Harnessing Runaway Change

Portfolio Management

The Situation Following decades of growth by acquisition, the organisation was stuck, unable to make the sweeping business changes they desperately needed. Nothing was standardised, nothing was supported by a business case, and no one had the right kind of relationship with finance that allowed them to execute their business strategy decisively. The Impact The investment budget was tightening thanks to downward pressure on advertising revenue. They now had an urgent focus on 3 key priorities: Digital transformation Business case discipline A standardised delivery approach This would help them to modernise and generate revenue more effectively, while securing key systems and enable an enterprise portfolio management process across the organisation as a whole. Methodology The teams driving this change appetite came from different legacy organisations. More importantly, they exhibited traits of unhealthy rivalry To resolve this, we created a single inventory of all in-flight change, introducing relative prioritisation and developed a new enterprise portfolio, one which was achievable within the constraints of both budget and resources. It was essential to introduce strategically aligned demand management and made it part of a new governance setup to ensure collaborative and informed decision making. Afterall, without data and communication, the programmes had a much higher risk of failure and delay, eating into an already eroded budget. Finally, we introduced a new PMO function. They had a standardised framework to enable better reporting on project success as well as independent oversight of project delivery. The Outcome The result was a new, sharper focus on delivering what mattered by deprioritising all demand unsupported by a business case. By intercepting and stopping non-strategic “pet” projects this new approach released £9m for higher priority work. Boston Consulting Group independently concluded that these changes were responsible for an elevation in maturity from level 1 to level 3 in the areas of strategic alignment and delivery. The capability to identify a change that furthers the organisation’s strategic objectives gives it higher value. That’s because tactical changes are less important, yet compete for the same resources. By switching the focus to strategic objectives, there is a clearer executive and management focus on specific priorities. That leads to faster and more decisive execution. Simply setting a high bar for new demands means that the person raising the request has already considered its strategic alignment. They have to create a lucid business case - whether the benefits are financial or non-financial. A higher standard begins to change the business culture so that everyone is actively thinking about the organisation’s direction and future opportunities. In turn, this builds organisational maturity, elevating the way those who want change think about it - in terms of its impact on the organisation, its customers, and the market in which it operates. Cultural change like this does more than simply speed up execution. It starts to embed a mindset that’s nimble enough to respond with confidence and capitalise on emerging opportunity.