Learning Leader

pearcemayfield first to gain ISO9001 through APM Group

News finally came through yesterday that we had gained the ISO9001 Quality Certification ('ISO') through APM Group: a first for us and a first for APMG. So we are all quietly quite proud here.

The journey over the last few months has been an interesting one. My concern has been that the ISO process did not become self-serving but actually did add value.

My colleague, Andrew Rock, is our Quality Manager and he did a superb job. Unlike me, Andrew is a completer-finisher, and is strong on consistency. I am more of a maverick, valuing innovation, ideas and agility. Andrew urged me first to grapple with a thing called Quality Policy, which he said needed to be owned by senior management. (That would be me.)

As I studied what was meant by 'Quality Policy' I began to appreciate that this was where we could set out our stall as to how we, as a company would apply ISO. We could not, as many other organisations have done, take a passive approach to applying the international standard; we hear that many that have done this have found, as a consequence, that ISO then took them places they did not want to go. In some cases, writing it became like boiling the ocean and observing it became excessively bureaucratic.

So, in little over a page, I set out our stance:

• Values-based. Our Values would continue to be paramount and non-negotiable. We've learned what our customer love about us has actually emerged out of our being consistent in living our values.
• Simplicity. 'Keep things as simple as possible, but no simpler.' (Einstein) This became our design approach.
• Outcomes-oriented. Process always needs to serve the outcomes it intends to achieve.
• Value-adding. Only change where there is clear added value in doing so.
• Document on exception. Evidence is not required where the system is being followed, only where deviances have been found. We cannot become a paper-factory documenting the 'normal' to the nth degree.
• Always use best judgement. I borrowed this from Nordstoms in the USA. We live in an emergent business reality. We need to be humble enough to realise that what we codify today as our practice may be ill-suited for the demands of tomorrow. So if we encounter a novel challenge or opportunity, and the procedures are inadequate, guess what? We permit ourselves to decide as best we know how.

What I realised was that without doing this, external advisors and assessors might well bring in a culture of ISO that would be mechanistic and legalistic. In turn this could lead to some unintended consequences that would compete against what we needed to be and achieve, and potentially be disastrous.

Richard Rose, our internal auditor, and Andy Taylor, our external consultant, also deserve special mentions here for helping me bridge my intent into the strange language and constructs of ISO.

Now I am certainly not a quality expert. We are working out our salvation as we go along. If you, dear reader, feel this approach of ours is flawed I'd really appreciate hearing from you.

Meanwhile we are popping the champagne to celebrate being the first to gain this through APM Group.

Stress makes you stupid: why this matters to public agency decisions

A few years ago I co-presented with Helen Whitten of positiveworks to the title 'Stress Makes You Stupid'. We used a piece of technology called 'biodots', little circular stickers which we gave out to delegates. If you stick a biodot onto the back of your wrist you can watch it change colour according to your skin temperature; and skin temperature, I was told, is a good indicator of your stress level. When you are stressed, your body diverts oxygen from the brain to your muscle groups to aid the 'fight or flight' response. However, the depletion of oxygen levels in your brain impairs your ability to think deeply, reflectively and wisely - not that you need to do in a moment of threat!

However,the point it that chronic stress reduces our analytical and conceptual abilities to almost habitual thinking patterns. We miss opportunities because we are always living in stress, and lack of oxygen doesn't allow us to see possibilities.

Right now executives teams of public bodies all across the UK are under great stress. They will have to live with unprecedented budgetary challenges for the foreseeable future,and the future they foresee is not very far ahead at all. Just getting through the next financial year seems like a huge achievement. These decision-makers are asking themselves, "How can we maintain services whilst making 25% cuts in budget?"

My concern is that stress is shaping their approach with, shall we say, less-than-smart thinking. This quality of thinking will not allow them to conceive that this is an opportunity for positive transformational change, and that maintaining service levels is even a possibility.

Stressed public executives will miss opportunities for transformational change - radical changes to the way services are delivered, such as rationalising and sharing delivery with other local agencies. They will slash services, because their thinking abilities in this climate of stress will funnel them into limited EITHER-OR thinking.

Jim Collins and Jerry Porras found in their research that all organisations of outstanding performance reject this 'Tyranny of the OR', and instead adopt the 'Genius of the AND', insisted on more creative BOTH-AND thinking. Where are our public leaders who can do this now, who can achieve necessary budget cuts AND maintain service levels?

Today there is an opportunity to transform positively the delivery of public services in the UK. But will the stress that these chief executives live under allow them to believe this is even possible?

A Model of Everything

The Holy Grail of the physical sciences, we are told, is the “Theory of Everything”. By this

I understand scientists to mean a single unifying theory that underpins the Universe, from the behaviour of the smallest atom to the movements of the 100 billion galaxies. We are seeing different sciences peek over their boundaries to others and realise that they are attacking different facets of our physical world with very similar models.Could there be a unifying theory that explains everything? That is the great quest.

