached
Research has shown that 12 factors will influence the successful handover of projects (according to the Association of Project Management 2017).
Contractual (external Contractor management)
• Precise specification, including the handover and commissioning of the project
• Whole Life Cost must be the underlying principle to avoid short-term financial judgements negatively impacting the quality and performance of the project.
• Foster collaborative work within the project and incentivise good performance to plan
Process
• Handover is a process, not a date, and continual involvement of the business throughout the project is essential.
• Communicate the Benefits Plan from the beginning of the project and measure throughout, particularly the softer aspects, before physical capabilities are available.
• Convert users into project champions and change agents by continuous involvement in the benefits eschewing from the proposed vision.
Data and Knowledge Transfer
• Capturing the process changes and documenting them clearly so that they can be accessed for training and induction easily by all users is critical.
• Document lessons learned and make this a feature of any gateways with the project, such as data validation and enrichment, user acceptance testing or training sessions, for example.
• Clear document these requirements at the project outset and who is responsible for completing and validating the output.
People
• Good projects need the best people to make them successful; identify them early and keep them on the project for as long as possible. Backfill the more mundane parts of their day-to-day job, and using the project were likely to promote and develop talent.
• Undertake thorough stakeholder analysis and ensure that the complete lifecycle is considered, particularly the handover for business as usual.
• Close relationships between the company and those delivering any part of the project are critical, especially about the benefits realisation rather than the pure project outputs.
Value/Benefits Realisation is crucial in successfully implementing projects for the following reasons.
• It is maintaining the commitment of senior management to both change and transformation.
• It helps prevent short-term cost-cutting, which damages the business’s development capability and the actual benefit.
• Encourages the project to consistently engage with the stakeholders, building champions in the business helpful in promoting change
• Draws on lessons learned which contribute to the overall organisational capability.
• Counters the inevitable focus on cost, both short-term project outputs.
Case Study: Network rail
The story
Determined to increase the productivity and value-for-money of transport infrastructure projects, a transformative collaboration of 25 partners together with Government, i3P and the Construction Innovation Hub formed Transport Infrastructure Efficiency Strategy (TIES) Living Lab.
According to TIES Living Lab, research shows that up to half of the money invested in infrastructure delivery could be spent more efficiently. The Transport Infrastructure Efficiency Strategy states, ultimately, investment in transport infrastructure will drive growth and productivity across the UK.
This Department for Transport (DfT) programme, in which organizations share information and demonstrate best practice, could revolutionize the way the UK approaches major transport projects. Using data, technology and Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) within live transport infrastructure projects, the TIES Living Lab aims to deliver significant value-adding benefits across the transport infrastructure sector.
Network Rail is one of the Living Lab partners helping to drive smarter transport infrastructure and show how TIES Living Lab programme benefits align with Network Rail.
The business problem
The benefits of Network Rail’s involvement in the Department for Transport (DfT) TIES Living Lab programmes had been clarified using Visio benefit maps. They painted a very complex picture. It became immediately apparent at the first board meeting that we needed a tool to manage the benefits value and realization.
Although Network Rail are very good at defining the benefits case, there was a capability gap in demonstrating benefit realization and no way of bringing those two things together with the tools and templates currently in use. With no overall DfT benefit map for the programmes, Network Rail took a collaborative board action to produce a generic set of benefit maps to help explain the complex programmes, that any of the other 25 partners could also use.
In an effort to break down that complexity and bring additional clarity, a portfolio level benefit map had been produced. This view comprised of each individual benefit map in a single diagram with added connector points to show where capabilities and learnings from the 3 Steering Groups were proven by way of outcomes being realized by the Living Lab Physical Asset Demonstrator projects.
In an effort to break down that complexity and bring additional clarity, a portfolio level benefit map had been produced. This view comprised of each individual benefit map in a single diagram with added connector points to show where capabilities and learnings from the 3 Steering Groups were proven by way of outcomes being realized by the Living Lab Physical Asset Demonstrator projects.
The benefit maps needed to provide a visual depiction of the outputs being delivered and what those outputs meant by way of increased capability and outcomes
The benefit maps needed to be dynamic and interactive with a connector to the GCIE Portfolio SharePoint, which was also in development
End users needed the ability to quickly drill down to the information they required
SharpCloud was already being used by Network Rail and was suggested as a Benefits Management solution by Barnes Thomas, Business System Owner for SharpCloud at Network Rail.
Using SharpCloud we’ve developed a portfolio set of benefits maps and dashboards which demonstrate the magnitude of the task and simplify the understanding.
The objective of the dashboard is to establish the capability to digitize the benefit maps and enable end users to interrogate the portfolio benefit data. By adding in a budget for each project, and through the weighting of each connector between the different elements of the benefit map, an approximate cost associated with each entry is established.
This provides stakeholders with the ability to employ a willingness to pay decision process, where the effort to measure benefit realization would potentially outweigh the benefit itself. This is about building on the benefits case and turning it into the ability to undertake benefits tracking once the benefits are being realized, in a number of years time, which is key for the Office of Rail & Road as well as TIES.
This addresses a perpetual problem which is often encountered – How do we demonstrate value?
If done well, this process should help with the quality of data around footbridge specification and construction and will therefore help inform future investment decisions and assessments of value for money / impact on whole life cost
Each benefit map displays a network of benefits, linked to one or more of the bounding Corporate objectives, mapping all the cause and effect relationships between outputs, capabilities, outcomes and benefits
The portfolio dashboard provides a digital and interactive view of the benefit maps, allowing instant interrogation of benefit data through multiple views and the ability to isolate relevant information .
