Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Education and Technology

How can Organisations Improve the Implementation of their Digital Transformation Projects?

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 10:37:54 GMT

According to Forbes more than 76% of digital transformation (DT) projects fail to achieve their desired benefits for the organisation. The reasons mostly quoted for so many failings include:

lack of leadership,
treating technology as a panacea,
absence of defined goals from the outset,
not having a clear idea of internal capabilities,
not understanding the people aspect of the organisation, and
misalignment between business and technology parts of the organisation.

Regardless of the above outlined difficulties in successfully implementing DT projects, specifically with sustainability in mind, DT is a necessity for all organisations across industries and sectors to remain competitive and relevant to their customers while harnessing technology and change to capitalise on internal efficiencies.

So how can organisations improve the implementation of their DT projects ensuring the desired benefits are achieved, and the specific organisational changes (impacts) are introduced?

Reflecting on successfully implemented DT projects in several organisations, we have found that following the implementation phases, broadly described below, significantly improves the likelihood of success:

Phase I - Designing and Focusing Investment

To successfully implement a digital transformation project organisations need to firstly gain a good understanding of the " As-Is " - where they are today, challenges they face, and opportunities they can harness through digitalisation, either internally or externally to grow and develop a sustainable future. During Phase I organisations need to answer questions such as,

How can digitalisation strengths be utilised better?
How can digitalisation weaknesses be turned into strengths?
How can opportunities be seized through effective digitalisation?
How can threats and disruption be avoided?

We have found that a good starting point for any organisation to gain a good understanding of their internal capabilities and assess their digital maturity is to use tools such as the one described in the below link http://digital.sa.gov.au/resources/topic/digital-government/digital-transformation-toolkit . Such a tool, among many others, enables any organisation to explore current capabilities across five pillars, namely Governance and Leadership , People and Culture , Capacity and Capability , Innovation and Technology , and assess their level of competence across five levels of maturity from minimal to transformed.

A SWOT analysis for digitalisation further allows an organisation to reflect on their internal challenges and strengths (e.g. improving internal company performance) and external opportunities and threats (e.g. external capabilities when dealing with customers and partners) and coupled with the digital maturity assessment findings to define the objective(s) for their DT project and the specific outputs and outcomes expected.

Phase II - Developing a Roadmap

The roadmap phase aims to plan how to achieve the objective(s) defined in the current state review phase of the organisation, described above. During Phase II possible alternative implementation paths should be described, the types of resources needed to implement the solution(s) should be determined, and the metrics for evaluating the success of the implementation should be defined.

Ideally, development work should take place in iterations . Therefore, the roadmap should be broken down into manageable chunks - each iteration bringing the overall solution(s) closer to the defined objective(s).

Phase III - Execution

During the execution phase, the starting point is the roadmap defined in Phase II. We have found that the launch of pilot projects is the best way to successfully implement the defined roadmap. For example, a small-scale prototype or Proof-of-Concept (PoC) solution should be implemented to test the feasibility of the solution(s) enabling the organisation to receive feedback from users and before committing to a larger-scale costly implementation.

By following the above three-phased process, we have found that organisations can gain a better understanding of what specifically they are trying to achieve through their investment in DT, their current internal capabilities and capacity, and the specific organisational benefits of the overall project. By building a roadmap leading to the implementation of the chosen solution(s) based on an iterative process that includes pilot projects and metrics to measure success, organisations can further greatly enhance the likelihood of success.

Find out more about our digital transformation framework here.

Access our digital transformation articles and insights here.

Why organisational culture change is critical for successful digital transformation?

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 10:06:35 GMT

Considering digital transformation as solely a technological endeavour is, according to a McKinsey survey, the reason that most businesses see less than one-third of the results expected from their digital transformation efforts. Implementing the latest artificial intelligence tools, customer relationship software solutions, re-designing processes and workflows automating customer journeys, and developing internal efficiencies are all progressive steps towards achieving advanced organisational performance. However, all these initiatives run the risk of not bringing the desired impact and benefits if the organisational culture does not correspondingly shift altering also its values, beliefs and strategic goals.

Changing an organisation’s culture during a digital transformation project can be difficult and time consuming as staff, managers and other stakeholders may resist to the inevitable change as they are used to the old ways of doing things, existing processes, skills, job descriptions and functions. Changing the organisational culture can also be difficult during digital transformation initiatives due to misalignment between the strategic goals, values and behaviours of the digital initiatives, but also due to lack of skills and in-house expertise which can exacerbate resistance to change.

So how can organisations successfully develop their digital organisational culture improving the implementation of their DT projects and ensuring a sustainable future?

