Clarify HR's Contribution

It is important that there is a dialogue with business colleagues about the contribution needed from HR and that contribution should be anchored in the critical issues faced by the organisation.

We use a number of techniques to gain clarity on HR's contribution and here we explain two techniques that have proved to be particularly helpful:

1. 'Strawman' discussion document,
2. 'Accountability Workshop'.

Strawman Discussion Document

For those of you unfamiliar with the term 'strawman' — this is a proposal put up for discussion that is robust enough to stand up to critique (i.e., it has substance), but not so robust that the proposals cannot be taken apart and re-worked. It is therefore different from a draft document where the expectation is that the proposals are well formed.

This document typically sets out the responsibilities and accountabilities for employees, managers, HR generalists, HR specialists, HR shared services (transactional and advisory), outsourcers, etc. as a basis for discussion. An example of how this approach has been used is presented in the case study below.

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Case Study — Global Telecoms Business

A four-page discussion document was written setting out the capability shift required in HR professionals and options to address this capability gap. This 'strawman' paper was then discussed one to one with the global HR leadership team and other key stakeholders elsewhere in the business. Feedback enabled a firm proposal to be developed which was then signed off through the HR transformation governance structure without any substantive change. This approach was quick and effective in building a coalition of support for the final proposal and in clarifying the contribution needed from HR professionals.

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Accountability Workshop

As a precursor to organisational design, we have found it helpful to combine the work on HR delivery channels and the scope of HR services that are delivered through these channels to ascertain where accountability for HR service delivery will lie. Our suggested forum to complete this work is through an Accountability Workshop.

This type of workshop brings together HR and stakeholders from other parts of the business to work through changes in people management accountabilities. Typically statements of the scope of people-related activities are used to stimulate discussion (irrespective of whether these activities are performed by line managers, different members of the HR team or outsourced service delivery channels).

The Accountability Workshop then focuses on identifying, for each activity area, accountabilities for managers, HR and outsourcers, and whether the impact of HR transformation makes these accountabilities stronger, neutral or weaker.

In preparing for the workshop, focus on completing two strawman templates, one template showing the 'as is' and another presenting the known accountabilities in the 'to be' delivery model. Through desk research and interviews, it should be possible to develop a very robust picture of the 'as is' and a good starting point for the 'to be'. What this preparation work is likely to highlight are inconsistencies in accountabilities across the organisation. These templates can be tested in advance with participants and any outstanding issues can be presented for discussion/resolution at the workshop.

The reason for completing both the 'as is and a 'to be' template is to be able to manage implementation more effectively. Knowing how HR transformation will impact different organisational roles will enable communication to be tailored and subsequent interventions to be structured to secure stakeholder buy-in.

We have found that an accountabilities workshop works well when participants are drawn from the HR function and the line and comprise typically around 15–20 people. Participants do not necessarily need to be the most senior people, but should have a grasp between them of the full range of HR services. In the workshop, the aim is to validate the 'as is' template and to finalise a 'to be' template. The balance of time should be spent on considering the 'to be' template.

At the workshop, a process we have found that works well is to:

• Create a large version of the template strawman (sheets of brown paper work well).
• Organise participants into five small groups.
• Introduce the task, setting out the aims of HR transformation, givens, assumptions etc.
• Allocate a heading per group.
• Ask each small group to complete their template, identifying where they believe accountability will lie.
• Rotate groups to comment on the work of their colleagues (a sticky dot can be placed alongside a statement requiring clarification or which needs to be challenged; anything missing can be written on a Post-it™ note).
• Work through each of the templates and reach agreement where issues have been flagged (with dots and Post-it™ notes).

Typically, an Accountability Workshop takes a couple of days to work through all the issues. This is, however, an extremely good investment of time as the output will have been created jointly between HR and other business colleagues and the output also provides a clear statement of role expectations. If there is any ambiguity about what strategic contribution the business needs from HR, this type of workshop helps to bring clarity to this area. The outputs from this workshop will then need to be discussed with key stakeholders.

We have found that the workshop outputs are helpful in framing a number of interventions that need to be undertaken as part of the HR transformation process. For example:

• high-level activity analysis (supporting analysis of future resource needs);
• HR process mapping;
• accountability mapping and role definitions;
• capability identification and development requirements for different roles;
• stakeholder communications;
• structure design.