What surprised you about SharpCloud when you started using it?
The potential to be able to automate the benefits realization management reporting by establishing an interface between the SharpCloud based dashboard and Network Rail’s datasets.
What are the benefits of using SharpCloud to your team and to your organization?
Visualization and Value – Digitizing the benefit maps is the priority
The objective is for an end user of the benefits dashboard to be able to identify and classify a benefit, and then point that benefit entry to the relevant Network Rail dataset to track progress and demonstrate benefit realization. This meant that we were able to identify a set of value themes that gave us a clear insight into the complexity.
Benefits of using SharpCloud:
• It provides an intuitive user interface
• It already had an example solution of an interactive benefit map
• It looked good with just half a day’s development time
• There was the potential to develop the SharpCloud interface with SharePoint
• It aligns with the wider Network Rail strategy and with CoE strategy used in Risk Management
Are you seeing any quantifiable results from using SharpCloud?
Validating tracing lines and validation of; start and end dates, benefit owners, cost, percentage, and levels where benefits are quantifiable, benefit vs performance
Interface capability to provide live and interactive interrogation of reporting data
What value is SharpCloud bringing to your organization?
A Benefits Management dashboard providing a digital view of complex benefit maps. SharpCloud cuts through the complexity of the benefits landscape and the dashboard cuts through that complexity by enabling interrogation of the information and highlighting emerging themes, all of which help to inform better decision making.
SharpCloud has enabled us to:
• Make our benefit maps live, interactive and visual
• Be efficient through the ability to connect to existing systems and data sources where possible, eg. SharePoint
• Provide a dashboard output to track our benefits with the potental to automate benefit tracking
• Provide live and interactive interrogation of reporting data
• Inform points of intervention where effort is required to mitigate dis-benefits
• Influence the Communications and Engagement strategy
The Benefits Management dashboard in SharpCloud:
• Provides a view of project interdependencies
• Enables the weighting of connectors
• Provides a basis for willingness to pay decisions
• Informs future investment decisions
We have very quickly been able to spot emerging themes such as:
• Which projects are not adding value or the value is unclear
• The need for better strategic alignment of capabilities and outcomes
• The potential to use Benefits Mapping to inform strategy and management of the programme
The potential to make TIES/Living Lab an outcome and benefits driven programme rather than milestone and delivery-led programme
Case Study: Network Rail 2
Successful change programs regard value realisation as their only purpose and ensure key program management activities – technical delivery, change management, risk management, and so on – are directed towards that goal.
Many of us have heard of research by John Kotter and McKinsey that found that only 30% of change programs succeeded in delivering the value sought.
So what are the successful 30% doing that the failing 70% aren’t?
I’d like to share an experience of a major change program that is successfully delivering value in a transparent, demonstrable way.
Before returning to Australia earlier this year, I led benefits realisation in a large change program being implemented by Network Rail, owner, operator and maintainer of the UK’s rail infrastructure.
Network Rail is facing many challenges. The UK rail system is the oldest in the world and one of the densest. Some components of the network were built nearly two hundred years ago and demand for its use is increasing significantly, for both passenger and freight. Failure of the network has significant ramifications for the British public and the economy.
As part of its response to these challenges, Network Rail is implementing ORBIS, a technology-enabled reform program that is revolutionising how it captures, maintains and uses network asset information in order to improve network safety, reliability and cost-effectiveness.
So how is ORBIS going in its drive to provide value in these areas?
Very successfully. As with all programs that are developing and delivering new technologies to a large, geographically dispersed workforce, ORBIS has faced a number of technological and change management challenges. However, it is its approach to managing these challenges that has been the key to its success in delivering value
Case Study: Argenta
Based on the literature and survey of experts and using the lens of EGIT, 12 benefit management practices were selected for assessment in a case study. The case enterprise is Argenta, a midsize bank in Belgium that has made a lot of progress in portfolio management in recent years and also has taken the first steps in benefit management. In the initial phase, in-depth interviews were organized with the portfolio manager to cover in detail how the practices were applied within Argenta. Definitions found in the literature were used to facilitate a common understanding. These practices were then plotted on a maturity scale12—by the portfolio manager for most practices and by an enterprise architect for one. This step is important because if the maturity of certain practices within Argenta seem to be low or nonexistent, the evaluations on certain criteria, such as effectiveness, would be less accurate and meaningful. The table below shows the ISACA maturity scale used in this exercise.
Based on the defined maturity model, The portfolio manager assessed 12 of the selected management practices. The enterprise architect evaluated the practice related to the mapping of benefits and objectives to business changes and IT capabilities.
The table below shows the overall results.
It can be concluded that Argenta has achieved a rather high level of maturity for most of the selected practices. The management practices related to governance topics are especially mature, and procedures in this area seem to be working effectively. They are measured and monitored by portfolio managers.
Practices related to the transition to the organization and the business integration of project outcomes are evaluated as defined on the maturity scale. Development of business cases also has reached the third maturity level of defined process. The defined level was assigned for these practices because although all processes are standardized and documented, some deviations might occur and remain undetected.
The other assessed practices were perceived to be repeatable but intuitive because they were not yet standardized, and the method of execution depended on the person involved. The single relational mechanism observed was assigned a lower maturity level because only a few cases could be listed as an example for this practice.
The overall level of maturity, which clearly indicates that Argenta has some experience in implementing these practices, makes it relevant to analyze perceptions of effectiveness and ease of implementation.
In a second phase of the case study, the selected practices were assessed for effectiveness and ease of implementation by a panel consisting of the portfolio manager, the demand manager, the business manager and an enterprise architect. This was done using the same Likert scales, leading to scores from 1 to 5.
