Purpose – why are we delivering improvement

All programmes need a purpose, ideally for S A Partners they should be the output of The organisations strategy or an Assessment. They should be converted into objectives that are easily understood by the people within the organisation. We use two simple tools to help us with this:

• Start with the Why, Simon Sinek, Tom Peters and Dr John Kotter all tell us to follow this approach
• Use the 6c approach to define your benefits- balance you objectives- invest in enabling and delivery benefits

Resources – who is going to deliver the improvement

If we want a high performing Programme we will need high performing People. Pick people who have the time to run programmes, who have the skills to manage resources, whilst having the energy and commitment to deliver improvement. It’s a very rare mix within individuals and will often need to be developed to create the champions for change that every organisation desires. Remember change is not easy, rarely is the road smooth, these people need to be well selected and very well supported.

Plan – how are we going to structuring improvement

Traditionally this is what programmes are all about- complicated Gantt charts with risk and issues identified. We all agree this is essential as we need something to baseline our improvement off, but if we create plans alone without purpose, sponsorship and resources all we have is a plan.

We agree and build great plans, make sure you review progress, track your benefits and not just your actions, raise the agenda of improvement, make Sustainable Continuous Improvement a key element of what we do, but remember a successful Programme needs Purpose and People to make it work.