Excellent Business Partnering

Before we set out a process to identify and develop capability, we want to explore what excellent business partnering looks like. The title 'Business Partner' is currently the title of fashion in the HR profession. We also know that during our 25+ years' experience of working in HR titles have their seasons. The profession has long been seeking to move into the strategic partnering space — indeed the shift from Personnel to HR Management was an earlier precursor of this. But there is still confusion about what this more strategic role (whether played out by generalists or specialists) looks like. As it is generally the current title of choice in HR, we will use the term 'Business Partner' for convenience. We predict that this title 'will, in time, fall…' out of fashion and will be replaced. So, irrespective of title, what we are more interested in is what this role really looks like. What do HR professionals do if they are working in this space? What does excellence look like?

Even David Ulrich recognises that there are quite different versions of business partnering in organisations. In a People Management interview (28 June 2007) he talks about the business partner title having broadened in organisations to a point where it describes a nearly impossible role: where HR Partners are expected to contribute across a very broad front and where, for many HR professionals, it has been easier to keep doing operational HR than the strategic.

Recent research (Box 1 summarises some key sources), along with our own experience of working with a wide range of organisations, suggests that excellent business partnering (whether HR professionals wear a generalist or specialist hat) embraces the following five characteristics:

1. Understanding your organisation's business. Without this understanding HR professionals cannot even begin to shape a business-focused people and organisational agenda. This means being fluent in the metrics and the language of your organisation. We must understand what it takes for our organisations to perform and be able to hold our own in conversations about customers, markets, stakeholders, financials, operations, etc. This requirement was identified by a number of our senior practitioners. Alison Grace (Rackspace) identified business awareness, commercial acumen and mental agility around numbers as key HR capabilities. Ian Muir (ESAB) also underlined the need for commercial fluency, including numeracy and financial literacy. Jerry Arnott (DWP) stated that 'what has increased in importance is an absolute necessity for HR professionals to understand their business and metrics/numeracy. These are areas that need to be beefed up considerably. The problem is that in many instances HR does not identify with the business or understand it'.
2. Building strong relationships with business colleagues. Much research and writing about business partnering focus on the need for HR professionals to demonstrate personal impact and credibility. The essence of partnering is an ability to change the kinds of conversations HR professionals hold with business colleagues. This means being confident to challenge colleagues, bring new thinking to the table, influence effectively and ask the kinds of questions that make people think differently. Strong relationships are relationships of equals. Ian Muir (ESAB), recalling his time as HR Director for Cable and Wireless International, stated that 'success as a Business Partner is much more the product of intellectual, physical and commercial alignment to the client. Building this relationship is critical and this happens on the fly, in corridor conversations as much as in more formalised surroundings. My desk was within 5 metres of the CEO's desk in an open plan office'.
3. Acquiring a new toolkit of expertise. Expertise must be developed in core HR disciplines such as talent acquisition, capability development, employee relations, etc. and in the areas of business change and organisational development. This means developing a strong understanding of change management tools and project management approaches alongside traditional HR subject areas.
4. Bringing this toolkit of expertise to the table in a way that is problem-led so that we work with our business colleagues to identify a solution rather than telling them, as 'the expert', what the answer is. We need to work in ways that build business commitment to and ownership of outcomes. Many authors are clear that excellent business partnering requires strong consulting, coaching and facilitation skills. Frances Allcock (BBC) pointed out that HR activity must be aligned to the organisation's strategy. If no time is made for senior HR professionals to engage in strategic conversations with business colleagues and to understand business problems, there will be resistance because HR will be seen as imposing solutions and how these products help the organisation to deliver its strategy is missing.
5. Focusing on the organisation's change agenda — shaping and delivering the strategy, developing and building organisational capability, addressing systemic organisational issues. Business partners need to be able to shape small- and large-scale organisational changes and bring the toolkit of change management and organisational development skills to help the business move forward successfully.

Box 1: Research on the role of the business partner

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Corporate leadership council — Building the next generation of HR-line partnerships (2007)

The Corporate Leadership Council (CLC) concludes that the strategic role is HR's most powerful lever for demonstrating business-level impact. The Council research demonstrates that the people in the role and the design of the job both strongly influence the effectiveness of the HR strategic role.

The person in the role

The CLC research argues that the implication of focusing on the person in the strategic role is critical. Effectiveness in the strategic role requires business analytics, leadership and persuasion skills. Business analytics drives strategic effectiveness, but only if HR can persuasively communicate them (i.e., using data-driven business cases to identify solutions tailored to customer needs has the strongest HR strategic impact). With the problem understood, the person in the HR strategic role must then be able to develop and defend a strong point of view regarding the answer and then take ownership for solution delivery.

The design of the job

The research also indicates that HR must re-examine the design of the job to improve performance. Successful design shifts the role from broad involvement across the HR touch points of numerous projects to deeper ownership on a select few high-impact projects.

Critical HR professional skills identified by the CLC are:

People skills	HR expertise	Implementation skills	Business skills
Influencing others Leading people Communicating clearly	Recruitment and retention expertise Performance and development expertise Compensation expertise Compliance expertise	Driving to results Managing projects Managing change Applying technology Managing vendors	Knowing your business Knowing business fundamentals Applying business analytics Taking a global approach

David Ulrich — A new mandate for human resources (1997), from partners to players (2001), masterclass on building sustainable value through your HR value proposition (2007)

Although he did not actually use the expression HR business partner, Ulrich is credited with the emergence of the HR business partner role. In his seminal book in 1997 he describes the new HR role, which can help deliver organisational excellence, in four ways:

1. Become a partner in strategy execution
   • Define organisational architecture (i.e., five essential organisational components: strategy, structure, rewards, processes and people);
   • Guide management through rigorous discussion on fit (e.g., the company culture fit against its strategic goals);
   • Lead in proposing, creating and debating best practice in culture change programmes or reward systems;
   • Take stock of own work and set clear priorities. HR professionals might have a dozen initiatives in their sights but they must have skills to be able to join forces with managers to systematically assess the impact and importance of each one initiative.
2. Become an expert in the way work is organised and executed — delivering efficiency to ensure that costs are reduced whilst quality is maintained.
3. Become an employee champion — representing employee concerns to senior management and at the same time working to increase employee contribution. HR also has an important role in holding a mirror up in front of senior executives.
4. Become a change agent — building organisation's capacity to embrace and capitalise on change. Using the change model 'who, why, what and how', introduce this to the management team and guide them through it.

Since 1997, Ulrich has used a range of terms to describe the role of HR business partner. In a 2001 book he co-authored with Dick Beatty, he argues that the HR role needs to shift from partner to player to meet strategic challenges. It goes on to explain that there are six ways in which HR players contribute to organisations: coach, architect, builder, facilitator, leader and conscience. Ulrich and Beatty state that by fulfilling these roles HR professionals can make a valued contribution to strategic decision making that builds winning organisations.

Coach

• Coaches executives to change their behaviour.
• Fully grasping and understanding organisation stakeholder scorecard is critical.
• Contracting skills are essential.
• Ability to build relationship of trust with business leader.
• Can give clear, direct, candid and useful feedback.

Organisational architect

• Must have a concept of what constitutes an effective reorganisation in line with the needs of the company, for example, the McKinsey model.

Builder

• Delivers the value proposition to the customer.
• Turns ideas into actions.
• In order to design and deliver he or she must be current in theory and the practice of HR.

Facilitator

• Facilitator role encompasses strategic change leadership.
• Understands importance of getting things done and making change happen.
• Facilitates teamwork. Engages teams to increase team effectiveness and helps teams learn from successes and failures.

Leader

• Exemplar on how to manage.
• Focuses on deliverables.
• Demonstrates capabilities set out in the leadership model.

Conscience

• Ensures organisation plays by the rules.
• HR plays referee role to honestly evaluate business practices.

More recently, a 2007 masterclass referred to the need for HR professionals to build competencies as:

• Credible activist — building relationships of trust so that an active stance can be taken to shape culture, drive change, influence direction.
• Cultural steward, talent manager/organisational designer and strategic change agent — which are areas HR BPs should know about and do to make a difference.
• Business ally and day-to-day tactician — competencies he sees as table stakes. They are necessary but are not sufficient without the above two areas.

Ulrich states that these three roles have a strong correlation with impact on business performance.

B Kenton and J Yarnall — The HR business partner (2005)

In their book on business partnering, the following characteristics were identified:

• Delivering to the business — understanding the bigger picture/business environment, systems thinking, being able to apply skills to a wide variety of business needs, providing expertise and support/facilitation, taking a longer term perspective.
• Working alongside managers in the business — collaborating, building strong relationships, involving others in finding solutions, building trust, contracting so that work undertaken is transparent, working at both content and process levels.
• Self-awareness and impact — focused on learning, questions things, credible, resilient, dynamic, energetic — someone who moves people forward.
• Creating and leading change — proactive and inventive, applies knowledge of change theory, influences others to engage them in the change process, creative, works well with ambiguity and complexity, path-finding.
• Maintaining a business focus — prioritising, utilises business data, challenges appropriately, seeks feedback for insight and learning, sets measures and defines clear deliverables at the start of any project.

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What this means in practice is that excellent business partners will engage with colleagues around strategic themes: sustaining high-performance during difficult economic times; integrating new businesses; driving efficiencies and cost management; creating higher levels of employee engagement; identifying new individual and organisational capabilities; shaping and creating a high-performance culture; helping management teams to perform and work together more effectively … and so on … that will drive revenue/customer satisfaction, control costs and build reputation. Indeed HR professionals, working as business partners, need to be able to ask and address whatever the key questions are that will help their organisation to deliver high-performance.

Structure of New HR Service Delivery Model

The scheme of work involves setting up a new structure, which accommodates a higher proportion of activities being migrated to a 'HR Centre'. This centre incorporates both transactional and strategic elements — see Figure 1. Business partners and strategic HR advisors are assigned to the various MPS operating units. Web-based self-service tools complete the service delivery model.

 
Figure 1: Overview of new organisation.

The responsibilities of the different facets of the model are set out below:

HR Shared Service Centre

The operational hub of the model is the Shared Service Centre, responsible for delivering the policies and programmes developed in the Strategic Centre, and designed around tiers (0 — Self-Service (on-line answers and transactions); 1 — Human Resources Advisory Centre (24x7 service); 2 — Expert Services (specific queries, more complex or time-consuming transactions); 3 — HR Operational Support (deployed from the Expert Services, this group is based in the business; one-to-one interactions where sensitive or complex cases require this level of support)).

Business Partners and Strategic HR Advisors

This area is responsible for understanding/defining HR requirements from a business perspective; ensuring the Shared Service Centre is meeting local SLAs in the delivery of HR services; developing business solutions to meet business requirements in conjunction with the Strategic Centre and working with SMTs to manage the organisation.

Strategic Centre

The Strategic Centre designs and develops policies, processes and programmes to support business requirements; utilising intelligence coming from the Service Centre and Business (Business Partners / Strategic HR Advisors) and understanding issues/gaps to design corporate HR solutions; proactively identifying trends across organisation; Interfacing with Training, Leadership and Organisation Development.

Reflecting on these proposals, Martin Tiplady acknowledged that gaining stakeholder buy-in had been challenging.

For many people, the intended changes to our service delivery model have been perceived as a centralisation programme, with all the connotations that brings in regard to taking away well-thought-of local resources and replacing them with a faceless, centralised bureaucracy. In fact it is not a centralisation programme; it is just that as a line manager the things you expect to be done by your HR manager 'down the corridor' will now get done in another way.

Allied to that, we needed to use technology rather better than we do, in a sense that we spend quite a lot of time in HR updating individual records and doing lots of checking. Well, the new model relies quite a lot on self-service and we shall be relying on our technological infrastructure rather more in the future.

If I'm frank, we have the support of our top management, the Board, who have undoubtedly questioned and challenged the programme but they have been willing to listen to the arguments and have been persuaded. However, when I go out into the Boroughs, and visit our Operational Command Units (OCUs) there is still a job to do winning over hearts and minds. It is there that the perception of centralisation is probably at its most acute.

Conclusions and Recommendations | Managing Risks and Issues

The review concluded that there had been substantial difficulties with the e-HR project and the factors which primarily accounted for these were identified as matters of governance, leadership, changes to specification and timetable, project planning and management consideration of risk in relation to cost, working relationships, communication and the performance of the contractor. Some of the difficulties could have been avoided if SE's established procedures and protocols for project management had been properly followed, but it seems the key action from which it was impossible to recover was the attempt to change the scope of the project so that it was better aligned to the HR transformation programme whilst simultaneously shortening the timescale for completion to May 2006. And all this without having undertaken full consideration of the associated risks and dependencies, rigorous project planning, meaningful and considered input from the Programme Board and without having the necessary building blocks in place to deliver related workstreams.

The recommendations were numerous and resonate with the good practice advice and guidance provided. An abbreviated list is set out below:

• Sound and clear governance arrangements need to be put in place, defining roles, responsibilities, accountabilities and authorities of staff at different levels, including 'agency contractors'.
• For any future e-HR procurement Scottish Procurement Division should be represented on the Project Board.
• The SE Centre of Excellence should issue advice and guidance about the composition of Programme and Project Boards and the roles of members, including the responsibilities of any 'non-Executive' members of such Boards.
• Absolute clarity must be achieved about what should now be included within the e-HR element and the HR transformation element. It would be sensible to undertake thorough site visits (to encompass the HR professional users, corporate users of management information, IT command and self-service users) in organisations with similar size, staffing structures, user requirements and culture to the SE before concluding what needs to be in the final scope cost and timing.
• The e-HR and HR Transformation Business case should be revisited in light of the current position on implementing HR transformation and after further consideration of the desired scope of any e-HR software solutions.
• Advice on best practice for establishing and maintaining effective joint teams of SE staff, agency contractors and suppliers should be drawn up for those involved in substantial projects such as this one.
• Communication and training strategies and detailed plans need to be worked up, and to maximise the chances of successfully impressing staff in the line the Programme Board will need to give a heavy emphasis to championing, with Departmental Management Boards and staff, the benefits of the new arrangements.
• The SE Centre of Expertise should consider whether to establish a more formal mechanism for drawing Accountable Officer attention to 'red' ratings in Gateway reviews.

In the light of the review and its recommendations, appropriate actions were taken to put the programme back on track.

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Case Study 2: The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS)

This case study illustrates how the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is managing a large, complex HR transformation and provides a more detailed insight into the governance arrangements that surround this £42 million programme.

The MPS is the largest of the police services that operate in greater London (the others include the City of London Police and the British Transport Police). It employs 32,000 officers, 14,000 police staff, 300 traffic wardens and 4,500 Police Community Support Officers as well as being supported by over 2,500 volunteer police officers in the Metropolitan Special Constabulary and its Employer Supported Policing programme. The Metropolitan Police Services covers an area of 620 square miles and a population of 7.2 million.

In 2006 the MPS embarked on a major HR transformation programme, as part of a wider Met Modernisation Programme (MMP) in order to:

• Further improve HR service delivery levels
• Streamline, and where possible, automate standard transactional and informational activities (self service)
• Provide quicker and more consistent HR support to Line Managers
• Remove duplication and bureaucracy and provide the benefits of economies of scale
• Move HR service delivery from being largely reactive to being strategic, pro active and aware of operational needs allowing for greater operational flexibility.

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Martin Tiplady, the Director of HR at the MPS, recalls the rationale and origins of the programme:

We were characterised largely as an administrative processing and rather bureaucratic HR service and it was apparent that we had to do something about that in order to add greater value to the organisation. We also responded to Gershon's review of the effectiveness and efficiency of back-room services and basically we concluded that there were much cheaper ways of doing it.

I also recognised that unless we responded proactively then somebody from Her Majesty's Government might have come in to tell us how we should it. As it is, we are forecasting a saving of around £15 million per year, once the full effects of the transformation have come into force.

But this is simply the foundation layer that enables a different class of HR to emerge, which is about HR doing more of being in the driving seat in the business, securing better outcomes and customer focus; working with our managers to make then better leaders, better managers and easier ways of achieving more objectives and targets than anything else, that's the value added HR, which is what I'm used to and where I think we ought to be. Perhaps putting it another way, we should be more highly regarded for our input into the resourcing strategy for the 2012 Olympics than for our ability to design a new sickness form.

An Overview of the State of the Project | Managing Risks and Issues

SE contracted with Fujitsu Services Ltd on 5 September 2005 to provide an e-HR system, using Oracle software providing 'best practice' solutions for better delivery of HR reporting responsibilities, including data integration and some self-service functionality. Within days of signing the contract SE sought, and Fujitsu agreed, a variation to the contract which changed the deliverables and brought forward the date of 'rollout' from November 2006 to May 2006. By December 2005 the risk status of the project delivering on time and budget was deemed 'Amber', by January 2006 it was assessed as 'Red'; in February the project moved into 'recovery' status. In May 2006, the project had been 'paused' pending consideration of this review: the outputs specified in the contract have not been delivered; however, a series of 82 HR business process maps had been produced, capable of configuration into e-HR software with minimum customisation. By June 2006 costs amounting to some £4.6 million of the originally approval £8.5 million (including moving to a new payroll provider) had been incurred.

A separately constituted HR transformation project, embracing major structural changes to HR — the establishment of Business Partners, the launch of a single entry point for the new HR Shared Service Centre and co-location of dispersed HR teams into one new location — was consequentially destabilised by the disruption in the e-HR project because the new HR operating model was not underpinned by the planned self-service facility for line managers or the improved level of management information that had been envisaged.

It was concluded that a 'number of individual factors combined over an extended period and in particular during the last 4 months of 2005 serve to explain the failure of the e-HR project to deliver on time'.

Governance

Governance arrangements fell short of best practice. Concerns were expressed on several occasions by external and Gateway reviewers and by the non-executive Programme Board members. These voices called for clarity and precision in the roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of key personnel. While governance was discussed frequently by all parties, proper, practical and convincing arrangements were not put in place in a timely fashion, with the consequence that there was not sufficiently adequate independent assessment of risk and oversight of progress. This was compounded by the Senior HR User assuming the responsibilities of Senior Responsible Owner. The departure of the established e-HR programme manager shortly after contract commencement and his replacement by two inexperienced successors within the next 3 months meant that project leadership was not sufficiently rigorous or effective.

Business Case

The business case against which the e-HR project was approved was prepared between November 2004 and February 2005. There were calls for it to be revised to reflect the final costs and scope of the contract and the relationship between e-HR and HR transformation. The assumed cost improvements arising from e-HR in terms of headcount reduction in the HR function had already largely been realised by the time the contract was signed. The e-HR business case was not adequately reviewed and updated at the time of contract signing and whilst a draft Project Initiation Document outlining at a high level the additional benefits assumed to arise from HR transformation was circulated to Programme Board members in August, there was no detailed, revised, comprehensive business plan setting out the various critical dependencies, which could be formally evaluated, considered and agreed by the Board. This was regrettable and contrary to best practice: it made it difficult for the Board to undertake its role of understanding and challenging assumptions, assessing risks and deliverability and ultimately of championing the overall programme.

Scope of the e-HR Contract and Revision to Timetable

Changes to scope and timetable were two significant factors contributing to non-delivery. In the run-up to signing the contract Fujitsu agreed to the senior user's request that it would be varied almost immediately to drop some elements and add others. There was at the time (and which remained some months later) confusion among the SE staff closely involved about precisely what has been properly, contractually authorised by way of change requests to the scope of the contract. In the original proposals, the timescale envisaged a start to contract in summer 2005 with Fujitsu's deliverables completed by July 2006 and rollout of service across SE by November 2006. The SE senior user brought the completion date forward to the end of May 2006. While there was discussion with HR team leaders and Fujitsu, no clear detailed plan showing milestones, interdependencies, resource input obligations and risks was prepared at the time, agreed with Fujitsu or shared with the Programme Board, staff and stakeholders. Fujitsu considered they had no option but to agree to the revised date and the local SE context was one which did not support informed, effective challenge to the senior user's estimation of what was possible. The reduction of 40% in the over-all contract period, with a consequence of shortened timescales for workshops to develop the operating model, for testing and for putting in place the major communication and training effort, was over-optimistic and allowed only 9 months to complete the work. This was shorter than the equivalent periods allowed by other government departments involving Fujitsu in e-HR solutions and did not allow sufficient time for contingencies and recovery in the event of significant problems arising with work on the critical path; nor was it realistically achievable given the level of cultural awareness in SE about the changes envisaged, the work which would have to have been put in train to secure staff readiness, and was risky given what was known then about staffing resources going forward (e.g., impending departure of the programme manager, live vacancies and the likely impact of the pay review).