Business case development was perceived as the most effective practice with a score of 0.8, followed by project governance (0.75). Early assignment of project managers and governance bodies, as well as senior managers support have the next highest scores, which can be explained by the fact that effectiveness is often related to rules enforcement and oversight by the same governance bodies, such as the steering committees (representatives from senior management level, sponsor, portfolio manager, and project or program manager), the core teams (representatives from middle management level for first escalations), the single point of contact appointed within each department, and the establishment of a phased life cycle approach for projects and programs.
Mapping the objectives and benefits to the business changes and IT capabilities and the development of long-term benefits in broader perspective by co-creation of stakeholders were relatively less effective. Business case development was perceived as the easiest to implement, compared to the other practices, but with an average score of only 0.5. Installing project governance scored equally based on this criterion. Other practices were evaluated as more difficult to implement, with relatively low scores between 0.2 and 0.4.
Next the perceived effectiveness and ease of implementation between the case study and the results of the expert survey are compared. Results can be noted that all the assessed benefit management practices in the case study received lower scores on effectiveness. The difference in scores is rather large for most practices. P04, link with business changes and IT capabilities, was perceived as very effective by the experts, with a score of 0.82—but much less effective by Argenta, with a score of 0.25. The maturity of this process was assessed within Argenta as level 2—repeatable but intuitive, which indicates the enterprise has some experience in this area, making this finding relevant.
The scores for RM01, development of long-term benefits in broader perspective by co-creation of stakeholders, provide another example of high variance between the survey and the case study. Perceived effectiveness is 0.84 for the survey, while it is only 0.35 for Argenta, suggesting this practice was found relatively ineffective in reality. On the other hand, this relational mechanism existed only on an an adhoc basis within Argenta. The results for S05C are similar, with an average score of 0.86 from the experts, compared with 0.45 in the case study.
For some other practices, such as P07, business case development, the results for perceived effectiveness are comparable between the survey (0.82) and the case study (0.8). The maturity of this process within Argenta was evaluated as level 3—defined, which makes the result of this finding relevant. The results of S05B, project governance, are also in line, with a score of 0.82 compared with 0.75, and a high maturity assessment of this practice within Argenta at level 4—managed and measurable. For S04, early assignment of managers and governance bodies; S03, senior management support; and S02, active stakeholder involvement—all practices evaluated as very mature in Argenta—the variance in perceived effectiveness is also significant. Argenta perceived the effectiveness of these practices as closer to neutral than high or very high.
In general, although the assessed practices were perceived as very effective by the group of experts, the results of the case study seem less optimistic. Except for P07, business case development, and RM01, development of long-term benefits in a broader perspective by co-creation of stakeholders, the scores are significantly lower in the case study. It should be noted that these results are based on only one case study, implying that it is a first check of practice. Figure 9 shows the overview of results for ease of implementation for the survey compared with the case study.
In general, similar conclusions can be drawn for the ease of implementation comparison. Overall, the perception in the case study is that the practices were more difficult to implement. The biggest noticeable difference in scores is for S06, lessons learned deliberation.
An explanation for this difference is that the participants in Argenta interpreted this practice not only as formally conducting lessons learned meetings with structured templates, but also as using this input in new initiatives, while that was not literally stated in the survey. For this reason, Argenta perceived the practice as very difficult to implement because it would involve project managers structurally using lessons learned from the past.
There is also a high discrepancy between the scores for P04, link with business changes and IT capabilities, which are 0.25 in the case study and 0.67 assigned by the experts. The highest scores given by Argenta are for P07, business case development, which is 0.5 (compared with 0.71 by the experts), and for S05B, project governance, which is 0.5 (compared with 0.66 by the experts). For all the practices, the scores attributed by the participants in the case study are significantly lower than the ones provided in the expert survey.
Conclusion
The focus of this research was to determine which management practices can support an enterprise in benefits realization in IT-enabled projects. Thirty relevant management practices in this area were found in the literature. The survey found that eight of those practices were perceived as the most effective and the easiest to implement. It seems an obvious choice for enterprises to invest first in those practices. However, the case study results are less optimistic. The assessed practices were perceived as less effective and a lot more difficult to implement.
Based on the results of both the expert survey and the case study, the table below provides a ranking of management practices based on the average scores.
According to the experts in the survey and within Argenta, developing business cases, having solid project governance, and making sure that project managers and governance bodies are assigned at an early stage of the project are the practices that contribute most to the realization of benefits. The other practices were also perceived as contributing to benefits realization. The choices enterprises will make depend on their situations and on their existing levels of maturity in these practices.
Exercise
Whiteboard, Post-it notes and pens
• Customer Questions
• Customer Complaints
• Returns
• Customer Order History
• Memberships
Course Manual 10: Communications
Our final section of workshop two concerns communication, the most critical factor that can make or break any project. There are some exciting statistics about communications
• 86% of employees and executives cite a lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures
• Around 75% rate teamwork and collaboration as very important
• Less than half of the survey respondents said their organisations discuss issues truthfully and effectively
No matter how much effort the team puts in, how much they want to work together and their collective team spirit, they will only be successful with good communication. Businesses and projects need to transmit information both up and down and across the organization, be that sales targets and successes, critical activities and dates or performance on Key Performance Indicators. Teams need objectives and goals to work towards and understand their role in achieving them.
A clear strategy is required; the next section will discuss the options and the basic principles that must be followed for successful communication.
Communication is the exchange of information between two or more people in an organization; this is required to achieve an outcome. In terms of a team, this is more of a sharing exercise so they can reach organisational goals. Good communication also enables team members to coordinate with each other more effectively.
