Transformation Readiness Assessment
Organizational Transformation initiatives are big business for the consulting industry. This is because most companies discover shortly after implementing a transformation initiative that they need the expertise and perspective of an external consultant to help overcome internal barriers.
Article Contents
Perspectives championed by internal ‘change agents’ are often reflective of the assumptions, beliefs, and espoused values of the current corporate culture. Although these need to be acknowledged in strategies to support organizational transformation they are more likely to be a barrier than a catalyst to supporting change. Surfacing these assumptions is critical if legacy assets and constraints are to be resolved in enterprise service, technology, and product delivery efforts.
Transformation Foundations
“Transformation by definition involves taking stock of the organization’s current state, identifying the desired future state, and establishing best practices, norms, and strategies needed to close the gap.”
– Innovate Vancouver
Organizations that take on initiatives requiring a new way of thinking, doing, interacting, and perceiving require a transformational approach. Yet many organizations are likely to try and ‘skip’ the organizational retooling.
A thoughtful and methodical approach is needed that engages all stakeholders in the requirements validation process. Implementation that involves changes requires more than just buy-in, it requires stakeholder involvement throughout the delivery lifecycle. This allows for each team to provide ongoing feedback and input into the implementation approach. Pivoting as much as is needed to ensure stakeholders are ready, aware, and confident to take on new services, products, and the changes involved.
Things to Consider:
- Is the organization open to change?
- Does the organization have a successful experience with past change initiatives?
- Is the organization comfortable with the experimentation needed to discover best practices for delivering its transformation?
- Will the organization’s culture and structure support the trust and transparency needed to support the evaluating and monitoring of current progress?
- Does the organization have the necessary feedback mechanisms needed to support the monitoring and evaluation of existing strategies & progress? Is the organization able to use feedback effectively?
- Can the project goals identified be implemented or achieved successfully without organizational change? Transformation?
- If the project goals require organizational change, and the organization is not prepared to change, should the project be cancelled?
Quiz Time
Transformation Competencies
The following competencies help set the foundation for a successful transformation effort. A readiness assessment compares the organization’s current state against its desired future state, using these competencies as a benchmark for evaluating project delivery throughout the lifecycle, including the operations stage (post project delivery).
Transformation Challenges
Failure to consider the above organizational readiness competencies prior to a transformational initiative can be costly.
- The next section discusses an example that helps explain why transformation initiatives can often fail to reach their goals.
- The last section in this article provides an explanation of additional criterion that needs to be evaluated prior to launching a transformation project.
Composite Case Example: Building a Project Management Office (PMO)
Several organizations and industries are represented in the composite organization-x that is described below. An Organization-X considered its future under threat, anticipating legislation recently passed south of the border to be eventually copied in the Organization’s location.
Organization-X had also recently rec-X eived a mandate from its stakeholders to switch from an ad-hoc (top-down) servicing model to a member-driven service model. Both transitions would require a transformation approach and framework to move the organization forward.
Legacy Framework
Organization-X was mindful of its history of failed projects. By their estimates, the failure rate for internal projects was potentially higher than the industry average.
Organization-X also lacked a formal and ongoing performance evaluation process. Without it, establishing an obvious business case, performance benchmarks, and evaluating progress became particularly challenging.
“Efforts to improve the organization’s project success rate would need a transformational approach. Without it, projects would continue to under-deliver, and the move towards a member-driven service model would choke under the organization’s bloated legacy framework. “
– PMO Consultant
Project Management Office (PMO)
In order to strengthen the Organization-X project delivery success rate, an influential executive championed the hiring of an external consultant to help build the Project Management Office (PMO). The office would be responsible for the development of the project management templates, training & coaching staff, developing training materials and infographics, and drafting the organization’s first project management policy & procedure.
The vendor hiring process involved a panel of subordinates who would own and hold responsibility for driving the PMO to build and engagement process. A consultant was selected based on their healthcare, advocacy, lobbying, and service background. An ‘organizing-approach’ towards building and championing the project was identified at the start in order to match the organizational culture.
