Stand and deliver

Delivering major transformational change continues to be perhaps the greatest challenge for both public- and private-sector organisations. While project and programme management are now core skills across the industry, still, all too often, there are reports in the press, at parliamentary select committees and in shareholder meetings, of programmes that have spectacularly under-delivered.

However much we go through the right motions, it still proves difficult to deliver the outcomes and meet expectations. We are getting much better at delivering project outputs – to specification, time and budget – but often these outputs don’t generate the level of benefit expected. Frequently, the objective sounds simple – for example, to improve patient waiting times, reduce crime or make trains run to schedule. The environments in which these changes must be made are very complex, however, and there is a great number of interacting components. It is this complexity that is the nub of the problem. We just do not understand the workings of the environment well enough to design the portfolio of projects that will drive through the changes we desire.

If we are to understand the environment better, we need to take a holistic approach to understanding the system within which we are seeking to deliver change. What do we mean by ‘system’ in this context? The relevant system comprises all the interacting factors that influence the result we desire. These factors, and the linkages between them, frequently cut across many traditional planning boundaries – for example, across organisations, departments and agencies. The system will probably include elements that may feel, at first glance, far removed from the problem that is being addressed.

Five common pitfalls

Without having a better understanding of the systems that we are dealing with, we typically stumble upon one or more of five common pitfalls. These are:

1. We adopt the scattergun approach to solutions
With a lack of clarity on the true drivers of performance, we think up lots of bright ideas about what might work. We have no way of being certain that these ideas will lead to the required outcome, or even contribute towards it, however. The result is a scattergun of unproven ideas and poor resource allocation.

2. We allow ourselves to be distracted by the fireworks
One step on, these bright ideas are implemented, leading to a plethora of initiatives launched most often in isolation, which creates a great deal of activity and noise – like fireworks – while delivering inevitably little in the way of consistent results. Where results are delivered, it is impossible to attribute them reliably to a particular cause or set of causes, and so improvement is unsustainable.

3. We inadvertently commission projects that contradict each other
Projects with implications that are not well understood are bundled into the change programme and turn out to clash and wipe out potential benefits. This results either from failing to foresee the potential for different initiatives to impact on our objectives, or from failure to convince others of the impact of these conflicts, since there is no objective means of assessing and communicating the implications. 

4. We run smack into 'invisible brick walls' among stakeholders 
Multiple interfaces between different departments and user communities, each with their own agenda and often conflicting priorities, lead to barriers to delivery that are frequently unanticipated. Without any foresight of these barriers, there is no way to undertake the necessary effort to win different parties around to your point of view. 

5. We fail to address ways of working 
Benefits do not typically result directly from tangible investments, but instead from obtaining real changes to the way people work. This requires people to be motivated to do things differently. Without the right level of engagement, commitment and motivation, failure is inevitable. It is much more difficult to persuade others of the necessity to invest in the ‘soft side’ than it is to invest in tangible assets, especially without a persuasive means of making the case for that change.

How to embed systems thinking

When we try to deliver this scale of change without understanding the system, it is rather like going to the races and betting the house on a hot tip from a friend. At best, it is an informed guess – at worst, there is an ulterior motive to the advice. We are effectively experimenting with the system in real time and waiting, sometimes years, to know whether we’ve got it right.

A framework for understanding the workings of the system can enable us to ensure that we get the maximum return on the bet we make with the resources available to us. It enables us to compare the impact of different combinations of initiatives in a much more objective manner. By looking at how different combinations impact on the system, we get a more robust understanding of the likely outcome and the level of uncertainty.

This changes our view of the portfolio definition process, from being a collection of individual assessments – ‘If this initiative has a positive impact, it is a good thing’ – to being a holistic understanding of how the initiatives interact to influence the overall outcome. It also enables us to test the sensitivity of our portfolio of initiatives to changes in our assumptions. Often, the portfolio that is initially thought to deliver the greatest return is seen to be highly sensitive to our planning assumptions and is actually too high-risk. Success comes from balancing the projected returns against the level of risk – too often, we are overly optimistic about our assumptions and do not understand the sensitivity of results to potential changes, risks and unknowns.

A range of options is available to exploit the systems thinking technique to improve programme design and delivery. The most appropriate will depend on a number of factors, including the: