What’s the value

Stakeholders are key individuals involved in the execution and assessment of successful change. They are the driving political force behind change initiatives, projects and programmes. Yet, they are often overlooked by project managers.

The success and failure of projects is determined by the stakeholders’ perception of the projects’ outcomes. Many project failures stem from lack of genuine involvement or a failure to identify them at all. It is therefore essential to ensure comprehensive identification with analysis of needs and then the execution of management actions to ensure they contribute to project success.

Political collaboration creates a positive environment in which communication channels are kept open and free from distortions created by deliberate misunderstanding, the focus is progressive and future-oriented not reactive and putting out local ‘fires’.

Why is it valid

A stakeholder engagement plan is distinct from any other managed interaction that takes place with individuals as a consequence of executing the general project plan. An understanding of the political environment; who is a zealot, an ally, a waverer, and who an opponent, allows more effective management of scarce communication resources and matches the interaction with the stakeholder, leading to achieving a greater level of planned outcomes.

What you will experience

Using a suite of analytical and planning mechanisms, CITI clearly sets out the political landscape within which the project operates. Stakeholders as named individuals are clearly identified, their WIIFM established and the sources of power and political relationships understood in order to carry out appropriate strategies for true engagement. RACI models are also used to confirm governance structures and communication plans but stakeholder identification, planning and engagement are treated as a discrete topic.

How you might start

The known stakeholder environment will be described and populated by named individuals. The information required for analysing the needs (WIIFM) is identified and individuals are assigned to collect the necessary data. Additionally, a series of structured discussions will take place with known individuals to confirm details necessary for planning their optimal engagement.

Example models, methods & tools used

CITI models & methods
Structured interviews
Facilitated workshops

Clients we have helped realise this value

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What’s the value

Knowing the state of change readiness prepares the change leaders, change managers and change agents for the levels and types of acceptance and resistance they will encounter – offering them an opportunity to deploy the most appropriate tools and techniques, time and sequence the communication and change events better, and so reduce the cost and time taken to achieve a planned change.

Why is it valid

Successful implementation of change programmes is dependent on the readiness of the people, processes and systems of the organisation. Assessing readiness usefully precedes any major change initiative. Research has demonstrated in many studies the chances of success of a change initiative is influenced by knowing what the readiness of the organisation is, widely communicating the reasons why it the change is beneficial, and recognising before the event the likely sources and reasons for resistance.

What you will experience

The company receives a short, high impact consultancy providing a deep analysis of the change readiness of the organisation and its staff. The individuals are exposed to a series of self-assessment and 180 degree evaluations. These are then interpreted, benchmarked and used as evidence in a series of feedback sessions to senior management and change teams.

How you might start

When the change is likely to trigger emotional responses, when the change affects a large number of individuals, or crosses several internal organisational boundaries – there is a strong case for requesting a change readiness assessment.

Example models, methods & tools used

Change readiness assessments
Change management maturity model

Clients we have helped realise this value

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What’s the value

Many projects do not go according to plan and may cause significant concern to management about the best approach to recover or rescue the situation. Health checks, using a set of project benchmarks, compare actual and expected project status in order to identify root causes and remedial actions needed to make the project safe.
It is appropriate to conduct one of the three types of health check:

1. Type 1 checks whether the authority to proceed is soundly based on an accurate assessment of the state of the project;
2. Type 2 checks whether the objectives and benefits case remain viable and desirable;
3. Type 3 is more appropriate when it is suspected that the project is either in an irrecoverable position, or rapidly approaching one.

Why is it valid

CITI have developed benchmarks and metrics for a wide variety of project states, from ‘healthy but off-track’ to ’seriously moribund’. It uses these to evaluate projects and to recommend management actions to recover projects that are in flight.

What you will experience

Sponsors, key stakeholders and project managers are interviewed, often one-on-one or in small groups. Their perceptions of the project are calibrated against the business case, plans and status reports, and with perceived and actual project performance. All this information is analysed against benchmarks developed by CITI. Findings and recommendations are presented back clearly and succinctly to the management team.

The clarity and insights gained when carrying out this process give the governance group direction and confidence in their next steps and an understanding of the outcomes to be expected as a consequence of actions taken.

How you might start

When a member of the governance team, whether sponsor, key stakeholder or project manager becomes concerned about the status of the project, it is a good idea to bring in an independent review to identify the causes and establish an objective view of what, if anything, needs to be done. CITI send in a highly experienced project practitioner to agree the purpose, establish terms of reference, engage with project stakeholders, and initiate the health check.

Example models, methods & tools used

Mission model
Stakeholder engagement models
Business cases

Clients we have helped realise this value

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What’s the value

Effective innovation deployment improves an organisation’s capability (enhances its processes and technologies) to implement innovative improvements that add value to their customers and increase their competitiveness in their chosen markets.