Four methods of communication are the most common, starting with Verbal communication. Using words to transmit information is vital that the communicator pays attention to the clarity of speech, tone, word selection and speed of delivery. But equally important is that the information receiver applies good listening skills to understand the information in the message.
Second is written communication, which used to be predominantly presented on paper but now is almost exclusively done digitally and in numerous ways, from email to text, with various ways to shorten the content through icons, emojis and Three three-letter acronyms. In some cases, a completely new language has emerged. In its purest form, the written word will provide a copy for future reference, though good practice for email is that inboxes are cleared regularly and emails saved to a named folder.
Digital technology such as e-mail has been misused, mainly the copy function within e-mails, which ends up cluttering the team and managers’ inboxes. This bad practice has led to poor response rates and programmes to enact mass deletions of ‘cc’d’ e-mails. Later in this section, we will deal with e-mail etiquette.
In written communication, the words used are essential, as the tone and emotion associated with the message cannot be imparted.
Non-verbal communication covers gestures, postures and facial expressions; a person can convey information through visual clues such as body language and eye contact. It is important to note that this form of communication can happen unintentionally. For example, not looking at a person as they share an idea with you can send the message that you are not interested or disagree with the statement.
Practice these ways to use body language to improve your communication skills:
• Uncross your arms to maintain a more “open” position.
• Speak at a steady pace and avoid talking and moving quickly or erratically.
• Match your eye level with the listener—if they are sitting down, sit with them.
• Maintain eye contact.
• Shift your posture and gestures to match that of the listener if needed.
• Stand facing the person you’re speaking with
The final form to discuss is visual communication, using signs and drawings—illustrations and graphics to transmit information and messages. The correct choice of visual elements can make understanding information easier, enabling faster decision-making and demystifying complex concepts.
The key elements that can applied to develop an effective communication strategy.
• Understand your needs and requirements – as a prerequisite to starting any project, understand all the stakeholders involved; use a stakeholder map to record their interest, influence and mandate; identify what the team will need regarding support and likely issues. Appreciate the relationship to the strategic objectives and the measures that must be monitored and reported.
• Involve People – Build the strategy with the stakeholders and team members; with team members to agree on what technologies to apply, any project dictionary, and frequency of formal reporting; with stakeholders, frequency and style of communication.
• Know your audience – fully understand your audience, whether they are local, national or global, their background and experience and how they will interact with communications.
• Define clear objectives – these should be derived from the strategic goals and validated considering the team makeup and the stakeholders. This might extend the purposes beyond those only related to the project. For example, suppose the project mainly focuses on a local solution but could have a global one, including international stakeholders. In that case, it will avoid any part of the project being unsuitable for global rollout.
• Evaluate – continuous evaluation of the strategy’s effectiveness is necessary; checking, evaluating and refining the process to ensure that the original thinking is still valid, enough resources are being applied, and the messages are clear.
Reviewing how we build strategies to suit projects, several tactics are helpful to apply; since communication is a skill that applies to both inside and outside work, it is worth improving as part of any self-development programme. A famous saying is that ‘ communication works for those that work at it.’
Encourage one-to-one communication
This may only come naturally to some team members, so a communications course is suggested as part of the training available to all employees. This can be backed up with support from team members who feel comfortable in this role. This course should cover language, the use of visual aids and managing meetings; understanding body language will also be essential so that everyone understands the non-verbal cues that teammates might use.
This encouragement might extend to buddying up so that each member has someone they can confide in and trust.
Managing Meetings
Meetings are critical to imparting information to the whole team but can be lengthy and tedious if not managed carefully. A few key tactics that will help to make these more effective are
• Rotate the chairmanship of any meeting regularly
• Key a clear agenda and avoid AOB being raised in the meeting
• Keep sessions to a daily schedule for operational meetings and conduct them standing-up
• Publish and enforce strict etiquette, particularly relating to attendance, lateness, speaking without interruption and criticism, and information sources
• Encourage all to have their say by conducting a sweep of all members before closing the meeting
• Do not permit any discussions on actions agreed upon after the meeting
Fundamental will be access to information, which should be a single source and available to all. Check that everyone has listened to what has been said by picking up on body language and distractions and testing the understanding of the person(s) in question.
Using all communication channels
Various channels are available, from e-mail and face-to-face to SMS, video and podcasts. Using the correct form requires careful planning against the stakeholders and project requirements. Start by mapping the expected outputs and their frequency against the available channels and scoring the track and team capability to help define the correct mix. Conduct a similar mapping of the chosen medium to the stakeholder.
Use internal or external resources from outside the team if a functional requirement cannot be satisfied within the team. Additionally, finding someone in the group willing to develop these skills grows the organisational capability for future projects and general communication requirements.
Manage the tone and mood with humour.
Serious conversations can put a team in a negative state of mind. This will impact decision-making and team motivation. Overly heavy communication sessions reduce participation and significantly hinder the flow of information. There will be occasions when information exchange is intense, and having the skills to lighten the mood will be vital; jokes or anecdotes can be helpful, and the ability of the meeting leader to reference back to themselves is a valuable skill.
Prepare well
For daily meetings, the information needs to be readily available, and any changes well noted may be using a whiteboard for issues; electronic whiteboards that are part of a collaborative toolset can be used, and then a standard agenda can be applied for the meeting. This approach is used in agile methodologies and is called ‘Scrums’. Always ask for AOB before the meeting, but do not allow any random issues to be raised during the session.