Reflecting on our successful implementation of DT projects in several education-related organisations, we have found that addressing early on the organisational culture element of digital initiatives and considering the following outlined approaches, significantly improves the implementation of digital initiatives realising the desired benefits and impacts creating a sustainable future.

From our experience working with large and small organisations we have found that fostering a culture that encourages innovation and experimentation can lead to a transformation environment where digital implementation is driven by customer needs and the need to maintain effective and efficient internal processes. A culture that values collaboration and open communication across departments and functions can help breaking down silos and facilitate the integration and use of new technologies and processes. Strong leaders that set and communicate a vision , inspire their employees and embrace risk taking can develop a change culture that facilitate digital transformation and it does not hinder it. Internal communication through the development of communities of practice supporting the sharing of successes, failures, and learnings, can speed up adoption of new technologies and newly-designed processes increasing productivity.

Fostering a digital culture is often the key to successfully implementing and using the products of digital transformation projects while allowing the organisation to achieve the impacts envisioned and receive the benefits it needs.

Internationalisation in Higher Education - Challenges and Opportunities

Sat, 25 May 2024 10:41:52 GMT

*** This is an article I published in 2019 while working for Muscat University ***

I was delighted earlier this week to moderate a panel discussion on the broad subject of internationalisation in Higher Education (HE) during the " Practical Education and Internationalisation in HE " conference held on the 6th and 7th of October 2019 at Muscat University in Oman.

Latest figures (UNESCO, 2018) suggest that international student numbers keep increasing globally from 4m in 2011 to 5m in 2016 (UNESCO, 2018). Over the last 25 years internationalisation has developed from a marginal activity and minor component of HE to a mainstream pursuit; it is now part of university strategic plans, national policy statements and even strategic moves of some nations to position themselves as education hubs. Internationalisation has evolved from the exchange of students and the provision of scholarships to study abroad, to international programmes, university campuses operating abroad, student mobility, provider mobility, franchised programmes, flying-in faculty, quality assured programmes, joint and double degree programmes.

The most commonly accepted definition of internationalisation is the one provided by Jane Knight (2008, p.21) to read as

“…the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of post-secondary education…” .

Internationalisation can be

at home (IaH) – to develop intercultural and international awareness for students studying at institutions at home or
abroad (IA) – for the provision of education across borders including, movement of staff, students, programmes etc. or
at a distance (IaD) – to include online education capitalising on technology to reach global markets.

Based on the above context and definitions, the discussion panel was asked to consider the path that internationalisation has followed over the last 20 years, challenges and opportunities ahead and to consider whether Oman should/could become an education hub in the Middle East. The broad points of the panel discussion are summarised below:

We all agreed that we have witnessed a shift from a cooperation model towards a model of competition. A transition from a model based on partnership, exchange of knowledge and students to a model based more on competition for student numbers and revenue generation. Barriers to internationalisation in HE discussed included student visa restrictions, constraints on length of stay after graduation and level of tuition fees that some nations consider or have established already. Risks to internationalisation in HE mentioned by the panel included the presence of education within the General Agreement on Trades and Services (GATS) making it a tradable commodity on the global market raising concerns linked to the role and purpose of HE and the public good.
Opportunities for further developing internationalisation in HE included the review and development of broader international curricula allowing at home and abroad students to become global citizens - a key outcome and need for internationalisation. A strong emphasis was put on the whole student journey and experience for international students that still need to be improved and streamlined.
The panel considered the development of Oman as an education hub with the notion receiving an overwhelmingly positive response from the conference audience. The panel suggested specific steps towards the achievement of such goal to include developing a national strategy for positioning Oman as an international brand in education, building on the unique selling points of the country and concentrating initially on niche subjects, such as Islamic finance, architecture and the Arabic language. Emphasis was placed on streamlining specific administrative processes making the student journey from admissions to graduation as seamless as possible.
When panelists were asked to give a single principle that they believed should underpin internationalisation in HE over the next 20 to 30 years, responses such as, " I hope that in the future I will continue to be able to give to all my students an international mindset " and in terms of Oman becoming an education hub, " ...it is important to create an attractive environment for international students to come and thrive in our country... " were given.

The discussion panel and audience, all being "products" of internationalisation themselves, shared the view that internationalisation plays a critical role in improving student preparedness to become global citizens and to contribute to global problems and challenges; to internationalise curricula and strengthen research and knowledge production and exchange.

"More importantly, internationalisation allows bridges to be built across nations, to promote partnerships and collaborations across borders, and to contribute to reducing otherness and promoting inclusiveness and belonging" .

I welcome your views and comments.

Prof. Costas Chryssou, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Finance and Administration

From digital change, to transformation and even metamorphosis - What do they all mean?

