Case study: Bringing the pieces together
Our client was pursuing a multi-year implementation of a target operating model. Their teams had launched a portfolio of change projects with enthusiasm. Six months later, some projects had progressed well while others had slowed. We were asked to recommend solutions.
What we initially found was unsurprising: projects with clear goals, scope and delivery plans were on track; those without were not; and projects were competing for the same resources.
More critically, projects were managed and executed separately. Dependencies between projects were not well understood, and there was minimal reporting on progress towards strategic benefits overall. The consequence was a management team ill-equipped to assess urgency of issues and broker solutions. To address this, we:
- Integrated critical information from each project into a global view
- Galvanized leadership by clarifying “who owns what”:
- Authority and accountability for each operating model component and transformation benefit
- Sponsorship for, and leadership of, each improvement project
- Expressed inter-dependencies among projects for well-informed project change control
- Filled gaps in project definition and in holistic progress reporting
The implementation program accelerated with stronger governance in place. A key learning for our client was that their governance of strategic initiatives needed to evolve together with their operating model. Previously as a smaller business, they got the job done with direct chains of command and informal networks; with growth, they are balancing autonomy, collaboration and control in new ways.