For more information transmission meetings, develop suitable materials in advance and anticipate questions your audience might ask; put yourself in their position. As you may want to rotate the presenter, ensure a good template is available for visual aids. Good graphics and illustrations or capable marketing staff should be available to make all presentations engaging.
Focus on what other people say and acknowledge it
This technique is called Active Listening, demonstrating that you are listening through non-verbal communication.
Communication is more effective when the listener shows they are listening and responds appropriately to feedback, questions and suggestions. Being open and honest and avoid being defensive or interrupting. Better to state you will come back to someone with a considered response than provide a poorly considered one.
Promote Feedback
All communication should be two-way. Otherwise, information cannot be exchanged effectively if it is unidirectional. Feedback plays a vital role in qualifying understanding and clarifying the message. Typically, this might be encapsulated in questions at the end of a presentation. It should be encouraged, and in larger company meetings, the use of questions asked by plants within the audience will encourage others to participate. These questions can be determined by placing yourself in the place of typical audience members.
Handle difficult conversations
There will always be team members and stakeholders who will not share your thoughts, opinions or feelings, and the best communicators will not want to avoid any conversation or get involved in an argument. Being able to empathise and be a good listener is the first requirement; secondly, the ability to explore understanding and request the other person to view the situation from your standpoint. Remember that you will not be able to change everyone to your way of thinking, mainly if there is a significant change and you have encountered one of the ‘laggards’ on the adoption curve.
Record all points of discussion.
Good meetings will exchange information and ideas rapidly, and an effective team will capture this information in its raw form. Sharing this after the forum can help to refine and discard information and agree on actions for a future meeting, depending on the complexity. The ongoing action list and objective monitoring should be the baseline for all daily operational project meetings.
As well as these criteria for successful communications, there are some known traps to avoid.
Do not assume everyone understands things the same way
Even within a project team, there will be levels of understanding of the subject, especially in technology implementation, and different learning styles. As part of the evaluation, ensure that everyone understands the information; for those reluctant to admit a lack of understanding, conduct a one-to-one.
Make sure that your communication is clear and concise, key tips are
• Use action verbs when possible
• Use tangible and concrete terms rather than ambiguous ones; for example, ‘lets touch base next week’ would better expressed as, ‘ how does 3pm on Thursday suit you?’
• Leave out filler words and cliches that have no meaning.
• End with a call to action
• Use bullet points in written communication rather than streams of text
• Consider visual aids to support your points
Being a bad listener
It has been emphasised more than once that communication must be two-way to be effective. What is a bad listener? Listening skills mean being open-minded, applying no bias to the presented information, and asking for clarification on unclear points.
Ignoring your tone of voice
When engaged in verbal communication, be aware of your tone of voice; this will significantly impact how well your message is received and how the listener(s) connect with you. Any harshness or annoying strains in your tone will create a negative vibe and, in worst-case scenarios, result in conflicts. Ideally, your style should be gentle, confident, and educating, implying a willingness to listen.
Always try to empathise with your audience, think of their pain points and what the tone is saying to them about you.
Emotions overpowering logic
Communications influenced by emotions will be counter-productive and, therefore, avoid this at all costs. Walk away if you feel that sentiment is likely to overcome logic and revert later or in a meeting hand over to a colleague. Bad decisions and fractures in relationships are the only sure outcomes of this behaviour.
Perception
How your audience perceives you and your motives can support or hinder the quality of your communication. Make your intentions clear at the outset, adopt open body language, and allow follow-up questions.
Culture
Social differences among cultures can create misunderstandings; it is essential to understand the communication norms, standards and preferences. Being sensitive and respectful of other cultures will help to improve your communication success.
Not expressing your thoughts and ideas.
Confidence in expressing thoughts within a project team is vital; all members should be armed with self-confidence to project their ideas and defend them in the face of challenges from team members—all within the etiquette of a well-run meeting.
Interpersonal
This refers to the relationship between you and the people you are communicating with; typical barriers will be lack of trust, or engagement or a difference of opinion. Be open and transparent, willing to take criticism and keep emotions at bay. Be ready to compromise or offer solutions, or even step away to consider the options.
Reacting more and responding less
Reactions are impulsive, with little thought to the consequences and impact they will likely make. Responding is a considered approach after considering the information and acting accordingly.
Easily distracted
In any communication situation, you must always pay attention to avoi d missing vital information or objections and issues. With modern technology, you can be physically present but mentally absent, typically with mobile phones; also, you can turn up to meetings with a bad attitude or mood. Meeting etiquette should shut down all mobile devices and try a positive attitude.
Reviewing the application of good communications practice to a technology project the steps below show how this might be applied.
Clarify Strategic Objectives from the Project Portfolio
Following the process through strategic alignment into project portfolio management will ensure that the relevant objectives are aligned to the project. Validate these against the Business Strategy and build a vision of the business capabilities that will be available post-project
Conduct a Stakeholder Analysis
Reviewing the project list all the internal and external stakeholders interested in the project; internally, this will include the managers of impacted departments, their staff, board members, and all support functions HR, finance and IT. From an external perspective, this might include shareholder groups and legislative bodies.
Conduct a team review.
Establish a baseline of the project team members and assess their communication skills across all communication types. Conduct an inventory of skills in using tools such as graphics and presentation media, mapping this against a simple template of potential tools. Where there are obvious gaps, seek solutions from other departments such as HR or marketing; subsequently, look for external support.
Undertake training (as required), introduce buddy system
Remedy any gaps in the skills required through training, either with experts within the business, online courses or external trainers. If it appears that the team will not reach its full communication potential and provide personal growth for team members it might worth introducing the buddy system. Where experts on the team are paired with less capable members to support them on certain communication tasks.