Organizational Culture as a Barrier to Transformation
Although success criteria for the PMO were eventually identified by several stakeholders towards the end of the project they were never formally approved or implemented. The following section describes why the Project Management Office (PMO) build, as a transformation project, was unlikely to be successful.
Compare the case example descriptions below to the Transformation Competencies discussed earlier.
Foundation Components Evalauted against PMO Builds Reported in the Literature
Delivering transformation projects are often disruptive and thus require a thoughtful and courageous review of the environment, current pain points, and requirements (processes, technology, people, assets) needed to smoothly facilitate transition from the present state to the future state. The following accordion provides a list of soft competencies needed to build a new enterprise project management office.
Additional innovation technology, architecture, and service assets should also be added to the company’s transformation readiness assessment. The literature reporting on transformation project barriers are included as notes in the dropdown menu under each competency section.
Champion
- The PMO Transformation Project was championed by a senior executive that did not adequately consult the rest of the (subordinate) executive team and was not present for any of the PMO Governance Meetings. The also only met with the PMO consultant once.
- They resented the lack of consultation and often made decisions in isolation in order to avoid & mitigate non-favoured decisions.
- In order to champion engagement and use of project management throughout the organization, other stakeholders were identified. They were involved in the PMO Working Group and identified for some of the Project Coordinator/Onsite Training roles. Although several were effective for the purpose of championing new standards and change, others were high maintenance and easily confused by discussions; a poor fit for supporting early adoption of project management.
- Despite their role as the project owner, and responsibility for championing the PMO build & implementation, the following were expressed: ‘I don’t think it will be successful’ and ‘I think it’s too early’ ‘we’re not ready yet’. Members of the working group also worried that project plans would be ignored even if approved by directors earlier.
Corporate Structure
- The organization-X culture included a Corporate Structure more resembling a for-profit company than a non-profit organization.
- The company recently started a transition from divisions to a model that acknowledged that constant overlap and need for integration. Unfortunately, there was no formal strategic plan, formal vision, or timeline to support the transition. Unfortunately, there was no strategic plan, formal vision, assigned owners, or timeline to support a transparent and visible vision (although one was requested by stakeholders).
- The early stage of the transition may be represented by a noted observation during one of the PMO Governance Meeting, where a senior executive’s decision was discussed; a committee member responded “I hate it when he does stuff like that!”, during which their facial expression grew stern, red, and jittery.
Approach
- The ‘organizing-model’ that was ‘tried and tested’ for supporting external change initiatives was poorly suited for internal change efforts.
- This is due in part because of the organization’s inability to tap organic leadership, enthusiasm, readily available use cases/priorities, and embrace organizational learning.
- Initial conversations and interviews at the onset of the project yielded 37 proposed projects and initiatives. Workshops were developed in advance of demand. A training SharePoint site was also developed to help scale engagement and training. None were approved.
Silos
- The Organization’s culture was heavily siloed. Departments were often unable to collaborate with other departments, or cross-organizationally, without the explicit permission of the assigned director. Line managers often replicated this protocol with their teams as well.
- Subordinates and line managers were not permitted to join or participate on the PMO Governance Committee (which only included four directors and one manager that oversaw the PMO).
- Line managers often replicated this barrier as well, limiting their team’s engagement of the Project Management Office.
Strategic Plan
- The organization-X was relatively clear on its vision and aspirations but lacked a strategic plan or formal framework to strengthen its delivery and realization. The absence of a strategic document to follow became a complaint at one of the Union Meetings.
- Organizational-X lore shares stories of peers asking about the strategic plan during very public workshops and large staff meetings.
- The response was always ‘we have one,’ with the responding executive providing a verbal response but no actual document existed.
- Exploration of this gap, and further championing of a ‘connect-the-dots-approach’ (that built upon the PMO Maturity Assessment & Stakeholder Interviews) found the team unfamiliar with how to use data, feedback, or vision to inform a connected strategy.
- Following the review of the findings, the governance committee indicated they didn’t understand the content and no longer wanted to discuss ‘abstractions’, ‘strategy,’ or receive training independent of actual ‘doing.’ One stakeholder guessed the team did not adequately understand what a strategy is, so was less worried about removing the topic from discussions.