Why is it valid

Innovation is seen by all organisations across all sectors as an imperative to enhance their competitiveness in the market place. Barriers to the adoption of innovative ideas within organisations include reluctance and resistance to changing the organisational culture; difficulty in measuring impact and value from introducing the chosen innovations, as well as difficulty of middle and senior management to translate the planned improvements in to practice.

What you will experience

The organisation’s innovation processes are examined, from need identification and idea generation, to the deployment of selected innovations, and its adoption; with particular emphasis on the implementation of the innovation management process.

Based on the findings of the innovation audit assessment, CITI will suggest and implement specific changes to the organisational innovation processes, taking into account all aspects of the innovation ecosystem within the organisation including its culture, industry sector, competitive environment, product/service portfolio, strategic intent, and organisational core competencies and capabilities.

How you might start

CITI is a leader in innovation assessment interventions. They can last for up to three months depending on the size of the organisation and the complexity of its product or service, and industry sector. It is not a continuous engagement, but rather three to four high intensity, high throughput interventions designed to provide maximum impact without disrupting the organisation’s performance.

Example models, methods & tools used

Innovation audits
Open innovation
Innovation Pentathlon
SIPP

Clients we have used this method for

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Knowledge management programme

What’s the value

Our knowledge management programme improves performance, productivity and competitiveness by reducing time to competence, increasing capacity for innovation, and enhancing opportunity capturing.

Knowledge management systems provide a managed environment in which expertise and experience are associated with a value, and it is the deployment of knowledge not its storage which is the focus of management.

Why is it valid

Organisations stores vast quantities of data and information in its corporate memory, some of it physical storage such paper and electronic documents and files, some in its processes and more in the minds and memories of its staff members.

Knowledge management moves the focus away for ownership to knowledge about what is known, and how to collaborate, aggregate and build so as to create value from knowledge.

Experience and research has confirmed that up to a fifth of an organisations time is spent on storing data and retrieving data, that significant effort is wasted in recreating data that is already owned but not retrieved, and repetitive errors are a major source of avoidable costs – all sure signs of weak knowledge management disciplines.

Perhaps more interesting is the evidence that in environments dependent on external resource, where there is a need to quickly align diverse work practices, good knowledge management makes the acquisition and assimilation of new expertise faster and more effective.

What you will experience

Using an approach that has been very successful in both the private sector and in major government departments, CITI sets up a programme that delivers changes to processes, systems and people. The focus of the programme is to maximise performance through better access to relevant information; provide competitive advantage by connecting people and information; and avoid wasteful and repetitive rework caused by lack of timely data.

The combination of the deliverables establishes a working environment where knowledge-sharing becomes embedded in the culture. Data is tagged, information is valued, and personal and knowledge networks enables by cultural and IT-backed processes, with mechanism for renewal and refreshment built in.

How you might start

Organisations will identify and map current organisational knowledge management programme (what is important, where it resides, and how to access it). They will create and affirm a vision for the new way of working and will then create a programme of change and a target operating model (TOM), in order to move to the new knowledge management way of working. For this to become truly embedded, the organisation’s readiness to change is assessed in order to identify appropriate supporting practices and incentives.

Example models, methods & tools used

Knowledge management programme readiness tool
Programme toolkit (including SIPP)
CoPs
Gamification

Clients we have used this method for

Further reading

Bakr Zade is our resident knowledge management programme expert, you can read more here:
http://www.citi.co.uk/bakr-zade-principal-consultant/

Your thoughts?

What are your thoughts – do you agree with our approach on knowledge management programme, or do the symptoms sound like the ones you are experiencing in your organisation? We would love to hear from you either by adding a comment at the bottom of the page or by emailing one of our consultants at consultants@citi.co.uk – or call +44(0)1908 283610

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What’s the value

An effective PMO provides the organisation with a single view of its project portfolio, its project capability and capacity. It provides senior management with a view of how its investment is being managed, and the programme and project management community with a source of intelligence about the conduct of project processes and delivery.

Though projects are transient structures and are difficult for Boards to deal with, by implementing a PMO this problem is reduced, with typical departmental reporting to the Board once again being available.

Why is it valid

The steady and strong rise of PMOs in organisations across all sectors of business and government is a powerful demonstration of the value of PMOs. However, many organisations have also seen the steady erosion of value from their investment in PMOs as their role has been reduced to low level admin, which arises whenever the PMO fails to address the real needs of its different stakeholder groups.

What you will experience

The work begins by working with the demand side (the senior managers) and the supply side (the project managers) to establish what the need is, and how it can be satisfied. The PMO is then designed to deliver those things rather than developing a PMO ‘out of the box’ – an approach that satisfies few of an organisation’s requirements.