Create a communication plan
As the project plan is developed, ensure that communication activities from daily meetings to whole company presentations are included and time is allowed for preparation, data analysis and practise.
Conduct Review sessions
Take feedback on all face-to-face meetings, and support this with regular surveys to the wider project audience and occasionally to the whole business. Abstract any lessons learned and create potential actions that can be taken, be that meeting planning, data presentation, medium used.
Initiate Improvements
Integrate the actions into the communication plan activities as appropriate.
Integrate back into Business As Usual on project closure and handover
Identify which project communication activities will benefit the team managing the new capabilities into Business As Usual, providing training if necessary.
Focus on communication should be a core part of the organisation’s objectives and continually reviewed, improved and developed. The benefits are enormous for all involved.
Case Study: Just Eat consolidates comms and celebrates purpose
Heard at: PR Week Strategic Internal Communications Conference
The `need
Just Eat is a FTSE 100 company with 3,600 employees, 112,000 restaurant partners, 100+ cuisine types and over 27 million customers. Internal communications was once seen as a side task for the marketing team, with little resource and no dedicated employees. Anyone could send any email to the whole company any time they wanted: a 9am strategic announcement from the CEO could be followed by a 9.01am email from reception about a broken toilet. Communications desperately needed to be consolidated. An internal comms function was put in place to keep people informed and help bring all comms together in a way that engaged employees.
Just Eat’s Head of Internal Communications, Mark Tittle, recognises the importance of keeping comms relevant and isn’t afraid to question the necessity of every piece of communication that they send out. His belief that internal communications should start with great stories means that the team’s updates are tailored and targeted, and every employee sees something relevant to them on all channels regularly. Just Eat now sees 46,000 monthly hits on its intranet and received a positivity rating of 79% for the communications channels. A clear channel strategy allows the internal communications team to make updates structured and consistent and they understand the importance of measuring engagement too.
The solution
Just Eat’s internal communications team is now an established and vital function of the organization. Their commitment to storytelling in communications is something we’re big advocates of at McCann Synergy and we love how they segment their comms appropriately for different audiences to avoid comms fatigue.
Case Study: Aviva creates a wellbeing strategy with impact
Reference Employee Engagement in Financial Services Conference
The Need
With over 20 years’ experience in driving employee engagement and culture change for organisations, Katherine Billingham-Mohamed from Aviva knows a thing or two about wellbeing in the workplace. Creating Wellbeing@Aviva, a suite of products, advice and support to help people in the business stay healthy, and to look after them when they fall sick, has had a major impact on employee engagement at Aviva. Using data and insight from all levels of the organization combined with a holistic approach, recognising that people are complex and engagement looks different for everyone, has resulted in a 14% increase on employee engagement and a wellbeing strategy built from honesty, openness and a bottom-up approach.
The solution
Genuine engagement has to involve employee insight; giving people a voice and input when creating a wellbeing strategy will help to make it authentic and effective. Aviva recognised the importance of getting views from ‘on the ground’, rather than creating the strategy for wellbeing in the boardroom.
Case Study: Brighton and Hove Albion lives its values
Reference: Employee Engagement Summit
The Need
Paul Barber, CEO of Brighton and Hove Albion, took to the stage at the Employee Engagement Summit to give an insightful talk about the opening of the new Amex stadium and what was done to ensure that the club had a strong relationship with the local area. Paul and his team came up with four key values based on feedback from employees, fans, customers and stakeholders. Everyone at the club is dedicated to the values of treating people well, exceeding expectations, aiming high and making every experience special. The values extend to every employee at Brighton and Hove Albion: from premiere league players, to the car park attendant who works a few hours on a Saturday, as long as they are living the values everyday, everyone at the club enjoys the same benefits, including high-performance meals on breaks and bonuses. There’s no area of the club where the values can’t be seen or felt and they give everyone a benchmark to work to through regular internal communication. As the gay capital of the UK, Brighton is diverse, inclusive and welcoming. Brighton and Hove Albion wants this warm welcome to be felt at every match, even by the away fans! When Newcastle played Brighton, the club got Newcastle Brown Ale in as a drink for the fans, to make them feel special and included.
The solution
Values-driven businesses are often the most successful, and it’s clear that at Brighton and Hove Albion the values have been embedded well, dictating how employees approach every element of their work. Informing training, D&I, recruitment, policies and reward, these strong values are vital to lead and inspire employees
Case Study: TalkTalk invigorates employee engagement through relocation
Reference: PR Week Strategic Internal Communications Conference
The Need
When TalkTalk relocated 500 London-based colleagues to join the rest of the organization in Manchester, engagement scores went down. The internal communication team had to make sure they were looking after London colleagues whilst protecting and engaging employees in other locations too. Speaking to people about their options and providing regular internal communications as soon as the relocation was announced helped to make the process smoother for any employees involved. From taking colleagues on a tour of the North West as potential residents, to offering help with housing and school moves, this involved support across the full range of challenges that can arise when moving cities. Throwing a ‘Great Big London Thank You Party’ was a chance to celebrate and thank everyone and showed people that the organization genuinely cared about how the change would impact them.
The Solution
TalkTalk approached a huge change in the organization in a way that was supportive and sympathetic to those affected. Communications from the outset meant that employees felt informed and consulted throughout the process and they were offered help with the relocation through each stage of it.
Case Study: Skyscanner commits to tearing down internal communication barriers
Reference: Internal Communications Conference
The need
Skyscanner, a travel comparison website with over 9,000 visitors a month and 1,300 employees globally, is growing very quickly. Maintaining its fun, ‘buzzy’ culture has been challenging throughout growth, with 7 different time zones, 64 nationalities and 40 languages to consider. Using a selection of digital tools, the internal communications team has created a network across the globe, enabling people across time zones to communicate through video conferencing, Slack, an Intranet and weekly online ‘town halls’.
