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Case Studies
Redesign
of a manufacturing division
Redesign of a bank division
Resolving conflicting objectives
in an IS group
Designing a consulting division
New product introduction redesign
Implementing a new performance management
system
Managing the development needs of 1000 consultants
Rollout of proprietary training
A review of an existing rewards and motivation
system
Case Studies | Resolving conflicting objectives in an information systems support group
The client in this example was the information systems support group of a large financial services provider. The group had been taken over by an outsourcing firm, there had been significant changes in staff, and major projects had been launched to overhaul key systems. All this upheaval had resulted in widespread uncertainty about responsibilities, technical standards and working methods, and discomfort about relationships with the client and the office working environment.
To address these difficulties, the group head organised a management workshop. A list of issues was drawn up and prioritised, and owners allocated from among the department managers. A few months later he saw there had been little progress, so a further workshop was held to review priorities. Another few months passed, and still the issues had not been resolved, so I was called in to act as project manager.
The objectives of my project were to develop a vision and principles for the group; redesign the main operational processes; develop a new organisation structure and clarify key roles; co-ordinate office moves to reflect the new structure and oversee the development of new software testing environments. We agreed that although there were some things I could do by myself, there would need to be significant input from local managers and staff to ensure solutions were workable and had local support.
The group head meanwhile was to focus on ensuring that the year 2000 software renovation work and a major development project on a customer-critical system stayed on track. In meetings, the group head emphasised how important my project was, and that it had his full support. At the same time, however, he would comment that if his projects were not successful, the client would invoke huge penalty clauses and our firm would suffer irreparable loss of reputation.
Late one afternoon I went to see the group head and we had what is referred to in politics as a 'friendly but frank' discussion. We agreed that the prospects for my project did not look good. We estimated how many hours a week we could reasonably expect the managers to put into it, but then looked at the managers' own estimates of how many hours would be required and concluded that the project duration would be years rather than months.
In the end we agreed on some pragmatic reductions in scope, and reallocations of ownership. The office moves were scaled down and handled by a contractor. The main points of confusion about organisation and responsibilities were settled unilaterally by the group head, and resolving the most urgent queries about working methods and technical standards was handed over to the development project managers who needed the answers most.
In this case it would not be true to say that the project was delivered according to its original specification, but it was still regarded as successful, as it had unlocked a long-standing priority conflict, and meant that the issues causing the most discomfort were dealt with in the short term, instead of having to wait for a long term solution.
