Underscore Transformation

Following on from last week's episode, Jason and Joe continue the conversation with Mari Milsom and Simon Brown as the panel share their experiences in hiring people with essential digital business skills and how to fill some of the most challenging skills gaps in the digital world we now live and work in. They also share some really practical advice on attracting, selecting, and retaining the most valuable skills in the market.

So far during our panel debates we've looked at organisations' initial response to the pandemic, the long-term effects of recent changes to ways of working, and the skills and capabilities needed to thrive in an ever more digital world. This week we're focusing on buying digital business skills from the market. Our expert panel, Mari Milsom, Simon Brown and Joe Ales discuss their experiences of obtaining the skills needed to successfully deliver enduring digital change.

In this week's episode Joe and Jason reflect on some of the discussions and insights from the recent panel debates, share their definition of digital transformation, and look at the macro trends driving digital transformation.

Last week we looked at the skills that employees across the organisation need in order to prepare for a post-COVID digital world. This week, we're joined again by special guests Emma Lucas, Rachel Kay and Craig McCoy to discuss the capabilities needed within HR to support organisations during this transition, and beyond.

This week we are joined by three special guests, Emma Lucas from M&S, Rachel Kay from Capita, and Craig McCoy HR Director and Chair of the London HR Connection. Join our expert panel as we peel back another layer of the future of work and discuss the skills, competencies and behaviours that organisations, and the people that work in them, need to thrive in a post-COVID digital world.

Joining Jason West again this week is Lucy Finney MBE, former Major in the British Army and now Head of Leadership Development at Underscore. This week we’re going to going to get a bit more personal and talk about the psychological and emotional impact a crisis has on us as individuals. Specifically, we’re going to delve into the fascinating area of mental toughness and how we can apply learning from this field of academic study to better manage a crisis.

In the space of a few short weeks, life across the globe has changed beyond recognition. Over a quarter of the planet’s population is in lockdown and over a hundred thousand people have already tragically lost their lives. The pressures put on businesses and governments have raised stark questions about technology, supply chains, staffing, leadership, sustainability, skills and resilience. Now, more than ever, business leaders need to solve complex, novel problems at pace in a highly volatile, uncertain world. Joining us this week is Lucy Finney MBE to share her insight into the tools and techniques used by the British Army to manage battlefield operations and humanitarian crises. Lucy has developed a Crisis Management & Recovery Toolkit that applies these proven crisis management techniques to the commercial sector and combines them with virtual training on crisis leadership skills and effective teaming in a crisis.

In order to deliver a successful transformation, you need a clear and robust governance structure. Successful governance requires having the right people, in the right roles, meeting regularly, reviewing the right information, and being empowered to make decisions quickly. In this week's episode, we explore why it's essential that everyone playing a role in your governance structure needs to be 100% clear on the purpose of their role, why you need to need to document the terms of reference for each of the decision-making groups within your structure, and why you should consider the thinking styles of the individuals involved.

In this week's episode we consider one of the foundations of business transformation: Target Operating Model design. It's a topic too often shrouded in mystery but it really is a pretty straightforward process. Jason and Joe lay out a simple, step by step approach, the people to involve, and a description of the workshop sessions that will help you define your destination.

In last week's episode, we discussed how testing covers a lot more than just systems, the need for an experienced test manager as well as a clear strategy and testing plan, and we covered some of the different phases of testing. This week we consider what steps a programme sponsor or transformation lead needs to take in order to co-ordinate all of this activity, and help you develop a plan to keep a track of all this activity when you’ve got Process Owners demanding changes, test teams identifying defects, and functional consultants making changes across your new system.

One of the fastest and most assured routes to transformation failure is to short cut testing. It's an absolutely essential, yet often overlooked aspect of transformation. In this week's episode, we aim to give functional leaders, who may be new to transformation and large scale system implementations, a broad introduction to testing and how to avoid the common mistakes that cause programmes to fail.

Data is the lifeblood of business, it helps you understand past performance, predict future performance, and informs decisions every day. Implementing new systems as part of a transformation initiative shines a spotlight on your data architecture and data maturity. This week we explore why having a good understanding of the data you have today, the data you need tomorrow, and how you’re going to extract data from your current systems and load it into new ones, are essential to the success of your programme.

The advent of Software-As-A-Service cloud technology has opened up new opportunities to automate, streamline and deliver data-driven insight to the worlds of Finance, HR and Procurement. But this revolution brings with it a new wave of risks; the top three centre on integrations, data and testing. In this episode, we look at the first of these technology risks, how it can be mitigated, and explore the vital role that reporting and integrations play in the delivery of your business transformation.

A common challenge facing business transformation programmes is the misunderstanding and confusion around the roles that external suppliers should play, versus those of your internal programme team. External suppliers can include management consultants, technology vendors, and integration partners - all of which have an essential role to play in delivering successful transformation. In this episode, we discuss how, as a programme sponsor, you can reduce the risk of selecting the wrong partners for your needs, and avoid the confusion that arises when you ask the wrong people, whether external or internal, to take on the wrong tasks in your transformation.

Solution design often seems like the 'fun' bit of transformation. It's where you get to decide what your new systems or processes will actually do. But just as you wouldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, consider building a house without a set of plans or blueprints, it’s the same with business transformation - in order to reach your end point, you first need to agree where you’re going. In this week's podcast episode we delve into the vital, but complex issue of solution design, and discuss the common challenges and how to avoid these through careful planning and decision making.

Change is, by its nature, uncomfortable. Our initial reaction to hearing about any major change is rarely a wholly positive one, even when it will directly benefit us. In this episode, Jason and Joe look at the common pitfalls when managing change during a transformation programme, why it's essential to bring change expertise in early, and the practical steps you can take to ensure change embeds throughout your organisation.

"Establishing a robust technology support model is something that gets overlooked in a surprising number of transformation programmes. And yet, your ability to deliver the business benefits promised by your business case rests on how effectively you construct your technology support model." In this episode, Jason and Joe discuss why a technology support model is so important to the overall success of your transformation efforts, how to build one, and the different capabilities required to ensure long-term success.

“You would assume that securing the best team to work on the transformation would be top of the to-do list. But frankly, on too many occasions, we see that resourcing the programme team is really rushed through." Jason West To kick off season two, which focuses on the Build phase of transformation, Jason and Joe discuss the absolutely critical step of properly resourcing your programme team. We delve into the need to balance internal knowledge of your organisation with external programme expertise, and discuss the 37 roles that every successful transformation team needs to fulfill.

“Transformation is, at its heart, a reconfiguration of power, so people are thinking ‘what does this mean for me?’” This week we are joined by another special guest, Nick Ranier, a senior transformation leader with extensive experience of enterprise wide transformation. Nick shares his experience of running transformation portfolios across a wide range of settings. He also shares his perspective of why culture, organisation and people are critical to the overall success of any transformation initiative. *Episode breakdown* Below is a brief overview of some of the topics that Jason and Nick discuss and at what point to find them in the podcast: - 01:20: Nick shares his background & experience - 03:46: Nick's experience transitioning from operational HR to transformation - 06:05: Sponsorship in transformation - what makes an effective sponsor (and what to avoid)? - 14:50: Problem definition - is this a problem we need to fix, and how do we define it? - 17:35: Benchmarking - where do you get the data? - 21:15: Gathering requirements - uncovering the business needs - 25:00: Capability requirements - what capabilities are needed to deliver change? - 28:10: Preparing for change - what's the minimum requirement? - 39:15: Methodology & Approach - the difference between projects, programmes & portfolios - 51:10: Vision, objectives and design principles - why things can go off track without a vision - 58:15: Governance and decision making - how do you structure the change? - 63:45: Solution design - moving from an operations to a solution architecture mindset - 71:02: Capability design - the need to build internal capability - 74:00: Business case - what are the most common mistakes and how to avoid them?

"Ultimately, success is not a successful technical go-live, it is a successful adoption by the business of said processes and technology". In this very special episode, we are joined by Shafique Barabhuiya to hear how the 10 points of the Scoping Checklist apply within the finance function, and explore the key issues that always need to be addressed, no matter which part of the business you are seeking to transform.

Alongside a carefully constructed solution design, a robust business case is one of the most important outputs from the scoping phase. It's where the rubber meets the road. In this episode, Jason and Joe delve into the core components of a well put together business case, looking at the practicalities as well as the strategic side of this task. Listen in as they discuss why a business case should always be led by the sponsor (with support and input from finance), and why a good transformation business case is as much about telling a compelling story as it is about number crunching.

Designing new systems, processes and operating models requires the ability to imagine a future state unencumbered by the present day. The solutions your teams design need to deliver your vision, strategic objectives and business case benefits, all within the constraints of your agreed design principles. In this week's episode, Jason and Joe discuss the important concept of solution design capability, and why individuals and teams need to have high levels of collaboration, active listening, influencing, resilience and empathy in order to reach the best solution. They also explore why a well-constructed Target Operating Model is a prerequisite to successful functional transformation.

Assuming that you are adopting a programme or portfolio approach to transformation, it’s important that the team you put in place have the necessary skills and experience. A successful programme manager will have a different skillset, mindset and approach to a successful project manager. In this episode, Jason and Joe deep dive into the skills and competencies that a programme team needs to possess in order to ensure a successful transformation.

A functional transformation can either be defined as a programme or a portfolio depending on the scope and scale of the change required and whether you are transforming one or multiple functions. This seemingly esoteric point matters when coming to choose the best methodology to use and when building your transformation organisation and team. In this episode, Jason and Joe explore the differences between a project, programme and a portfolio, and why it's essential to define your transformation initiative in the right way to achieve the best outcomes. They also discuss the impact this has on issues such as resourcing, and decision making.

The question of who makes decisions is often a vexed one in transformation programmes that get into trouble. A clearly defined governance structure, built to solve complex problems and manage unforeseen risks, is a pre-requisite for successful business transformation. Unpacking exactly what this means, and how best to make decisions with imperfect information, quickly and at scale, is the subject of this week's conversation.

So many aspects of functional transformation are unknown and unknowable when you begin, putting you deep into the territory of unknown unknowns. To combat the uncertainty inherent in transformation programmes, your team need clear, simple guidance to help inform their design decisions. In this week's episode Jason and Joe discuss the importance of having clearly defined vision, objectives and design principles, and how they will help your team make the best possible design decisions that will ultimately get you to your destination.

In too many transformation programmes, change management only gets thought about just before new systems and processes are about to go live, but to deliver a successful outcome, to change the culture, you have to engage people in the change process from the very start. In this week's episode, Jason and Joe discuss some of the common mistakes made when delivering change, how change management is about a lot more than communications and training, and when and who to engage in the transformation process. We also share our top tips on how to plan, deliver and embed lasting business change.

Transformation Initiatives require changes to people, processes and systems. But it can be all too easy to get fixated on technology, especially if it’s new, shiny and expensive. This week Joe and Jason discuss the importance of collecting a broad range of ‘capability requirements’ that describe the culture that we seek to build, how people will work in the future, and the processes and systems they will use to deliver to their customers. We discuss the benefits of engaging multi-functional teams in gathering requirements, and consider the decisions you need to make about accepting requirements into scope. Not all requirements are equal, or even valid. Capability requirements should be the living, breathing bedrock of your transformation and used throughout design, testing and eventually to measure the benefits you’ve delivered. It can be all too easy to easy for your requirements documents to get forgotten and gather dust in a drawer. For more on this and other practical hints and tips, please take a listen.

Business transformation initiatives often start due to external events, a change in the senior leadership team, a merger, an acquisition, or changes in regulation. But that only describes why we need to change, not what needs to change. This week Jason and Joe discuss the importance of defining the problem that you're seeking to address before rushing headlong into solution design. What do our customers believe needs to change? What’s important to them? How much effort do we attribute to our customers’ priorities? Just how effective and efficient are we compared to other organisations? These can be deeply uncomfortable questions that you simply have to ask yourself, if you want your transformation programme to be a success. Failing to do so can mean spending millions to fix the wrong problem. Take a listen to find out more.

Following on from our roundtable debate in Episode one, in this episode Jason and Joe discuss the essential role of programme sponsorship in more depth. Discover the knowledge, skills, experience and capabilities a sponsor needs to have to deliver a successful transformation, and how to connect people, business strategy and programme objectives for maximum impact. Jason and Joe also share their top tips for programme sponsors new to the role, looking at what you need to consider to set yourself up for success.

In our first episode of the Underscore Transformation podcast, we invite you into our recent live roundtable debate, where Joe and Jason are joined by special guests to discuss the 10 critical success factors in scoping a transformation programme. Hear real world, practical advice from programme sponsors and transformation practitioners on this too often overlooked stage of business transformation.

Welcome to Underscore Transformation, your practical guide to successful business change. Each week, join Underscore co-founders Joe Ales and Jason West as they discuss the critical elements of successful business transformation