- A project management policy was partially drafted prior to consulting engagement. The project definition included criterion that a project costs at least $100,000; which resulted in most stakeholders thinking project management would not apply their work area.
- The procedure drafted also incorporated a mixture of elements from two different project management models instead of just focusing on the dominant model for North America (PMBOK). The result was a lengthy document that was considered too ambitious for an organization first encountering project management.
- Further discovery indicated that internal-weaknesses limited the organization’s success and effectiveness on external-initiatives (and vice-versa). A transformation approach was needed but the team championed an operations approach that reinforced the status-quo instead.
Goals
- The governance committee had different criteria for the PMO’s success. One voice wanted a grassroots approach (that was not supported by the organization’s culture).
- A second voice was ambivalent & the third voice was resistant to having a PMO involved in ‘their space.’
- A fourth voice wanted the PMO to meet ‘all the best standards’, which were significantly out of reach for the organization at that time.
- None of these voices was talking with one another.
- This resulted in subtle sabotaging behaviours, and one of the stakeholders self-prophesying failure as early as the first month of engagement (and maintained throughout the consultant’s commitment).
- When one stakeholder began illuminating these hidden conflicts the HR role was triggered to ‘begin cleaning house’ instead of addressing the misalignment issues.
Knowledge
- The senior executive that sponsored the PMO was not part of the governance team that owned the build & implementation.
- The directors assigned to the governance committee had limited exposure to the subject of project management, and arguably even less interest in making the changes needed for a PMO to be successful.
- Assessments and interviews were conducted to inform the project approach.
- Unfortunately, the governance committee was not particularly interested in the feedback/suggestions or proactively learning about the models, tools, and processes that would help effectively leverage them. They instead preferred to make active decisions on immediate tasks and de-emphasize discussions and training on ‘strategy’.
- A flagship project used online project scheduling software set up by the consultant. A director insisted on updating and managing the system directly, although resisted training and support around project scope management, integration management, schedule management, and managing the critical paths. 12 Months were later added to the project schedule.
Collaboration
- The organization-X silos, structure, and limited skillset limited the governance team’s ability to make effective decisions as well as leverage the organic leadership and knowledge available from the rank-and-file employees.
- This internal weakness had cost the organization over a million dollars during a recent external campaign.
- Fear and self-fulling prophecies limited trust, experimentation, and the ability to use best practices.
- For example, a director (with lawyer training) refused to answer a question about what policy should be reviewed for understanding the organization’s grievance procedure (despite having responsibility for overseeing the grievance process).
- Another example, a regional lead assertively declined PMO help on one of their projects, contradicting multiple statements made by the team who requested assistance and found the approach relevant.
Feedback Mechanisms
- The organization-X hierarchical reporting structure reinforced vertical silos but was also plagued by horizontal divisions that minimized the sharing of information and collaboration. This structure also supported divergent priorities to surface.
- Rank-and-file staff often withheld information for fear of unfavorable responses.
- Meetings facilitated to investigate progress events were often found to have significant information missing; often in spaces that would have exposed other roles and systemic issues.
- Vertical and hierarchical protocols/norms for communication and staff management also contributed to conflict avoidance, information sharing, collaboration, and effective problem-solving. Most problematic decisions were communicated indirectly to the consultant, making collaboration, risk management, and scope management difficult to maintain.
Transparency
- The senior executive was experienced with project management but directors assigned to the governance team neither wanted the spotlight cast on their projects or wanted to share the decision-making process on cross-organizational initiatives.
- The culture this created limited the PMO’s ability to take on projects that met the committee’s success criterion (complex, cross-organization, impact).
- Consultant efforts to promote & internally advertise the Project Management Office (workshops, SharePoint training site, email tagline mentioning the PMO as a ‘shared service’) was rejected.
Change
- This organization-X was resistant to changing existing practices, instead preferring to use operation processes, tools, and strategies in a project setting.
- This lacked the precision and rigor needed to evaluate progress as well as the tools, data, structure, roles & responsibilities needed to be effective.
- The closest Project Owner (also assigned to the Governance Committee) also did not want the PMO to operate or own projects in their department. Directors in adjacent verticals presented with similar resistance, not wanting someone from another department leading a project ‘in their space.’