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 07:33:42 GMT

Digital transformation (DT) market is projected to grow at a higher than 20% compounded annual growth rate from 2023 with an associated spending of 1.6 $trillion in 2022 and a projected spending forecast of 3.4 $trillion in 2026. Although this astonishing growth is attributed mainly to the Covid-19 pandemic, which since 2020 caused many organisations to increase significantly their investment and adoption of digital, there are many other contributing factors at play including changing customers' behaviours, preferences, and needs.

While digital transformation is a necessity for all organisations to remain competitive, the term is often overused, sometimes confusing businesses and practitioners alike. Many times the terms digitisation, digitalisation, and digital transformation are used interchangeably, together with digital change and even metamorphosis.

So what do they all mean and what are their benefits for an organisation?

Digitisation is about converting analogue data into digital form and it is the first step that organisations need to take in their digital journey towards digital transformation. Digitisation enables businesses to gain valuable insights from their data, leading to advanced business analytics and the capability of informed decision-making processes. By digitisation, many businesses, that still use manual processes to interact with their customers, can move a step closer to enhancing their customer experience.

Digitalisation , on the other hand, involves the change of workflows and the adaptation of organisational processes, procedures, and systems to enable the adoption of digital technologies. Through their digitalisation efforts, organisations can leverage digitisation to improve their business processes through automation, enrich their products or services, and offer enhanced value to their customers. For example, an organisation could be using digitised customer data, as gained from different sources, to automatically generate insights from their behaviour and inform existing products and services and create new ones. Although the transition path may not be linear, digitisation and digitalisation lead to digital transformation.

Digital transformation builds on the above described digitisation and digitalisation efforts and prepares organisations to leverage their knowledge and integrate it in all business areas to enhance customer engagement and experience, innovate their business model, and create new value. By utilising digital technologies, successfully implemented digital transformation projects make organisations more agile in responding to changing markets and disruptive business models, thereby making them more resilient to external disruption. Through digital transformation, organisations can achieve significant growth and gain competitive advantage.

“…Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how it operates and delivers value to customers…”

Digital change refers to incremental improvements or upgrades to existing digital systems and technologies. Although valuable, digital change or digital modernisation does not usually result in significant and transformative change that digital transformation makes possible.

During digital transformation organisa tions metamorphose ; they change their "shape" and "form", redefining and refining the core of their business. Digital transformation is much more than being present in social media, or implementing the latest digital technology, or a digital solution for a specific business function of the organisation. When used well, it transforms the organisation by enhancing productivity and innovation .

Digital transformation when it is successfully accomplished impacts three main enterprise areas,

Customer experience — achieving customer intimacy, using technology to enable and accelerate customer growth, and creating more value-adding customer touch-points.
Operational processes — streamlining internal processes by leveraging digitisation and automation, reducing costs by supporting employees with digital tools, collecting data to monitor performance, and making data-informed strategic business decisions.
Innovative business models — developing innovative disruptive business models by augmenting physical offerings with digital tools and services and using technology to provide global shared services.

“…Digital transformation should not be seen as a panacea…”

However, digital transformation should not be seen as a panacea to all challenges that organisations face or to remaining competitive. One key challenge that transformation leaders face is how to drive innovation within their organisation and how to improve productivity. Digital transformation can provide answers to both of these enterprise areas, but implementation should start with setting up an appropriate strategy clearly articulating the benefits that the organisation is aiming to achieve through the digital transformation project.

But more about how to successfully implement digital transformation projects on my next article.

How universities and HEIs can choose a competent ERP solution vendor?

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 11:06:42 GMT

In one of my recent articles I debated the “build or buy" conundrum that many Universities and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) find themselves contemplating for the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution ( http://tamegon.com/build-or-buy-an-erp-system-the-case-for-higher-education-institutions-heis ).

I specifically discussed some of the advantages and disadvantages of both options:

An in-house built solution will most certainly meet the exact requirements of the organisation but developing and maintaining such a solution will also demand significant human and financial resources and above all a long-term commitment from the organisation, in addition to specific knowledge and expertise.
Buying an ERP solution from a competent vendor, on the other hand, will allow HEIs to focus their attention, scarce resources, and efforts on their educational mission and vision and will enable them to capitalise on the significant expertise, knowledge, and experience that the ERP vendor will have acquired from operating in the marketplace for several years.

Experience suggests that ERP implementation failure rates can exceed 75% (according to Gartner) with one of the main reasons of these perceived failures being the choice of the ERP vendor.

But, how does one choose a competent ERP vendor?

Although choosing an ERP solution is quite a challenging task, by following the steps outlined below organisations can de-risk this process and maximise the opportunities for success.