Techniques and tools, practices and procedures and then customised to deliver the design, PMO staff are profiled and developed to build their capability so as to deliver to the programme and project management communities expectations.

How you might start

A common approach is for CITI to put in a small team to establish the PMO design and to start gaining control of the project portfolio in terms of reporting against benchmark values. While this is going on a credibility is being built the in-house team is brought in and shadowed until they are confidently running the PMO, and the CITI team act as experts and coaches in the background.

Example models, methods & tools used

PMO benchmark analysis profiling tools
PMO audit
Facilitated workshops
PMO fast start kits

Clients we have used this method for

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What’s the value

Investments in change are inherently speculative; we can’t be sure of their success. There is a risk to their ‘desirability’; the objectives may become invalid or the outcomes may become less valued. There is also a risk to the ‘do-ability’; the cost and risk of undertaking the initiative may outweigh the value position to the extent it represents a poor investment.
To protect against this an essential part of governance is to validate and confirm that an initiative is both desirable and doable before and during delivery. This assures the host organisation and sponsor that the initiative can achieve its objective and associated benefits. It also affirms that the objective remains valid and desirable. The practice of this principle, which should be applied to programmes, projects and work packages, is called ‘assurance’.
Assurance thus enables reduced cost of failure through earlier recognition and closure of unviable initiatives. Increased confidence in the viability and probability of success of change initiatives. Higher degrees of stability in scope and associated costs and projections. Reduced levels of portfolio and business risk.

Why is it valid

Over the past 25 years CITI have developed a robust assurance approach that gives a clear ‘line of sight’ of the true state of play, and a set of indicators as to what management actions are necessary to maintain or reset the direction. Such powerful analytical tools as the mission model, sources of complexity, and RACI models establish a prognosis for change initiatives ranging from large-scale corporate programmes through to a discrete work-packages.
The outcome is a higher degree of confidence that the right questions are being answered appropriately at the correct points in the lifecycle; consequently a commensurate level of over-sight is being provided to the change initiatives in light of their benefits, costs and risks.

What you will experience

Assurance involves an expert project practitioner, equipped with benchmarks and tools assessing the conduct of PPM processes and governance as carried out by the sponsor and the governance board, the project manager and the project team. It looks at project and programme environmental factors, the quality of decisions made, and the evidence that underpins the authority-to-proceed decisions.
The approach and depth adopted reflects the source and level of concern and the consequences of inappropriate governance actions on the organisation; in short, the cost of failure. Though it is generally the case that assurance is best received from an obviously independent provider, CITI takes considerable effort to embed good assurance practices and procedures into the PPMC of the organisations it works with – as the improvement in performance is usually very marked.

How you might start

Prevention being better than a cure, it is often the case that organisations call us to discuss assurance prior to commencing a particularly significant or risky project or programme. The first step is to analyse the sources of complexity, and review the proposed governance structure and the lifecycles adopted. Clear RACIs are established and lessons learned and benchmark values from other organisations set out as part of the de-risking process.
Other organisations call when they either are, or they suspect that they are, in trouble. They are looking for ways to establish the extent of the problem and proven ways of recovering or rescuing the initiative based on evidence of success elsewhere. The requestors are either the sponsor, a senior governance board, and sometimes the project or programme manager.

Example models, methods & tools used

Mission Model Analysis
RACI analysis
PCAT
Health checks
Surgeries.

Clients we have helped realise this value

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What’s the value

Organisations make selections between options on how best to invest their money, with choices theoretically directed by making optimum decisions by maximising return – of either money invested or strategic intent converted into operation reality. Realising benefits is the achievement of real value returned by focusing effort, activities, deliverables and governance on making positive changes in the way an organisation perfromas.

Why is it valid

Since the 1950’s benefits management has gradually matured into a discipline with a number of powerful tools to support management in establishing ‘line of sight’ between its strategic need and its delivered capability. There exists a ‘knowing-doing’ gap however, with good practices known but rarely applied effectively. It has been proved that given the right direction and impetus; this can be eliminated with governance focusing and gaining traction on the recovery of value from planned change.

What you will experience

The strategy of the company and the values associated with its deployment are set out, the information derived from document analysis, analysis of past and current expenditure, structured reviews of the corporate portfolio, and the views of policy makers and decision makers. This is collected, rationalised and mapped from strategic need to operational products and services – together with the practices and processes in use, needing to change, and those missing. With this ‘clear line of sight’ from Board intent to project deliverable, the design and implementation of the necessary projects and change initiatives is worked through with the PPMC, and where appropriate, with the portfolio and PMO management groups.