- The line managers were considerably more interested in change, engagement, and training than the directors. This created a funnel where subordinate’s interest in engagement and training was blocked by levels above them.
Relationships
- Stakeholders often undermined one another, even when they should be collaborating together on a shared initiative.
- Many of the governance committee members are considered to be “explosive”, “blunt”, or “outspoken” when encountering group dynamics.
- Reported observations indicated many coworkers are intimidated by the directors, and hesitant to speak out about issues.
- During a formalized employee orientation, the presenting HR team discussed organizational branding, language, and political representation in the media. They went on to explain the organization’s airtight policy on employee public communications, and discussed that a previous employee is currently being sued by the organization for violating the policy.
- When interacting with the primary PMO project owner, the assigned consultant witnessed the supervisor laughing because one of their contractors (onboard for 8 months) was not considered fit for their role, and were going to be discontinued. Later contact with a staff representative indicated 6-month evaluations were often not completed.
Competitor Analysis & Best Practices
- Cultural sentiments within the organization were strongly anti-establishment and anti-industry.
- This was supplemented with robust advocacy and ‘organizing-language’, and an almost inability to have a conversation about project management, measurement, or best practices.
- This, in turn, was mirrored with inconsistent internal practices, misalignment, and this impacted success and quality metrics.
Espoused vs. Held Beliefs
- The organization-X considered itself democratic, open to feedback, equitable, courageous, and open to learning. Its expectations for external institutions varied from internal expectations.
- Rank-and-file employees often described the organization as a closed system, having a lack of curiosity, promotion based on relationships and cultural fit, resistance to change and innovation, and a tendency to limit discovery and lessons learned to areas that could be controlled or easily explained.
- Previous flagship projects that failed were often not approved for a lessons learned workshop, and what was learned ‘through other means’ what not shared or implemented effectively.
- The directors initially state they ‘were interested in the idea of project management,’ later updating the statement to ‘we are very interested.’
- Later still, they said they did not like the approach but were unable to describe what that approach was (organizing, pivoting based on director feedback).
- After the consultant’s engagement ended, the directors ‘put the PMO on hold,’ cancelled the governance committee, cancelled the PMO working group, and cancelled the contested projects assigned to the PMO.
- The following year, a project manager was recruited for the organization. The role did not involve managing a PMO, did not include training departments or the organization to use project management, and emphasized small projects within a single department (whereas in the previous year these were deemed to not meet the criterion of a project by the sponsor). The vision was no longer transformation but structured support within the same department, assigning the initial manager who didn’t want the PMO in their department in the first place (but struggled with department performance).
Transformation as a Challenge to the Status-Quo
“The road to transformation is not easy travelled. There will always be resistance, so the goal is to discover how to turn concerns into opportunities.”
– Innovate Vancouver
Review the above list of barriers described in the literature with your team. Identify barriers that may also exist in your environment. Establish a plan of action that includes a description of the present state, future state, and strategies to bridge the gap. Crossing the chasm requires courage, leadership, teamwork, and a systems thinking approach.
Quiz Time
Although an ‘organizing-methodology’ was used throughout the consultation engagement it proved ineffective. The consultant’s scheduled engagement came to a close with only a basic PMO model developed and implemented.
Espoused beliefs indicated support for an organizing approach, 90% support for a PMO, 38 project suggestions for early proof of concept, and the leadership team voted for a portfolio governance model. So why was the PMO transformation project considered unsuccessful?
The directors on the governance committee declared the approach they designed and implemented a failure. The consultant moved on to their next engagement, the PMO Governance Committee disbanded, the PMO Working Group was canceled, and many of the projects assigned to the PMO (themselves considered unpopular) were put ‘on hold’ for an undisclosed period of time. A follow-up discussion with one of the stakeholders yielded no additional insights, reporting “I don’t know what they want.”
Identify Barriers Early
Despite proficiency with using the model externally, the first mistake the Organization made on its Transformation project was to assume that an ‘organizing-approach’ would help drive change. The second mistake involved poor internal consultation.