1. Capture the business benefits expected - It is crucial to map the overall organisational strategic objectives, to the benefits that the ERP implementation project will realise, to the specific organisational impacts within the business, to the project outputs, and to specific and measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Questions such as, "How will the ERP solution help my organisation to reduce costs, or to launch better products or services, or to improve customer service and experience", should be asked from the outset.

2. Set an overall specification document - A detailed specification document should consider and map the "As Is", what currently works and what does not and should envision the position that the organisation would like to attain following the ERP implementation, the "To Be". The specification document should include the additional functionality required from the HEI to address specific issues. The more time an organisation spends on putting together a specification document that has been distributed throughout the organisation, the higher the probability that the implemented solution will be fit for purpose and the whole organisation will have a coherent vision of the expected outputs and outcomes. The document should also capture any specific requirements and understand the reasons behind them since such requirements many times increase the overall cost of the implementation.

3. Determine a budget and implementation timeline from the outset to include any customisation needed - Many ERP solutions come with a large number of modules including marketing and student recruitment, student information system, student attendance, finance management, human resource management, procurement and purchasing, library management, learning management system, inventory management, and many others. On the outset the organisation needs to carefully consider which modules it needs and prioritise the modules that will have the maximum impact bringing the desired transformation in their operations and enhancing customer experience.

4. Analyse and set criteria for selection - Now that the organisation has clearly captured what it expects from its ERP implementation and the expected impact to the business, it is important to determine the criteria that will be used to assess and compare the received proposals from various vendors. Of course remaining flexible is key since no solution and no vendor will meet all the requirements captured in the specification document. Criteria that could be used to assess proposals and quotes received include:

Deployment - on the cloud or on-premise servers?
Security - safeguarded against data tampering and adheres to the latest data protection rules and regulations, such as GDPR?
Scalability - is the organisation planning to expand its student population and what would than mean for the solution and the experience offered to students and staff?
Integrations - are there any specific third-party applications that the new ERP solution should seamlessly communicate with? For example, a Learning Management System (LMS), a financial system or an HR system?
Multi-platform access - is the new ERP solution offering access to the platform through an App?
Customisation - does the ERP vendor offer support to developing specific Apps and make changes to standard process work flows?
Implementation - does the offered implementation time support the organisation's plans for its digital transformation journey?
After sales support - what support is offered by the vendor throughout the implementation and after sales? What modes of support are they offered (remote or face to face) and what are the organisation's preferences?
Training - how is training on the new solution is provided by the vendor?
Direct and relevant experience - how many years have they been operating in the education market, how many clients do they have and what references can they offer?
Long-term view and approach - has the vendor invested in updating and re-designing their ERP solution over the years and has it been operating a considerable amount of time in the market?

5. Evaluate ERP vendors according to the criteria set - Now that the organisation knows how to assess ERP vendors and what it is important to its digital transformation project, it is time to approach several vendors, discuss their requirements and plans and receive proposals and quotes to shortlist and evaluate.

6. Prepare for the implementation - when the organisation has selected the vendor and the ERP solution that best matches its strategy, timelines, and budget, it is time to start thinking of the implementation itself, the resources required, the team, and the capability development to achieve high adoption of the solution and maximise the return on investment.

...technology is just an enabler, not a solution...

Selecting an ERP solution is a huge undertaking for any business and this is indeed the case for complex organisational structures, such as universities. It is important therefore that HEIs take their time to understand the benefits they are seeking from the ERP solution, for their students, educational provision and their business. HEIs need to take a long-term view when it comes to evaluating and comparing vendors and to appraise them as future partners.

The implementation phase of the ERP solution can be a long process and should be complemented with a review and re-design of processes and procedures, if possible. The time invested before the organisation starts its ERP implementation journey will pay dividends maximising ROI and avoiding having to deal with a costly and failed implementation.

How can a PMO innovate and remain relevant to the needs of the organisation?

Sun, 11 Sep 2022 08:27:50 GMT

Recent surveys indicate that more than 50% of Project Management Offices (PMOs) [1] have been in existence for less than two years. Although PMOs are created at a high rate across industries and sectors it seems that PMOs also close (often cited as a response to budgetary constraints) or radically transformed at a similar rate. It transpires that PMOs have limited time to showcase the value they add to the organisation and justify their existence before they are seen as ‘overheads’ by the stakeholder and the project management communities they are designed to serve.

The role of the PMO and the value it brings to an organisation varies according to the stakeholders’ vision, needs and desires. They can perform valuable activities (for example supporting management decision-making) and/or add value to the organisation (for example improving project delivery performance reducing re-work and enhancing delivery on time and on budget within the quality constraints).

PMOs can generally perform

an administrative function - collating and collecting data;
a control function – acting as process guardians;
a guidance function – helping, advising, and coaching project managers; or
a partner function – working with the executive team to improve overall performance.

The value that PMOs bring to the organisation is very much dependent on the role the PMO was established to fulfil:

‘ Doing things right ’ introducing a common approach and supporting management decision-making
‘ Doing the right things ’ assisting the organisation to select the right projects and allocate scarce resources appropriately where they will maximise value – projects in sync with strategy
Being a knowledgeable and objective voice – based on historic project performance data
Measuring results and communicating them to project and programme management communities and senior management, and fostering communities of practice
Looking for opportunities , challenging and pushing projects beyond their manager’s comfort zone, focusing on overall strategic benefit.

So, what strategies can PMOs employ to bring innovation in their roles and ensure that they remain relevant to the organisation they serve?

From experience, the priority of successful PMOs is to understand what their stakeholders expect of them and the metrics that are going to be used to assess their performance, safeguarding stakeholder buy-in.

PMOs, as the organisation they serve, must constantly evolve to ensure alignment with the organisation’s strategy and needs remaining relevant , valuable and value adding .

[1] https://mosaicprojects.wordpress.com/7930526410/pmo-survival/

Why a lightbulb is not the most appropriate image to depict innovation?

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 11:43:38 GMT

I was recently reflecting on the limited number of images used to depict innovation and the innovation management process. It seems that most articles, presentations and websites represent innovation using lightbulb images putting the focus and emphasis of the whole innovation process, it seems, entirely on the eureka moment - the lightbulb moment.

However,

Is this the most significant step of the innovation process?
Is in reality the idea the most important part of bringing a new or improved product or service to market?
What are the implications for our innovation pursuits if we only focus our efforts on the ideation part of the innovation process?
How the adoption of an innovation model can support any organisation to being successful in their innovation-related projects and aims?

There are many limitations to putting the entire emphasis of our innovation process on the idea creation part:

We are making creativity synonymous to innovation , and therefore, we may assign less importance to the subsequent steps and processes that we need to follow in order to prioritise, select, fund, develop, and launch an idea into a successful product or service.
Such an approach does not reflect reality on the ground since experience suggests that innovation projects are inherently risky and the innovation management process is anything but linear , comprising many feedback loops, dead ends, and re-starts, all contributing to organisational lessons learned.
This approach may further make us believe that brilliant ideas will result in successful products or services while experience shows that the "right" team , experimentation on a concept, execution , and committing investment are critical to the success of any new products and services.
Importantly, an approach that puts such emphasis on the idea part, may not allow us to consider from the outset the benefits we are trying to achieve through the organisation's innovation pursuits. We may not consider for example what success will look like - are we measuring success through financial performance, technical progress, commercial gain, or through the resulting societal impact?
Furthermore, such an approach may prevent us from allocating the organisation's scarce resources across different types of innovation (continuous improvement, breakthrough, disruptive and transformational) and thus stop us from creating a balanced portfolio of innovation projects managing their associated risks and benefits.
Another maybe unintended consequence of taking such an approach to innovation could be that putting idea generation as the most important part of the journey, we may trap ourselves within the closed innovation model and not consider the benefits and considerable advantages of the open innovation model and the development of networks and alliances.

The above points relate to a common challenge that many organisations I speak to seem to experience - where to start their efforts to support their innovation initiatives . Should they start with developing an innovation strategy and align it with the overall business strategy or should they start by developing a culture of innovation within the organisation? Experience shows that organisations that are successful make innovation a priority, they commit investment and talent to it, and they have the skills to execute innovation projects translating them into commercial success.

However, recent Accenture's survey has found that 82% of organisations run innovation projects in exactly the same way as the "business as usual", regular operations. This seems to lead to different challenges - 72% of senior executives admit to missing crucial growth opportunities and 60% of them struggle to learn from past mistakes. Adoption of an innovation management model formalising the process and considering the organisational context is a good way to shape and support the application of innovation within an organisation.

The context part will include activities such as

creating an innovation strategy identifying the innovation focus for the organisation - how the different types of innovation fit in the business strategy and which innovation activities should we prioritise;
developing skills and embedding a culture of innovation - allowing freedom at work to explore, providing clear strategic goals, forming multi-disciplinary teams, and introducing incentives;
reaching out and forming networks and alliances developing open innovation initiatives to support and enhance the delivery of innovation projects; and
using appropriate metrics to assess the success of innovation pursuits.

The process part will comprise steps and safeguards for dealing with the "fuzzy" front-end ideation part, the selection and prioritisation of the "right" ideas, their funding and development based on risk and scarce resources available, their launch and commercial success while capturing lessons learned to make the whole process sustainable.

By adopting an innovation management model, organisations can embed a sustainable and systematic way of approaching innovation enabling creativity and supporting systems to coexist without stifling innovation pursuits leading to the anticipated overall benefits for the organisation.

Do we care enough about benefit attribution? Should we?

Fri, 10 Jun 2022 09:42:06 GMT

I recently followed a podcast about benefit attribution in change programmes and projects where the presenters from a large organisation were claiming that although benefit attribution is very important to their organisation, it is considered very hard to implement and therefore they do not put any concerted efforts behind it.

I found myself carefully considering the various ways to establish benefit attribution – how much of the overall organisational value brought about by a change programme can be claimed to have been caused by the activities of a specific project as opposed to other things that were going on at the same time?

If this is what we mean about benefit attribution , does it matter how much change/impact was caused by a specific project out of the portfolio of projects of the change initiative? At one level the answer might be “no”; as long as the overall change programme resulted in the desired business and operational changes and brought about the improvement of value as determined by the change stakeholders then the value of the specific projects should not matter.

Although this might be the case, there are many projects that are required by their funders to demonstrate impact; how and to what effect they spent the funds allocated to them. This is particularly the case for public sector organisations that rely almost entirely on public funds to operate. In these cases specific project benefit attribution can be of particular importance, and managers may have to claim specific benefits in order to justify projects.

In our view the importance of benefit attribution lies on the fact that it should be linked, among other things, to organisational learning; if a project generated 80% or 90% of the organisational value then the organisation needs to identify this and learn from what went well as part of its improvement processes. At the same time if many projects resulted in the same benefit then questions need to be asked about appropriate prioritisation of projects and overall portfolio management within the organisation.

Regardless of the intentions, accurate attribution becomes increasingly difficult post project and it is therefore important to ensure that it is addressed within the lifetime of the project when there is a specific focus on the development area, further enabling better implementation of intended changes within the organisation.

One way that helps to identify benefits and makes the benefit management and attribution process easier is mapping the overall organisational strategic objectives, to the benefits (B) that each planned change programme or project will realise, to the specific organisational changes ( Impacts ) within the business to be introduced and their specific and measurable Key Performance Indicators ( KPIs ), to the project deliverables (P).

Through the development of a ‘line of sight’ between the intended benefits, the changes to the organisational blueprint and the project deliverables it is possible to identify potential ‘widows’ – changes that are not associated with any mechanism able to cause or support the necessary changes within the organisation and ‘orphans’ – deliverables that are not linked or needed to deliver the changes and benefits being sought. This process will further identify which projects are responsible for which benefits making the benefit attribution process much easier.

The undertaking of such a process through the creation of benefits maps , apart from enabling easier and better benefit management and attribution has several other positive effects on change initiatives:

It enables stakeholders to test whether the articulated organisational strategy is executable through the designed change programme;
It strengthens buy-in from all stakeholders through a compelling visual map of benefits, impacts and products with direct links between them;
It enables the execution of "what-if" scenarios optimising the project portfolio and reducing delivery complexity, risk and cost;
It creates a proven plan to deliver specific types of benefits (financial, strategic or risk avoidance) to the organisation.

Build or buy an ERP system? - The case for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 11:17:51 GMT

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software solutions provide to organisations of any size, sector or industry enhanced operational efficiencies, better business reporting capabilities, as well as improved customer service and supply chain management. In addition, the use of ERP solutions provide the opportunity to reduce operating costs and boost data and business continuity capabilities for any organisation, when cloud applications are used. Research suggests that ERP implementation led to process improvements for 95% of organisations while the top three benefits captured from such implementation were reduced process time, increased collaboration and a centralised data system leading to "one truth" [1].

Although the above benefits also apply to HEIs, their operational requirements are quite different from other types of organisations. For example, HEIs, due to their complexity of purpose, tend to have fragmented internal structures, experience challenges in measuring strategic outputs and outcomes and while they have a high degree of autonomy in some cases, in other cases are being under government dependence, mainly in terms of funding and sometimes regulatory compliance. HEIs find themselves constantly under pressure to deliver high quality education satisfying ever increasing expectations from their stakeholders while at the same time face considerable funding cuts. As a result, adoption of information technology that can improve the operational and organisational performance and reduce costs is perceived by all HEIs as necessary investment to remaining competitive in a global education market.

Many HEIs that are considering investing scarce resources in their digital transformation journey find often themselves pondering the usual"buy or build" management question - the dilemma of whether they should develop their own, in-house ERP software solution that meets their exact needs and match their internal processes or purchase a standard solution from one of the numerous vendors in the market that specialise in the HEI market.