How you might start

Where frustration has been expressed by the senior management team that the current project portfolios are not delivering to their vision – there is a good case to invest in better benefit realisation processes. Lack of ‘lines of sight’ causes concern in governance groups and often leads to wasted expenditure – so reviewing the current set business cases and comparing them with the declared strategy can often expose a fault line that can be remedied by focusing on value delivered.

Example models, methods & tools used

BIP

Clients we have helped realise this value

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What’s the value

Structuring projects enables business sponsors and stakeholders and project delivery professionals to gain clear understanding and agreement around the project from the outset. This reduces the level re-work reducing the likelihood of cost and time overruns. However, be aware of White elephants syndrome.

Why is it valid

Most projects that fail can trace their failure back to difficulties at their very beginning: a lack of shared vision of the project’s outcomes, most often based on misconceptions about what the business wants to achieve, and how this can be practically implemented.

The experience of our clients reveals that around 40% of project work carried out is in fact re-work: correcting mistaken assumptions – restructuring projects that are already ‘in flight’. This is an expensive process, wasteful of time and resources, detrimental to morale, and damaging to relationships between project teams and the businesses they serve.

In order for projects to successfully deliver change, it is essential to focus them with rigour and insight on the desired outcomes to be achieved, and the practicalities of delivering those desired outcomes.

Project structuring builds strong project foundations, builds confidence and encourages collaborative working between the project team and the business stakeholders.

What you will experience

Using an approach that has been very successful for more than two decades with our clients, CITI facilitates focused discussions around the key drivers of the project: problem, objective, critical success factors, deliverables, risks, business impacts and benefits. The aim is to uncover ambiguity and misalignment of perspectives around direction and priorities for the project. By providing a mechanism for positive and insightful challenge to the project, sponsors, business stakeholders and project teams build a clearer (shared) picture of the strategy and appropriate tactics to drive the project forward.

How you might start

Business and project teams begin with what has already been written to describe the project terms of reference.

Working with CITI, the project teams and the business dissect these ideas using a powerful modelling tool for the project, which helps articulate not only the desired outcomes, but how they can be achieved. Through a series of structured challenges, any inconsistencies and misunderstanding are uncovered, and clarity is achieved.

Project structuring results in the establishment of positive working relationships between business and project professionals from the outset of the project, and provides a powerful ‘compass’ for guiding management of the project journey.

Example models, methods & tools used

Mission Model
CSFs
BIP
Stakeholder engagement toolset

Clients we have helped realise this value

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Sustaining and management of change

What’s the value

Making planned change ‘stick’ often proves harder than delivering the change. Embedding is the best way of getting back the investment made in a change initiative. Achieving embedded change means getting the stakeholders, the change managers and change agents to focus on creating the environment that makes the transition from new to business-as-usual compelling.

Why is it valid

The evidence against overly directed change – management of change driven from the top – as an effective model is overwhelming, as is the absolute necessity for there to be senior commitment to the change for it to work. The resolution of these two apparently contrary drives is to find ways of combining the organisational and individual drivers for management of change and making them synergetic rather than opposing giving rise to organisation-level change that encompasses the changes individuals make as they adjust their coping routines.

What you will experience

CITI approaches sustainability in two ways:

1. CITI ensures that people have the licence to do what needs to be done to make the change a reality in their working lives. The differing ‘leadership’ levels get supporting tools and are equipped with transitioning techniques. Change leaders, change managers and change agents are reminded of their success criteria and given ways to enact and measure them.
2. CITI develops from the ‘make it wanted’ phase of the change initiative a compelling story which is used to remind the organisation and the staff involved what good looks like and why what is happening is happening. The energy released is used to eradicate old unwanted behaviours and reinforce the new.

CITI absorbs much of the stress and tensions in transferring change into operations. Creating compelling stories, aligning the organisation and individual, and assisting personal change, all support the sustainability of the change.

How you might start

The trigger for engaging CITI is usually that the planning only includes implementation – the handover and warranty period – and there is no credible benefits realisation plan. In these circumstances the sustainability of change management within the organisation has become disassociated with personal or individual change mechanics and the projects objectives are likely to missed.

Example models, methods & tools used

OAFR: Observe – Act– Feedback – Reflect model
Management of change diamond
Storytelling

Clients we have helped realise this value

Further reading

We also discuss business transformation programmes here:
http://www.citi.co.uk/how-do-i-learn-more-about-change-management/

Your thoughts?

What are your thoughts – do you agree with our approach, or do the symptoms sound like the ones you are experiencing in your organisation? We would love to hear from you either by adding a comment at the bottom of the page or by emailing one of our consultants at consultants@citi.co.uk – or call +44(0)1908 283610

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