In recent years we have seen something similar happening with the changing shape of management methods.  Models of change and methods from previously separate areas – such as project management and organisation development – are now beginning to ‘talk to each other’ and synthesise. We are seeing the emergence of common terms and of what some call ‘joined-up thinking’.

This is particularly evident in the area pearcemayfield comes from: methods and models whose development has been sponsored by the UK’s OGC and promoted by APM Group. Over the last fifteen years we have seen a convergence of language and a dovetailing of models in the following:

·         Project management (PRINCE2®)

·         Risk management (M_o_R®)

·         Programme management (MSP®)

·         Change management

·         Portfolio, programme and project support and assurance (P3O®)

·         IT service management (ITIL®), and

·         Maturity models (e.g. P3M3)

The OGC ownership of these has been significant in that it has worked towards convergence in successive publications of PRINCE2, MSP and M_o_R, for example, in a way that the ‘free market’ of ideas in business and academia might not have achieved so fluently; hence the significance of all the Registered Trade Marks above.

In particular, I would point to two ‘unifying’ pieces in particular:

1.       P3O, which has a unifying diagram. The position of a P3O system of support and assurance is such that it must move across all these different management areas with some kind of cohesion. A P3O insists on joined-up thinking.

2.       Change management. Although not yet adopted by OGC, this has been pioneered by APM Group. As a topic it is far too inclusive to insist on neat boundaries, such as with PRINCE2 project management. Effective change involves thinking about strategy, values, benefits realisation management, individual motivation, leadership … the works.

As we introduce clients to more members of this family of models, we are less likely to show disjointed links. Rather we find clients appreciate how much the recent editions of PRINCE2(2009)  and MSP(2007) build upon one another and other approaches.

Of course, we would claim some credit for that, having had a pearcemayfield author on both….:)

The Psychic Noise of Risk

or

... how I stopped worrying and learned to love risk management ...

As regular readers of the blog will know, I am an admirer of David Allen's work, particularly his Getting Things Done book. 

Mr Allen takes a lists-based approach to personal management. I was introduced to mind mapping first, so I was a little snooty about lists, regarding them as a fairly primitive form of making notes. However, I now realise that's silly: mind maps themselves can be radial lists.

However, one phrase gripped me in David Allen's approach where he describes all the uncaptured things we need to do seem to swim around in our heads as "psychic noise", distracting us from being able to focus upon the matter in hand, or what is most important at any given time. "Yes," I thought, "this noise needs to get out of my head and onto paper so that I can have confidence that I will come back to it at a later, more appropriate time." Thus with the item 'parked' on an appropriate list or mind map, I can then focus on the immediate matter in hand.

Continuing the theme in my last post, risk, there is a similar dynamic when it comes to the value of identifying risk. Whatever we may be planning, there will be uncertain threats and opportunities. Simply naming these and working out appropriate responses become enormously 'uncluttering' mentally, as we go about our business planning.

OGC have now built this into their best management practice in projects (PRINCE2), programmes (MSP) and at all levels of the business (M_o_R). It is now standard practice in every business case to list the major risks and factor in the costs of sensible responses to them.

As I practice this more myself in pearcemayfield, I can say this works. I notice that the 'psychic noise' in my head is reducing.

What's the Risk?

We travelled to Brighton yesterday, mainly in an unsuccessful attempt to see our gradchildren. It was unsuccessful in that they have both fallen ill with 'Swine Flu'. We didn't go in, lest we get the same; so we traded presents on the doorstep with my son and daughter-in-law. We came away with an endearing orange splodge of painting from our three-year-old granddaughter which she'd created, it seems, "on Tamiflu".

But what was the risk to us really? I thought on this on the journey home. Over the last few months, adjusting for the always-sensationalist bias in the media, it seems that the risk of my probably getting Swine Flu and the impact of it on me if I did contract it have changed markedly. (In fact, some studies suggest that someone of my age and condition may have already had the disease without being aware of it.) And of course, the popular understanding of the word 'pandemic' is an unfairly alarmist one.

But this is all 'par for the course' with Risk. Our assessment of any risk can and should change. Sometimes how probable it is that the risk will occur goes up, sometimes it goes down. Sometimes its impact is considered to be greater, and sometimes the considered impact seems a lot less harmful. With risk this is all quite normal.

Once at a Leadership conference, I heard Bono say this in the context of the Aids pandemic and the apparently hopelessness of changing things:

Life is more malleable than you think, and we must wrest it from the fools.

This is quite profoundly true. Which is why a mature and dynamic approach to risk is so powerful.

Recently we launched our own Management of Risk qualification training. This really does give a positive framework and mindset for people to deal with the malleable reality of risk.

So maybe we should have just gone in and hugged our grandchildren. It's time for a reassessment.