My recent interactions with a number of private HEIs, reminded me that although every university may be different in terms of needs, target markets (local and international), educational programs, and access to funding, the challenges that are trying to address through an ERP solution remain very much the same,

...they all strive to have an efficient and effective means of interacting with and supporting their students' educational pathways prior to admission, during their studies, and after their graduation...

HEIs are in some sense "unique" organisations and their needs from an ERP solution go beyond the typical sales and marketing, supply chain management, HR and finance that any other business has. They include, among other tailored functions, student information systems that map, follow, support, and assist students during their educational journey. In this article, I thought to capture and outline some of the pros and cons of buying a standard ERP software solution for an HEI and compare them to the pros and cons of building an in-house one. Specifically, I wanted to consider the questions:

Does it make sense for an HEI to build an in-house ERP solution?
Are there any financial benefits to building rather than buying an ERP solution?
How are considerations regarding future system updates, emerging needs as the organisation grows and student preferences change, influence the choice between an in-house and a purchased solution?

Considerations for buying or building an ERP solution

Time - Sometimes urgent implementation of a software solution is paramount. This is particularly the case if an HEI has identified shortcomings in its operations resulting in high costs and in delays responding to student enquiries and their educational support which are translated in loss of income. With several ERP solutions available from ones that cater for 50,000 to 100,000 students and beyond, to ones that target HEIs with up to 10,000 students or below, HEIs have the opportunity to identify solutions that meet their specific operational requirements and documented needs and implement them fast. In contrast, by building their own, in-house ERP system, HEIs will not have the opportunity to test the system until it is completed with subsequent modifications and improvements most likely going to considerably lengthen the time needed to perfect it, implement it and adopt it.

Resources - Before an HEI even considers developing an in-house ERP solution it needs to evaluate whether it has access to experienced software developers and other experts who will be in a position to also in the long run maintain, support, upgrade and continue developing the solution while student preferences, technologies and the organisation itself changes. Keeping, maintaining and supporting such a team of developers does not come cheap for any organisation with the additional risk of key resources leaving the organisation taking with them crucial knowledge and experience. On the other hand, if an HEI chooses to implement a third-party software solution, the above risks and costs are minimised, but of course any modifications needed to the third-party solution will come at a significant cost.

Technical - Vendors that operate in the HEI market will most probably offer advanced functionality compared to a potential in-house ERP solution. Vendors can also support the process re-engineering efforts of the HEIs administration team and provide advice on best-in-class procedures and processes that will make interactions with learners faster and more effective - a key differentiating point for any HEI that operates in the global educational market. Thus, ERP implementation can bring positive and significant change to both established and new HEIs and improve the way the student administration works, interacts and supports students in their educational pathways. However, an in-house solution will potentially offer more flexibility to meet the HEI's specific requirements as the organisation scales up and changes, and new functions and features can be added if and when are needed. In addition, when it comes to integration with other solutions, an in-house ERP will most probably offer advanced integration capabilities compared to a third-party software which will have a limited choice of available API integrations.

Cost - The cost of developing, implementing and maintaining an in-house ERP solution will most probably be considerably higher than the overall cost of buying third-party software. These increased costs will be linked to software experts resources with the additional risks of potential loss of a key developer resource, for example, especially when problems occur and support is required. In contrast, purchasing a third-party solution will offer peace of mind that the solution will be maintained and resource will be available when it is needed. However, what could be adding to the cost of a third-party solution is customisation. Thus, an ERP solution will need to be chosen that satisfies most of the HEI's requirements and that the need for customisation is kept to a minimum.

Updates - Vendors, being experts in this field, they will keep up with the latest trends, they will be responsive introducing new technologies and ways of doing things in order for them to remain competitive in their market. Therefore, an HEI can also take advantage of the offer of a constantly updated software solution to pass the benefits onto their students and remain competitive themselves. The choice of a solution based on the cloud further enhances these benefits making updates fast and efficient with minimal disruption. In contrast, an in-house solution will be more difficult to be maintained in the long run since considerable resource and expertise will be needed on a continuing basis, to embed the ever changing new technologies and to most importantly satisfy students' preferences which may result in the loss of HEI's competitive edge.

Implementation - An advantage of purchasing a solution from a vendor is that the HEI can actually demo the overall solution from the start, understand whether it meets its needs, assess its usability and interface, receive feedback from the student administration team and students, and thus make an informed decision before purchasing it. In contrast, the in-house system is not ready from the outset and can only be fully tested once it has been developed. Any modifications and improvements will most probably delay the implementation phase. By purchasing an ERP system, HEIs can also access and capitalise on the knowledge and experience that vendors have gained from many years of developing the whole system and use their insights on how the different modules are interconnected. HEIs can further de-risk their purchasing process by receiving reviews from other clients and that way can assess also the vendor's performance in supporting, maintaining, and developing the system after implementation.

