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Roles and responsibilities—who is going to do what Go and no-go points—points in time when decisions need to be made to stop or carry on Key milestones—significant things that will happen over the duration of the initiative Business review and success criteria—when a review will take place and what success looks like Risks and issue—what are the risks and issues at the start of the piece Sign-off process—who is authorised to agree the initiation prior to commencement.


Fail to plan and you plan to fail It’s an old adage but so very true. One of the first questions that we ask when a project is struggling is for a copy of the plans. More often than not, the plans are either nonexistent or not up- to-date. How do people know where they are if there is no plan? Project planning is an art and needs to combine multiple


elements in order to offer a true development roadmap of how the project will unfold. These include:


Activities to be scheduled in order of time and priority Length of time that the activities will take to complete Who will undertake the activities How the activities are interlinked and dependent upon other activities delivering


What the critical milestones are.


Quality Quality means so many different things to different people. Therein lays the problem. The standards must be set by the board and cascaded down throughout the company in order that things are not handed over incomplete or inaccurate. Compromise should not be tolerated and if photos are missing or text has not been updated then there is a very good reason why—it is well worth investigating where you have lapses in quality and building a common way of working so that everyone delivers to the same standard. It is the timely delivery of quality that will ensure absolute efficiency and give you a chance to compete.


Measuring progress and success One of the first things drilled into me when I started my first business-improvement project was that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. It is an old management saying that is still accurate today. You can’t manage for improvement if you don’t measure to see what is getting better and what isn’t. Measure those activities or results that are important


to successfully achieving your organisation’s goals. Key performance indicators, also known as KPIs or key success indicators (KSIs), help an organisation define and measure


Programme vs project


A programme is a set of interlinked and dependent projects that combine to deliver a large body of change. Often combining multiple elements of an organisation to achieve success, they involve people, process and technology all aiming to have a big impact on turnover and/or profitability. A project is a smaller, targeted


initiative. All projects are critical for success and should be aligned to the strategic aims of a business in order to ensure that they are not wasted effort or unnecessary activity. Tip: Red-line unnecessary pet projects that are not a priority or aligned to the strategic vision of the business.


The development register


A development register lists all of the projects and programmes currently live or aiming to go live. By completing one of these documents it shows just how much activity has been committed and often delivers


shocking results. In one of our clients we found that there were 163 live projects in a department of 87 people—that was in addition to people’s everyday jobs. Tip: Cut out any unnecessary work and focus on the important things.


progress toward its goals. KPIs should be only a few select measures—otherwise they are not key. KPIs differ depending on the organisation. A business may have as one of its key performance indicators the percentage of its income that comes from returning customers. A customer service department may have as one of its KPIs the percentage of customer calls answered in the first minute. You may need to measure several things to be able to calculate the metrics in your KPIs. To measure progress towards its customer calls KPI, the customer service department will need to count how many calls it receives. It must also measure how long it takes to answer each call. The manager can then calculate the percentage of customer calls answered in the first minute and move towards improving that KPI. It is important that you


communicate your metrics both up and down the organisation. Your boss wants to know what’s going on, but your employees need to know also. They are not motivated to improve unless they know how they are doing. In addition, most of the suggestions on how to improve will come from them. There we are. We have


Tactics Views


The series in full


Part 1 (8th September 2008 issue): why continuous improvement is critical for businesses and the eight key elements of successful change management


Part 2 (27th October 2008 issue): identifying and crafting a sound strategy to form the foundation of future success


Part 3 (December 2008 issue): how to get the most from your workforce


Part 4 (February 2009 issue): determining which elements of your business processes should be eliminated


Part 5 (April 2009 issue): learning how to improve efficiency by removing waste


Part 6 (October 2009 issue): how to create a united team


Part 7 (July/August 2010 issue): how to foster great partnerships


come to the end of our series on change management and what you need to consider in order to effectively make the appropriate changes in your company to ensure survival and success. Remember that it is not only the idea that is valuable. The idea is worthless if you are not able to bring it to life and make it happen in a smooth and effective way. Good luck!


James Doyan is owner/director at change management specialist Athito.


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