Reporting Arrangements

Progress on the e-HR project was reported to the Programme Board and other bodies in different ways on a quarterly basis. However, the nature of such quarterly reporting meant that events were reported retrospectively and it was always possible to accurately ascertain the current status of a project operating within a tight timescale via this method of reporting. When the e-HR project was reported as being on target and within budget at the end of October 2005, concerns were already being raised within the project. There was no mandatory requirement for such concerns to have been brought to the attention of the Programme Board at this stage; rather, it was a matter of personal judgement about the extent to which problems needed to be shared with senior colleagues. Three Gateway reviews of the project were conducted in 2004 and early 2005. Whilst the findings of the Gateway reviews were made available to the Programme Board, a number of their specific recommendations were not translated into practical action.

Disharmonies

As we have noted previously, whilst it is not uncommon for tensions to arise within high-profile projects operating within tight deadlines, success is difficult to achieve without a common understanding of goals, a proper respect for team working and mutual trust between the individuals working on the project. The view articulated by many of those involved in the SE programme was that these aspects were not sufficiently present: the programme was lacking in effective, engaged leadership and characterised by poor working relations, both within SE representatives and between SE and the contractor, and low morale. There were problems at all levels, and at times within SE these included a lack of confidence in the project by Programme Board members and tensions between the programme manager and the senior user. More generally, while some staff were enthusiastically supportive of the SRO/senior user, others plainly found her leadership style difficult or felt unclear about the HR vision and project deliverability.

Communications

The lack of a clear, effective and timely communication effort to HR professional staff, line managers in SE and staff in SE and its related departments and agencies contributed to the failure to deliver. Fujitsu argued that the absence of clear understanding by stakeholders prejudiced the successful completion of the business process workshops and in turn meant that the e-HR software could not be configured in the tight timescale set. The major cultural change entailed by e-HR and HR transformation needs to have strong stakeholder engagement and line manager buy-in if staff are to make a success of it. To achieve this a transparent and consistent message must be planned and conveyed and a significant training effort needs to be planned and mounted. That was not done.

Issues Management | Managing Risks and Issues

An issue is something that has happened and threatens the success of the programme. Examples of issues are:

• the late delivery of a critical deliverable;
• a reported lack of confidence by users;
• a lack of resources to carry out the work;
• the late sign-off of a critical document or deliverable;
• a reported deviation of a deliverable from its specification;
• a request for additional functionality;
• a recognised omission from the programme scope.

When an issue is identified you should:

• record it in an issues log;
• agree and take action to resolve the issue;
• regularly update the progress commentary on the log;
• once the issue has been resolved, record the method and date of resolution in the log;
• report new, significant issues in a regular programme progress report.

You should expect a large number of issues to be raised at the start of the programme or at the start of a new stage within the programme. These will mainly be queries from people seeking clarification that aspects of the programme they are concerned with have been covered. This is a rich source of feedback on stakeholder concerns as well as a check on completeness of the programme plan and scope.

Make sure you record issues, even if you have no time to address them or cannot yet find a person to manage the resolution. Just making them visible is sometimes enough to start resolving them. Also, many issues cannot be resolved on their own simply because they do not reach the core problem; they are merely symptoms. Once other 'symptoms' appear as issues, it is possible to start making connections that can help to identify the core problem. Once this is solved, a number of issues can be struck off in one go.