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The third mistake involved the belief that the team was ready to champion an initiative that would impact the DNA of organization-X . The fourth mistake was to assume that the team had the skills to champion the initiative, even if they were interested.
Organizational DNA
Although a bulk of the organization-X primary services emphasize social competencies these were focused on influencing external change. When it came to internal change the organization’s rigid corporate hierarchy, fear-based culture, and anti-establishment skillset created an abundance of resistance (beginning from the top).
Discussions about project management were often met with confusion and resistance.
Organizational language to support discussions on best practices, goals, evaluation, streamlining, and roadmaps were largely absent. Most departments considered none of their work relevant to project management. After a few minutes of discussion, the consultant was able to determine 80% of the organization-X work could benefit a project management informed approach.
Conducting a Readiness Assessment
The problems facing the organization represent its core DNA.
- Who it Is (its Identity)
- How it Works (Skills & Competencies)
- Relationships (Roles & Responsibilities)
- Assumptions (Beliefs & Knowledge)
- Values (Norms & Expectations)
These all contributed to reinforcing existing problems and limited the organization’s ability to take on a transformation project. Would a readiness assessment have strengthened the organization-X ability to take on a transformation initiative? Yes, and no.
Leadership
“A readiness assessment can help an organization to better understand its ability to take on an endeavour but it will not change its DNA or culture. This requires courage, leadership, and a thoughtful approach that acknowledges internal barriers to change.”
– Innovate Vancouver
The likely failure of the PMO Build & Implementation project started when the senior executive sponsor abdicated their leadership and ownership of the project and transferred it to the unacknowledged and unconsulted line directors.
Leadership is the first piece of the puzzle. If a transformation project lacks an effective leadership sponsor the other pieces will not matter.
Interactive Elements Supporting Transformation
Assessing whether an organization is ready involves evaluating the interactions between all related components. This involves the synergistic dependencies among the following tools, processes, assets, and competencies.
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) lifecycle highlights the competencies, services, and functions needed to plan, design, transition, operate, and continuously improve project, product, and service delivery with an emphasis on the end user. Change management and release management are critical to ongoing management and adoption of new products and services.
In addition to the ITIL lifecycle, the following stakeholder engagement, communication, and change management competencies are emphasized in the design, build, and implementation of a new project management office.
- Inspirational & Effective Leadership,
- Organizational Culture that Supports Collaboration & Innovation,
- Held Beliefs that are Consistent & Effective,
- Feedback Mechanisms that Support Learning and Adaptability,
- Effective Collaboration that Supports Stakeholder Feedback & Integration of Ideas,
- Comfort with Change and Adapting to Stakeholder Feedback,
- Investment in Continuous improvement,
- Comfortability with Learning from Others & Industries,
- Able to Identify and effectively Assess Goals/Performance,
- Able to Deconstruct Existing Barriers & Silos,
- Comfortable Discussing IDeas and Assumptions Openly,
- Able to Commit to a (Flexible) Approach,
- Able to Leverage Existing Assets, Processes, and Corporate Structures,
- and Able to Integrate Existing Priorities and Strategies into a Formal Framework or Plan
Quiz Time
Drag the word to the correct sentences below. The quiz will give instant feedback for each attempt.
The above skills and competencies are a journey and not a destination. They are never truly achieved but represent aspirations that are interdependent, setting the foundation for organizational transformation and achieving greatness.
Transformation Readiness Assessment
Most projects are disruptive and yet not designed as transformational projects. User, environment, and business requirements are often missed in early design discussions. If they are ever incorporated they are often costly and have an immediate impact to the project scope, budget, schedule, and quality specifications. Designing a transformation project begins with the following questions. Use this tool to strengthen the teams shared vision and roadmap for transformational efforts.
Check out the interactive article, Knowledge Management in Sharepoint!
Innovate Vancouver is a Technology and Business Innovation Consulting Service (TBICS) located in Vancouver, BC. Contact us to help on your next project!
Travis Barker, MPA GCPM
Innovate Vancouver
Consulting@innovatevancouver.org
https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/management-consultants-and-pmo-failures.php
https://www.enkillc.com/insights/2017/2/10/why-do-70-of-projects-fail-to-deliver