The Solution
A focus on face-to-face and building relationships, even with people in different locations, has had a strong impact on Skyscanner’s culture. Over a million messages are sent via Slack each month and communication across time zones can help to build common ground and shared interests. This considerate and flexible approach has helped foster good links across all teams at the organization and has meant that the culture has been maintained despite rapid growth.
Case Study: Asda builds resilience in its leaders
Reference: Driving Change Conference
The Need
Craig Whaites, Head of Leadership and Learning at Asda, is on a quest to ensure that Asda’s leaders are the most capable, diverse and successful in their industry. With the changing nature of retail making it harder than ever before to succeed, and political issues like Brexit causing shoppers to tighten their belts, Asda wants to continue saving its customers money and recruiting top talent in an increasingly competitive market. It’s a turbulent and chaotic time to be a leader and Craig’s team wanted to equip their people with the right skills to lead teams through change. They started with a ‘leader first’ approach, bringing them into changes early on and supporting them to implement new strategies. Craig’s team believes in empowering leaders to succeed and recognises that good leaders are instrumental in creating productive and engaged employees.
The Solution
Craig’s session was funny and insightful, giving us a glimpse into the ever-changing world of retail giants. At McCann Synergy, we know how important leadership figures are in engaging employees, so love that Asda is taking this approach in their change communications.
Case Study: Creating impact at PlayStation Europe
Reference: Internal Communications Conference
The Need
PlayStation had a firm belief that impactful internal communications aren’t optional. In a crowded market place where people check their phones every 12 minutes, there’s a real danger of internal communications getting lost. PlayStation needed to fight fire with fire, pushing out messages that matched up with the sleek look of its external channels. With an intranet that was wildly out-of-date, lacked structure and had limited functionality, it was time for an update. PlayStation created and launched a new intranet called The Hub, making it easy to share company news, update employees and measure engagement. The new platform was designed to be close to the sort of tech people use in their personal time to make it more engaging and something that employees actually wanted to use.
The Solution
Giving people innovative tech to keep up to date with company news improves employee engagement and makes sure that messages land well, with impact. PlayStation found that after launching the intranet, every measurement metric in their Employee Opinion Survey at least doubled, proving the value of good digital communications, both externally and to internal audiences.
Case Study: Travelex tackles complexities around trans issues in the workplace
Reference: Diversity and Inclusion Conference
The Need
In a global business like Travelex, it can be hard to know how to support trans people, particularly when being LGBTQ is a fireable offence in certain countries (Japan) and illegal in others (the Middle East). Half of trans people have hidden their identity at work for fear of discrimination, and Travelex wanted to combat this. By putting policies and clear internal communications in place, people were encouraged to support their trans colleagues. Travelex worked with NGOs to get insights and tips on how to support people, citing Stonewall as particularly helpful with guidance on wording and the correct terminology. A ‘transitioning at work’ policy based on feedback from trans colleagues ensures that procedures are in place to support people through what can be a difficult period of their lives. Having this kind of guidance in place can help to empower line managers to ask the right questions and be there for people who are transitioning in the workplace.
The Solution
James Haq-Myles gave us all some brilliant food for thought with this talk, assuring people that as long as conversations around trans issues are happening, the rest should follow. His top tip was that it’s ok to get things wrong when it comes to this stuff, which is unknown territory for many people, as long as your intentions are good and you’re willing to learn. It was an interesting topic to hear about at the D&I conference, and we’re pleased to see these sorts of issues being addressed as a recognised employee engagement topic.
Case Study: Driving energy and excitement for change at Sovereign Housing Association
Reference: PR Week Strategic Internal Communications Conference
The Need
Our very own Rhiannon Stroud and Olly Whitman took to the stage at 2019’s PR Week Strategic Internal Comms Conference to talk about using creativity to make change internal communications exciting and engaging. When Sovereign Housing Association merged with Spectrum Housing Group in 2016, it wanted to ensure people were at the heart of that change. Using four key principles, Sovereign made sure that all employees felt involved and excited about the change. Sovereign embraced change well, through a compelling narrative, manager engagement and role modelling change to all of its people. And the narrative of ‘On Our Way’ demonstrates the ongoing journey of change they were on. ‘Sofa, so good’, a Gogglebox-style TV show which gave employees a fun way to talk about how they felt about the changes has continued to evolve thanks to feedback from employees and Sovereign’s residents. The show is now into its fourth season and includes trades people as well as office-based employees.
The Solution
We loved working with Sovereign on this, and it’s great seeing how they’re continuing to embrace change and bring employees along on the transformational journey. The project has gone on to win awards for its innovation and use of VR and has been widely praised in the industry.
Case Study: Honest Burgers maintains its culture with Workplace
Reference: PR Week Strategic Internal Communications Conference
The Need
Honest Burgers is a burger restaurant which is trying to disrupt the casual dining industry. With its own butchery and chips made fresh on-site everyday, Honest wanted employees to feel engaged with the company’s purpose and mission. The internal communications team see restaurant workers as the most important client in the business and is putting them first when it comes to employee engagement. Honest wanted to maintain the culture the founders had created when they started out, with a growing business of 38 restaurants around London and the UK. Daniel Davis, Engagement and Communications Manager at Honest Burgers, spoke about how culture isn’t built on a spreadsheet; it’s not created in a boardroom or by a marketing team. Culture comes from storytellers within the business, those people who are at the grass-roots, working on the frontline in Honest restaurants. Daniel’s team introduced Workplace to provide a platform for the company’s culture to continue growing. Everyone can log on, stay updated and communicate with each other across the business.