'Scope creep' is a phenomenon where a programme over-runs its agreed time-scale and budget due to many extra (often minor) 'features' being added in an uncontrolled manner. For this reason, it is often easier to bundle a number of small changes together and assess them as a whole, choosing to implement only those that will further the objectives of the programme. At the other end of the scale, it is wise to consider delaying the addition of a major change until after the programme is completed and introduce it as a second phase programme. Remember, the primary aim of a programme is to fulfil a stated business need. As long as this need is satisfied, fine tuning, enhancing or embellishing the outputs are potential wastes of resources.

At some point, a time may come on a programme when an issue arises that cannot be resolved whilst keeping the programme viable. Either a time window will be missed or costs will be so high that even a marginal cost analysis leads to the conclusion that it is not worth continuing. In these cases, a decision to terminate a programme might be treated as a success, as there is little point in continuing with a programme that is not viable in business terms. However, such a situation would demand serious questions being raised about the risk and issue management regime in place at the time.

Figure 1 shows how a well-managed programme retains a decent shape all the way through, meaning that key activities in the programme are being well managed and aligned and harnessed. Benefit delivery is good and on track and the governance structure is able to contain the complexity to within manageable proportions. On the other hand, if the complexity becomes unmanaged, what then happens is that a significant shortfall of benefit takes place: either benefit streams themselves are delayed, or costs rise significantly as efforts are made to contain the event or sequence of events that have created the unmanaged complexity situation.

 
Figure 1: Risk and issues management.

This point illustrates something mentioned earlier about the need to retain a highly diligent focus on costs and benefits, and also to make sure that key milestones are achieved and to be in a position to have the processes in place to take swift remedial action if it is recognised or identified that things are moving out of kilter.

An unmanaged complexity situation can be very draining and very wearing on members of the programme team and indeed the higher steering boards. Therefore, it is highly beneficial and desirable to prevent those situations happening in the first place than to have to deal with them, although it is almost inevitable that there will be occasions during a complex programme extending over many years when unmanaged complexity will strike. The ability to be able to deal with that situation is absolutely fundamental to the overarching programme governance framework.

Returning to the theme of keeping major items in alignment, Figure 2 shows how the three core pillars of the HR transformation programme — technology, process and people — are kept in alignment around a particular milestone.

 
Figure 2: Making it happen — illustration.

The point of this is really to show how a number of inter-related activities need to be carefully managed in the build-up to a critical go-live situation, and how the state of each of those major activities would need to be regularly tested and assessed as the days tick by in order to minimise or eliminate risk.Makes reference to organising these bundles of activities into 90-day periods, to give more visibility and focus around deliverables.

Finally, it would be highly recommended for practitioners to constantly review and assess a number of questions listed below. Having reliable answers to these questions provides an insightful perspective on the programme overall.

Business Management

• Is the programme still a good business proposition; are the risks acceptable?
• Is the business ready to take on the operation of the solution?
• Are the benefits/results monitoring systems in place?
• Are current estimates of the costs and benefits in the business forecasts?
• Are all internal and marketing communications designed and ready?

Programme Control

• Has a programme health check been done and found to be acceptable?
• Are you sure beyond reasonable doubt that the solution will work?
• Have all stakeholders reviewed and approved those deliverables requiring their input?
• Have all purchases that affect service delivery been properly completed?
• Are all support agreements in place?

Ongoing Evaluation

• Are resources in place to monitor adequately the costs and benefits against the business case?

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Case Study 1: Scottish Executive (SE) e-HR and HR Transformation

This case study is used to illustrate how deficiencies in governance and related protocols,  led to a serious and disruptive delay in the deliverables of a major government HR Transformation programme. The lessons learned underpin the critical importance of a robust governance framework.

The SE, known as the Scottish Government since August 2007, is responsible for most of the issues of day-to-day concern to the people of Scotland, including health, education, justice, rural affairs and transport. It managed an annual budget of more than £30 billion in 2007–2008. It embarked on an ambitious HR transformation programme in 2005, consisting of e-HR and HR Transformation projects, which soon ran into major difficulties, prompting an official review conducted by Bill McQueen in 2006. The review was tasked with

Establishing the current state of the Scottish Executive's (SE) e-HR and HR Transformation projects, the circumstances and causes which threatened deliverability, whether the conduct and management of the projects was compliant with relevant protocols and best practice, whether the projects remained deliverable and to make recommendations.