How to See the Forest for the Trees in Transformation
Embarking on that transformation adventure, they were sure we were going to beat the odds. “Seven out of ten transformations fail? They didn’t have the executive sponsorship we have, or KPIs mapped to each workstream within the two-year roadmap. We even have organizational change management engaged from the very beginning. We’ve got this.” It all seemed so clear.
And then twelve months in, they’d made progress, but it simply didn’t feel like enough.
Each workstream was managing their deliverables close to expected timelines, but they kept finding dependencies, rehashing decisions, adding a little bit of scope here and there, and the overall program felt shaky. Worse, it wasn’t clear who could right the ship – or how.
Does this scenario seem familiar to anyone else?
Transformation is a Different Game than Business-as-Usual
The odds of transformation success make more sense with the realization of an important aspect of transformation compared with the project portfolio stewarded on business-as-usual work.
In more typical portfolios, projects have some dependencies, often around topics like subject matter expert time and data flows. This leaves most of the levers in hand to drive each project to successful conclusion, without engaging a lot of extra stakeholders.
In business transformation, not only do we need each project to succeed; we need the entire program to deliver. And there are often a lot of dependencies across workstreams, as a technology decision impacts future state business processes and organizational design sets the stage for what skillsets we can bring to bear toward those processes.
Business transformation is hard work, there’s no getting around it.
So, we wanted to share some techniques we've used to see the forest for the trees on major programs, and ultimately to drive the transformational success we're after.
Techniques to Track Overall Success on a Transformation Program
While none is a silver bullet, and you will still need to navigate challenges with creativity and courage, incorporating some of these techniques into your transformation program will help you see the big picture.
Connect the dots for various stakeholders by communicating goals, scope, timelines, and major developments intuitively and proactively. You’ll likely have a great start at this in the transformation roadmap, goals, KPIs, stakeholders, and the like. The trick will be keeping stakeholders across the program – and those in your organization keeping operations going – in the loop as time goes on.
The goal isn’t documentation for its own sake, but you will want to use a combination of discussions and documentation to keep relevant folks informed of things like:
Why are we doing this? What’s in it for me? our organization? our customers?
What are we doing? Describe the program and illustrate the boundaries of what you are (and aren’t) doing with overarching diagrams and supporting materials.
Where are we in the timeline? Are we tracking to expectations? If not, what are we doing about it?
Major developments like decisions, risks, issues, and constraints
Generate status reporting based on efforts you’re already taking to track work progress. It’s easy to have a rosy view of how things are when we’re marking down progress based on what comes to mind. But when status is automatically tied to work tracking (in the tool used for your backlog, development, and testing, for instance), it’s more difficult to highlight progress and ignore challenges.
This could be a dashboard showing the roll-up of progress across all workstreams. It could be a view of specific milestones that program leadership has deemed crucial. It could even be a single score for program health based on agreed-upon weightings of individual factors. The most important part is for true progress to be the source information, rather than someone’s approximation of progress.
Bonus points if you’ve already incorporated feedback on team collaboration and/or customer engagement into your status reporting. (More on how to do that here.)
Mind the gaps. As we’ve already mentioned, business transformation programs typically have a lot of dependencies across workstreams. One group will need design details from another to develop a downstream application. Those developing reports and dashboards will need to understand data sources and how end-users expect to base decision-making on the insights gained.
We could keep going, but you get the idea. Track dependencies more closely than you’d expect for business-as-usual project work – and know that it’s worth the effort to include them in the tracking we mentioned above so they’re automatically incorporated into the overall understanding of progress.
Also get clear on roles and responsibilities, particularly around handoffs and information-sharing, to make the most of everyone’s time and talents.
Define overall program accountability and give them the resources to succeed. It might seem indulgent to have a program manager or release train engineer overseeing all the project managers or scrum masters, but we hope with all this talk of dependencies and handoffs that you’ll see the value.
Essentially, we’re aiming for one person, or a small team, to call to get information about the program, and to make sure the program has the support it needs. Program leadership needs to partner with the executive sponsor to clear roadblocks for, troubleshoot challenges with, and direct resources to the transformation effort.
Welcome and heed various perspectives. The longer we’re involved in an effort, the less perspective we have. So, we typically set up several avenues for gaining various perspectives in a transformation effort.
First, embrace retrospectives and make them count. These shouldn’t just be another rhythm in the development calendar; they’re an opportunity to incorporate voices from throughout the program. Make sure to foster trust and mutual respect, so that all voices and ideas are welcome in these sessions. And don’t be afraid of silence in an open forum or experimenting with various means of asking for feedback – they’re part of the process!
We also love to create change champion networks, including both formal and informal influencers within the organization equipped and empowered to be the front lines of organizational change. Having both regular touchpoints with champions and an open door to their input will help you keep a pulse on sentiments throughout the organization, to enrich more formal survey methods.
One final note on this topic, we recommend engaging outside perspective (for instance, a member of the executive team that isn’t involved in the everyday aspects of the program) to test potential decisions and messaging – and listen to their feedback instead of brushing it aside. It can be easy to wonder why people just don’t understand… after you’ve had months to learn and internalize the concepts. A sanity check with a trusted, yet not-closely-involved, colleague can reveal blind spots to be aware of.
Some Encouragement in Conclusion
We’ll say it again: business transformation is hard work. But the potential payoff – in compelling offerings, new capabilities, and resilience – is large and very possible. We’ve worked with clients to deliver actionable insights to sales and field service teams, allowing them to make the best next move in the moment. We’ve provided both targeted training assistance and overarching organizational design coaching to support teams on their journey to greater effectiveness.
The necessary courage, discipline, perseverance, and top-notch teamwork to set your organization up for ongoing success are within grasp. If the FlexPoint team can be of help in achieving your business transformation goals – no matter where are you along the path – please reach out to us at info@flexpointconsulting.com.
