Projects are a fact of life - all businesses undertake them in some form, and yet projects that fail to deliver the expected results remain a stubborn and persistent issue. The 3-Frame model discussed here captures the critical ideas that help you in leading successful projects and transformations. They are simple ideas - we all know them - but its surprising how regularly project or transformation leaders overlook them, leading invariably to poor outcomes.
The Frame for Change is a good place to start as it covers the process of executing a business improvement project. This framework has three key phases; Seeing, Thinking and Leading.
Seeing: This is all about discovery; seeing things as they really are; collecting data and creating insight that will help us make relevant decisions.
At the end of this phase we'll have some clear insight and understanding of the current situation; problems and their impact will be understood and quantified along with some hypotheses of the types of solutions that may exist. We may also have a plan to address the solutions and possibly an idea of the likely investment (a rough order of magnitude estimate) that these solutions may require.
Thinking: This second phase is all about designing how we want things to be in the future, in terms of direct solutions to our problems, as well as any other changes we might need, to make our solutions work properly. In the case of a simple business problem, the end point may be a fully designed solution around a process change, but for more complex projects with technology investment, it may also require a set of proposals, fully costed, with a clear business case.
Leading: The final phase is about leading the change - developing detailed solutions, planning, implementing and embedding. This can be undertaken in a number of steps - if product or IT development is required then these activities can be a major stage of the project in their own right, following Traditional, Agile or Design Thinking approaches and managed appropriately. Once solution development is complete there is a clear planning step before the implementation. Finally, the governance, metrics and assessments needed to ensure the solutions are fully embedded in the business must be put in place.
Over the last 35 years, I've lost track of the number of projects I've worked on, across many different business disciplines in many industry sectors, but without fail, they all basically follow these three steps. In my experience, many people will make projects appear far more complicated, but it always boils down to this - so don't lose sight of the general simplicity underlying all projects and business transformations!
The Frame of Reference draws attention to the need to view the business holistically when doing projects. To be successful, we cant afford to think in silos.. By virtue of the teams and specialisms many of us lead, we have to manage in silos, but we shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking that way too. Any business is a complex and integrated whole and we will often find that implementing solutions in one part of the business will have knock-on effects in many others.
For this reason, thinking holistically is not enough. As leaders of projects, we have to be good at collaboration - and at helping others to collaborate who ordinarily might not.
Finally, when we are addressing problems or seeking solutions that impact many areas of the business, we should look first for effective solutions, rather than efficient ones. The distinction becomes clear if I clarify that effective solutions are about doing things the right way. If we go straight for efficiency, then there's a good chance we will build high performance in doing things the wrong way. So - first figure out the most effective solution and then figure out how to do it efficiently. Work on this collaboratively with people from across the business to ensure that the opportunity is addressed holistically.
This all sounds obvious - surely we all do it? Who wouldn't look at the big picture? In fact its surprisingly difficult, because we have to involve other people who have their own priorities - and our project might not be one of them. This realization drives home the importance of the annual planning process to catalyze collaborative, cross functional planning for the business, so that the right priorities can be set each year.
Finally, the Frame of Mind references the way we, as project leaders, manage our teams. Creating an environment of coaching and mentoring is an import part of this. Projects, without exception, are opportunities for learning and development and this should be maximized. Asking team members what their own goals are when starting a project sets the tone and on large scale projects with a team of people who have differing skills and who are at differing levels of seniority, the ability for establishing mentoring relationships is huge. If we, as leaders, take the time to coach and mentor our teams rather than just directing them, then their development comes with a huge increase in personal ownership and commitment to the project, which will ultimately ensure a far higher likelihood of success than any detailed project plan or action list ever will. These simple steps support the journey of building a high performance team - a team that will take the project and run with it, driving success and growth on levels that are typically far beyond expectations!
These three frameworks, when used together, will help us drive successful outcomes for our projects, but its easy to miss one - and even easier to miss a step in the Frame for Change.
Missing a step in the frame for change leads to sub-optimal results. If we're doing a project of any type, then automatically we're in the Frame for Change space and we will be doing some combination of analysis, solution design and implementation. Its critical to follow the three steps, but easy not to. Here's what happens if we forget...
Don't forget to See: We can easily fall into the trap of believing or assuming we know what the problem is, which in turn distracts us from rigorous information collection and analysis. My mantra here is an old quote from Deming.. "In God we trust, everyone else must bring data". If we miss this step, we will have well designed and implemented solutions, but they may not actually solve the problem that needs to be fixed.
Don't forget to Think: In this case, we are clear on the problem to be fixed, with clear evidence and a good understanding of the issues, but we assume we know what the answer is and guide a team straight into the implementation of a pre-identified solution. The solution will be well implemented, but without taking the time to explore the solution space and bring the team in to evaluate options, the solution is unlikely to be the best and will likely suffer from unexpected problems.
Don't forget to Lead: Finally, we can fall into the trap of assuming that the teams will just do the right thing and implement the solutions for us robustly. We may have great insight and understanding of the problem and the team may have designed great solutions, but if we as leaders don't step up to drive the implementation forward, then the effectiveness of the outcome will likely be diminished, or indeed, the project may fail altogether.
This is part of our series; ViewPoint on Transformation.
To find out more, please follow the link to buy and read my book on successful business transformation.
I've never been a great fan of large business text books, so this is a story, based on many experiences during a career defined by business performance improvement and the wild and varied projects that enable it.
Alternatively, feel free to reach out as per the contact details below.
Comments