Business design and framework
Our client engaged CXCO before embarking on a significant transformation program to review and provide recommendations on their team structure, work processes, and support systems, and to work with them to define the skills, capabilities, delivery framework and produce artifacts needed to support the organisation through the transformation.
The digital channel was a key point of differentiation for our clients’ organisation and they needed to ensure they had the right skills and processes to deliver on the digital strategy in the immediate to long-term. The objectives of our analysis were to identify:
- Gaps in skills and capabilities to inform creation of a new structure, new roles, and updates to job descriptions.
- Problems in the existing engagement and delivery framework.
- Artifacts that the team needed to create and own, as a means to inform recommendations on a future state framework
- Understanding of the interaction points between the team, the business, IT, corporate strategy, and external partners to inform the creation of a future state engagement framework to support the delivery framework.
To gather insight we conducted a series of interviews and workshops with the team and management to understand how the team currently works, the tasks they perform, the deliverables they produce, and the people they interact with. The interviews were used to assess the team’s perceptions on what could change, what should stay in place, and how they and their team could contribute to the transformation. The interviews were following up with an inquiry to attain a deeper understanding of the team’s skills, work processes and focus. A skill matrix was used to understand the skills the team had, and to identify gaps both from an individual and team perspective.
The data collected in the interviews, workshops, skills matrix, and inquiries was used to inform the update and creation of job descriptions, the team structure, and to identify gaps in skills within the existing team, indicating the need for new hires. The core skill sets identified were then plotted across a digital delivery framework, and used to inform interaction points between roles to help inform the design of the business structure and framework of delivery.
The output was a recommendations report on skills, structure, capabilities, work processes and engagement. In addition to the recommendations report, we created job descriptions, a business unit structure model both for now and the future, and a methodology and delivery framework indicating artifacts, interaction points and activities.
What were the key benefits?
- The change process was managed from the outset, resulting in the team feeling a part of the change, rather than feeling the change was imposed upon them. This helped the team make a smooth transition to the new business design.
- The insight collected helped our client gain a deep understanding of the team, their skills, and their place within the organisation. Speaking to an outsider enabled the team to share more than they would in a normal manager to team member relationship.
- New team member's skills complemented existing team skills. This increased the worth of the team to the wider business.
- Early involvement of business stakeholders from outside the team streamlined the positioning and communication of the change to the wider business.
What were the key results?
- A new business design that increased team worth and business value.
- Clarity with regard to roles, skills and capabilities required to support the transformation.
- Increased team importance due to new responsibilities in the business delivery framework.
What was the approach?
We followed a customer centred approach to the business design, involving the team at key stages of the discover, define and design of the business framework. The inclusion of the team helped them feel a part of the change, and contribute to a smooth transition from the old structure to the new structure as a result of the new business design.
We used a combination of direct interviews, contextual inquires and surveys to understand the team on a deeper level; to understand the culture that existed, to identify inconsistencies in what the team say, do, and believe; and to define predominant patterns across perceptions, mental models and modes of interaction. This helped us design the business structure, and helped our client understand how to approach the change when it came to rolling out the new business design, and positioning and communicating the change to the wider business.