Monitoring the Impact of Disruptions is Key to Delivery Excellence

About the Program

During a $300M Transformation Initiative, a large telecommunications client discovered no proper framework was established to guide leadership and the program team towards a successful outcome. Ongoing external and internal disruptions challenged the organisation to deliver this strategic portfolio.

Continuous Monitoring of the Health of Key Areas Led to a Successful Delivery of the Project  

Full-Time Initiative Owner

Team Competency

Team Engagement

Team Behaviours and Values

Cross Function Collaboration

Speed to Market​ 

Program Challenges

Limited Availability of Initiative Owner

Delays in decision making caused progress delays which impacted team morale and performance.

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Differing Opinions on What Success Looks Like

Lack of a shared understanding of the key problems to solve caused confusion on overall digital and partnership strategy, resulting in the inability to agree on the priorities to focus on first.

Skills Gap in Team Due To Delays & Funding Challenges 

With multiple delays and funding challenges, the right team and skillsets were not provided (including vendor resourcing) causing gaps, deficiency in quality deliverables and increased program costs.

Team Misalignment and Lack of Commitment

Lack of sponsorship alignment across divisions and disagreements of KPI success metrics caused division and lack of commitment within the team.

Poor Communication of Project Changes

With multiple conflicting priorities, team members were not able to focus and were subjected to multitasking causing misunderstandings and poor behaviour.
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Numerous Changes, Assumptions, Start/Stop

As a result of many program restarts caused by organisational misalignment and funding constraints, numerous gaps eventuated. With changes in scope, resourcing and loss of IP, significant rework was required which increased burdens on existing team members.

Solutions and Support Provided

Initiative Owner Availability Increased to 50%

• Leadership took more of an active participation role in contract negotiation to help build alliances with broader business units who would ultimately be impacted by this new capability.
• Visible leadership reinstated confidence in the delivery and on the ground listening assisted with raising broader awareness of complexity.
• Emphasis on culture values and behaviour helped build team moral and ensured there was open and transparent dialogue to discuss challenges.

Reduction in Skillset Gaps and Improvements in Collaboration Decreased Program Costs By 10%

• Designed best-in-class skills strategy, bringing together a variety of techniques including upskill, contingent talent and redeployment of resources.
• Favoured collaboration over documentation in order to bring forward gap analysis and knowledge transfer.
• Implemented fail fast methodology to validate user functionality and customer expectations.

Sponsorship Coalition Framework Established to Ensure Open Dialogue 

• Set up a sponsorship coalition framework that ensured all organisational departments were represented, opening up the dialogue on key decisions and challenges.
• Revised governance model that was fit for purpose to build sponsorship coalition and monitor progress.
• Provided a network of active and committed change agents to advocate the case for change and tailor the conversation for each impacted area.

Agreed Understanding of Success Improved Team Cohesiveness 

• Consensus on business value was formed through the revised governance model and the right level of involvement from the executive leadership team.
• New artefacts were put together to help bring a shared understanding across all levels of the organisation for the changes in operating model.
• Change management framework was implemented to provide a robust communication strategy across multiple levels to ensure a shared understanding.

Well Defined and Agreed Upon KPIs Increase Team Performance

• Identification and involvement of members from other parts of the organisation with vital digital experience were instrumental in shaping the aligned success criteria.
• A new decision-making framework established to highlight cross departmental challenges for quick decision making.
• Implemented a consultation process that involved end user focus groups, industry bodies, external partners and in-house counsel advisors to ensure new propositions were fit for market.

Implemented Revised Decision-Making Framework Avoiding ~$200K per week in opportunity cost

• Insights provided to CEO advising on cost of decision making due to incomplete and inaccurate information flowing through the organisation.
• A rescue framework implemented that assessed trouble areas and provided the necessary intervention to remediate.  
• A defined incremental benefit roadmap progress was fast tracked and lessons learnt were resulting in greater success​.

Business Outcomes

Decreased AHT (Average Handling Time) from customer service teams due to lack of data flow between systems and traceability of the customer journey / interactions with the organisation.

Cost-out from more efficiently operations and increased ARPU (Average Revenue Per User).

Increased NPS (Net Promoter Score) and Customer Satisfaction Scores.