The Solution
Honest Burgers proved that if people are given the right platforms and opportunities, they will champion an organisation’s culture and drive effective internal communications without it having to come from the top down. Genuine workplace culture comes from the people who are at the coalface, living out the day-to-day of an organisation’s reality and Honest has found a way of celebrating theirs online
Exercise
Whiteboard, Post-it notes and pens
Project Studies
The key objective of the course is to develop a process for managing change driven by the implementation of technology. To do this, the course addresses the skills required for each process step and describes case studies of implementing that step with good and bad examples.
We have broken the course into four phases, each covering several workshops that provide the skills and knowledge to complete that phase.
The project study will enable you to practically apply what you have learned in each workshop and build outputs within each phase that embed the process in your organization.
The phases are;
• Phase 1 – workshops 1 to 4. During this phase, the target is to enable you to review the technological landscape related to your business, what business issue you believe needs to be tackled to satisfy customers, operations and sustainability.
• Phase 2 – workshops 5, 6 and 7. During this phase, we develop your skills in processes, including business process models, process analysis, process improvement and subsequent automation. Managing processes with appropriate measures and suitable targets. We are building the change agenda ready to support the technology and change plan creation.
• Phase 3 – workshops 8 to 10. During this phase, we are applying your new skills to define a technology project ready to be implemented. Covering key process steps such as technology selection, the business case and determining the KPIs
• Phase 4 – Workshops 11 and 12. During this phase, you will build and implement a project plan and demonstrate your leadership skills.
Table of phases 1-4 and outcomes
Reviewing what you need to do for project study in phase 1, we will tackle this workshop by workshop. Workshop 2 covers the part of the overall process that supports the selection of the correct technology and starts be exploring the use of horizon scanning to establish the long-term risks to the business from societal changes, legislation, technology, politics and the environment. It discusses how to set up research sources and partnerships with research establishments. It then moves on to strategically aligning this information, bringing together objectives, KPIs and the future operating model. Using the strategic criteria defined in this process to evaluate the project portfolio. The workshop moves on to concept testing and tools such as pretotyping and Minimum Viable Products MVPs.
This is followed with the selection of technology and how to ensure the focus is on the critical processes and the management of supplier offerings and their objective analysis. The workshop then discusses delivery capability from project initiation to handover and absorption into business as usual. The final sections of the workshop cover risk and benefit management and communications.
You must perform the following activities based on workshop 2 to do this work.
• Your initial research into competition, customers and technology for the project study associated with workshop1 will have given you an impression of the coherence and quality of the information available for decision-making. Following workshop 2, think about recommendations for change which could cover process redesign and network development with research institutes such as Universities, Trade Bodies and Professional organisations. Produce a change agenda to discuss with colleagues, document the consensus outcome in the phase 1 workbook, and prepare a presentation for C suite.
• Research and document the company’s project portfolio working with colleagues to understand the strategic projects supported by the board and the tactical ones being implemented at the departmental level. Produce a single portfolio including the project titles, description, target improvement, cost and benefit by working with colleagues again and this information to the phase 1 workbook. If all the data is unavailable during the study period, record it as unavailable.
• Next, from the documented business strategy, abstract the criteria you believe should be used to define strategic alignment, for example, cost reduction, customer experience, productivity, additional revenue or product/service extension. Discuss with colleagues and document the finalised criteria in the phase 1 workbook and then add a weighting out of one hundred or ten to relate the relative importance of each criteria to each other.
• Add these to the project portfolio in the workbook and score. Review the outcomes and discuss how the priorities within the portfolio might be managed. Prepare a C-suite presentation based on the results and any recommended changes. Consider whether the projects conflict or are purely change-related or genuinely transformational.
• Select a project from the project portfolio and develop a selection framework; identify up to 5 suppliers and conduct desk research so that you can populate the selection framework and be able to identify the top 2 suppliers for further investigation. Conduct assessment interviews on the core requirements and demonstrations to assess such as the user interface and navigation. The core requirements need to be defined in use cases.
• Next undertake a Risk Assessment bringing forward issues/risk from. Horizon scanning and those arising from the technology selection exercise. Assess the present risk management system; and make any adjustments to the governance framework, classifications and scoring. Apply the elements of the risk management system to the risks identified.
• To conduct benefits management, review the future vision of project chosen in terms of business capabilities, and conduct a back-to-front analysis to align benefits, project functionalities and changes; develop a change log and benefits monitoring framework.
• Finally review the communication skills of the project team and the present standards of internal communication and identify any changes required and actions to improve it such as training; build a communication plan or the project.
Program Benefits
Management
- Strategic evaluation
- Analytical capability
- Decision toolkits
- Scenario thinking
- Change agency
- Problem-solving culture
- Empowered leadership
- Benefits realisation
- Quantifiable risks
- Sustainability focus
Information Technology
- Digital delivery
- Strategic alignment
- Task automation
- Project management
- Vendor integration
- Business ownership
- Functionality focus
- Controlled implementation
- Technology suitability
- Vendor matching
Operations
- Operational alignment
- Process improvement
- Streamlining operations
- Change capability
- Business models
- Digital attitude
- Leveraged advantage
- End-to-end processing
- KPI implementation
- Reducing costs
Client Telephone Conference (CTC)
If you have any questions or if you would like to arrange a Client Telephone Conference (CTC) to discuss this particular Unique Consulting Service Proposition (UCSP) in more detail, please CLICK HERE.