The journey began by developing a clearer understanding of how strategy, leadership behaviours and operational improvement worked across the directorate.
An Organisational Pulse Assessment, ‘Voice of the Operator’ sessions, value stream analysis and future-state workshops identified the barriers to performance and established the evidence base for change. Alongside this work, financial modelling identified a credible route towards approximately £61 million in cumulative savings against SNM’s five-year operational cost baseline.
The senior leadership team aligned around the directorate’s ‘Moonshot’ and agreed the activities and behaviours the organisation needed to start and stop.
SNM defined excellence as an organisation where strategy reaches every level, leaders create dialogue rather than dependency, and people have the skills and confidence to make decisions and improve performance through daily work.
At the heart of SNM’s Lean Ecosystem are the behaviours that connect people across functions and organisational levels. Greater dialogue, visible ownership and decisions made at the point of information enable strategy, performance and improvement to move up, down and across the directorate.
A five-level Tiered Management System provides the structure for these behaviours, connecting the Moonshot with daily, weekly and monthly performance routines. Leader Standard Work reinforces how leaders support the system, while behavioural measures sit alongside performance indicators to show both what is being achieved and how.
Leaders, managers and improvement practitioners are developing the skills to identify issues, understand their causes and lead improvement themselves. Practical learning, Rapid Improvement Events and a train-the-trainer approach are embedding the tools and capability required to turn priorities into action.
Together, these elements are creating more than a management system. They are establishing a Lean Ecosystem that is strengthened by the people who use it.
Sustainability depends on the behaviours and skills behind the Lean Ecosystem becoming part of how SNM leads, makes decisions and improves performance every day.
The train-the-trainer approach is developing the internal capability to reinforce these behaviours, maintain the Tiered Management System and lead future improvement. As this capability grows, SNM’s reliance on S A Partners will progressively reduce.
The programme is on track to deliver a 20x return on investment and approximately £61 million in cumulative savings. It also supports SNM’s ambitions to deliver work 25% faster, improve productivity by up to 40% and reduce its future workforce requirement by 26%.
By 2028, SNM intends to own and develop the Lean Ecosystem independently, protecting the financial benefits while continuing to accelerate its long-term mission.
Leadership behaviours that create dialogue, ownership and decisions at the point of information.
A connected Lean Ecosystem combining behaviours, skills, improvement tools and management systems.
Internal capability to sustain a 20x return on investment and accelerate delivery.
We meet you where you are. It might begin with reducing waste, improving safety, strengthening capability, or reconnecting to purpose. But wherever you start, the work moves beyond the first win.
Answering the call means choosing to look inside before changing what’s outside. It means committing to habits over quick fixes. It means building the capability that allows excellence to become your way of working.