Spreading the word

Programmes, real programmes that deliver new capability and whose success is measured in delivered change, are not only difficult, they are genuinely complex. Predicting organisational behaviour when it is undertaking a transformational programme is hard.

Such programmes span organisational boundaries, which in itself demands a deep understanding of, and empathy for, the organisational context. To then threaten and change these very boundaries introduces a completely new dimension of intricacy.

Every experienced programme manager knows that at the early stages of a programme (and that often means up to halfway through!) determining exactly what is within the programme, and what is not, changes dynamically. The boundary between the programme and the business is highly permeable, and, unlike projects, there is no point at which it is safe to cry “Enough!” and seal the boundary shut.

When considered from the perspective of managing boundaries, it is easy to see that the key activities during programme initiation fall into five categories:

(1) Defining and shaping the programme boundary – determining the agenda for change

(2) Creating legitimacy for the programme – allowing it to gather a momentum for change

(3) Information ‘scouting’ and negotiation – establishing ‘allies’ for the change

(4) Ensuring continuity – compelling, committed energy and momentum for change to keep things going

(5) Isolating programme activities guarding the programme’s new approaches as they are vulnerable to early ‘aggression’ from established ways of working.

Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point, a must-read for programme managers, describes the genesis of an epidemic, and there are some striking similarities to the experience of starting up a successful programme. During the early infection phase, protective barriers – political boundaries if you like – contain it. To become an unstoppable epidemic – to infect the body politic – it has to convert or subvert resistance. It can only spread if it can overcome the immune system that acts to inhibit its influence.

To reach the ‘tipping point’ there need to be three agents and two agencies:

Three agents: 

• a ‘connector’ who links groups together, who champions the cause or who acts like an ambassador,
• a ‘maven’ who collects ‘odds and ends’ of information and who can ‘negotiate’ between parties, and 
• a ‘salesman’ who can overcome objections and finds a value or benefit for all, and who may supplant reason with passion.

These three agents need, in addition, these agencies:

Two agencies:

• a ‘stickiness’ factor – something that attracts or compels attention, and 
• a supportive environment that nurtures the fledgling state.

As I said, interesting parallels. I wonder if that’s why so many successful programmes have three core roles, why these roles focus not on method but on summarising and interpreting information, deciding who gets to know what, when, presenting the vision, and in so doing, create the conditions for persistent organisational change.

Probably not – surely it’s just down to how well you know MSP. My thanks to P. Lehtonen & M. Martinsuo for their insights in this area.