Thank you to all those who attended our most recent BTN event, Measuring Change, hosted by Annapurna recruitment and Michel Looyens, VP Business Transformation at Coca-Cola Enterprises. These are the thoughts taken from that event held at the Haymarket Hotel on Thursday 19th September 2013.
Applying the correct tools and techniques is essential to running a successful business transformation. However, the level of change will determine which practices will be required and to what extent. But how does a change professional plan for such complexity?
It is important that project teams firstly assess what success will look like for their project and how that success will be measured. Without firstly sitting down and outlining the project in the simplest terms, it is not easy to define what is successful in terms of the project vision.
Having outlined the basic requirements of the project It is then important to look to the business case and use key metrics to define and measure the project value once it has reached the implementation stage. These keys metrics should be highly correlated to the changes driven by the project, easy and cost effective to measure on a regular basis and either financial or non-financial.
It is essential to define these success measures early on in the process as to ensure that projects do not pass Business Case approval without having had their KBI’s defined.
While it is not always easy to quickly define successful measures, it is an essential element to a successful change programme. Here, 5 key steps to selecting successful measures have been outlined. They are as follows:
1: Define the Key Metrics
2: Set the target
3: Define frequency of monitoring
4: Define clear rules for assessing KBIs status
5: Define accountability
However, it is not enough simply to highlight the above as important, it is also critical to define a relevant project timeline and milestones for each initiative. At an absolute minimum the timeline should reflect tollgate 1-5 but within one or more tollgates. Of course, within that space, there may be other key milestones under which the project timeline can be managed and achieved.
Of course, the above paragraph represents the emphasis on project management, an important and integral step in any change programme. Yet within that setting, it is important that change professionals do not lose sight of value management, equally integral to any successful project. Every initiative must define and approve its benefits. These can be represented in qualitative or quantitative form but should be separable and measurable from other projects and business as usual. Each initiative is also aligned to the latest approved business case at any given time and should not be changed without an official re-approval.
The main question around selecting the tools fit for purpose in a change programme addresses the complexity of any transformation programme and the multifaceted approach to success. What is clear is that there is no one size fits all model, business change professionals must consider the needs of their organisation and apply processes that are largely consistent, yet allow for individual complexity.
All of our discussions are held under ‘Chatham House Rules’, hence this summary only outlines the discussion, omitting specific company details, individuals and experiences.
Many thanks to Michel from the BTN Committee.
