The Technical Work Stream
In thinking this through there are a number of pieces of work to be completed.
Design of workflows: One of the early pieces of work is to process map the
various workflows to establish the logical sequence of events that will be
necessary to deliver the technical aspects of the project. How fast can the overall
project be implemented? Speed will depend on the size of the system. How can
the overall task map be chunked down into elements lasting no longer than six
months? How will closer be brought to that aspect of the project? How will you as
an OD Practitioner gain recommitment of the client system to the elements of the
plan? How will they be involved? (It could be that part of the cultural work is to
run a series of stakeholder workshops during which they are facilitated to develop
their own plan in response to questions raised by the OD Practitioner).
Rate limiting steps: In the overall project are there any elements that can only be
done after a certain time or can only be done at a certain rate or are prevented
from being done by other factors it is really important to identify these so that any
constraints that make overall delivery either difficult or impossible can be identified
early on.
Once rate limiting steps are identified the reasons why can be identified. It is also
helpful if the decision making system that is needed to run along side the process
map is also identified. The use of a decision tree to sketch out the information
route map that will need to run alongside the process map is also sketched out.
Where there are rate limiting steps it also helpful to conduct some route cause
analysis to identify why those limits exist and what if anything can be done about
them.
Technology/skill mix leverage: The other important strand to be carefully
thought about is what technology may be required to support the implementation
of the project. Technology procurement or even design may have long lead times
and it is good to realise requirements as early as possible so that work can be
commenced.
There are often significant gains to be delivered by carefully planning skill mix and
necessary acquisition of skills during the project. It is important not to use skill mix
as the project focus as the outcome is not always clear. Additionally if skill mix
appears as the raison d’être people can often feel very threatened and that it may
just be change for change’s sake rather than delivering an outcome.
NB. It is important to close a stop valve after the preparation and design phase is
completed.