Of course, every HEI and situation are unique and specific advice should consider all of the above points. In general, developing an in-house ERP solution will demand from the HEI a lot of resources in terms of time, money and expertise and the decision to opt for such project should carefully consider whether the HEI is up to the considerable challenge and understands the specific benefits it is trying to gain. Outsourcing the ERP solution to a competent vendor, will certainly allow the HEI to focus its attention, resources and efforts to its educational mission and vision serving best its student community.

But, how does one choose a competent ERP vendor?

[1] https://www.netsuite.com/portal/resource/articles/erp/erp-statistics.shtml#:~:text=ERP%20ROI%20Statistics&text=Statistics%20on%20ERP%20return%20on,ROI%20in%20their%20expected%20time.

Portfolio management art or science?

Sun, 20 Mar 2022 11:22:40 GMT

Senior managers and PMO staff, in all organisations, increasingly recognise that one of the most efficient ways of ensuring that their projects and programmes deliver the intended value for the organisation is through formal portfolio management.

A recent PMI survey [1] reported that 55% of organisations frequently use formal portfolio management, a 5% increase over the previous year. Similarly, a PwC survey [2] reports that 53% of respondents across industries and sectors from retail, insurance, auto, banking to manufacturing and telecommunications, use portfolio management techniques and methodologies.

Effective portfolio management entails the constant allocation of scarce resources to projects by balancing cost, risk, and financial or strategic benefits or risk avoidance and any dependencies between projects. The task is complex and onerous since many options of viable combinations of project portfolios are present and multiple stakeholders, sometimes with conflicting agendas, compete for scarce resources.

Portfolio management allows the executive team to obtain a holistic view across the group of projects and programmes allowing them to understand the portfolio's value and strategic alignment - 'show me your project portfolio and I will show you your strategy'. Portfolio management employs three basic approaches:

value maximisation,
resource optimisation,
risk diversification.

Portfolio management involves ‘art’ and ‘science’ skills.

I used in the blog’s title the question “portfolio management: ‘art’ or ‘science?" because I recently came across an article explaining how Google has built image recognition software that enables an artificial neural network of computers to see shapes in images; the by-product of this is some surprisingly creative and unusual pictures [3] – culmination of ‘art’ and ‘science’! This is also the case with portfolio management.

The ‘science’ part may entail plotting all possible portfolio combinations to identify those that represent best value for money; based on the constraints we have imposed (cost, benefit, risk, resources and inter-dependencies, and any possible mandatory projects). These value-for-money portfolio picks represent the ‘efficient frontier’ of the portfolio – the portfolios along the top edge of the plot cluster, as shown in the schematic.

Such an approach not only allows us to identify the most high value portfolio combinations, but also to directly compare portfolio picks that include both financial and strategic benefits, and plot risk-adjusted values against risk-adjusted costs on a scale of arbitrary units; the scale will be a reflection of the value that the organisation puts on the various benefit categories.

And here is where the ‘art’ part comes into play. The efficient frontier methodology, although powerful and value-adding, cannot substitute for effective decision-making from the senior executive team. It is senior executives that need to select the most appropriate portfolio best aligned to the strategy of the organisation and it is for them to determine the type and balance of benefits they are looking to realise by executing the 'right' portfolio of projects.

Find out how our project portfolio optimisation tool can assist your organisation with maximising value from your change and innovation project portfolio here .

[1] http://www.pmi.org/~/media/PDF/Research/2012_Pulse_of_the_profession.ashx

[2] http://www.pwc.com/mx/es/industrias/proyectos-capital/archivo/7930526410-insight-trends.pdf

[3] https://news.artnet.com/market/google-inceptionism-art-sells-big-7930526410

What types of innovation PMO can organisations consider implementing?

Sun, 27 Feb 2022 05:05:33 GMT

Experience shows that innovation management presents many challenges to organisations of any size, across industries and sectors. There is also a lot of discussion about how an organisational structure such as an innovation PMO, could assist innovation pursuits - the main aim being to develop a balanced approach, supporting the innovation process without stifling the creativity that innovation relies upon.

If an innovation PMO is an organisational structure that can support such a complex endeavour, such as the innovation management process, how can organisations implement one?

A good starting point would be to understand the type(s) of innovation the organisation is interested in pursuing. Each type of innovation requires a different management approach and therefore, one might argue, a different type of innovation PMO to support it.

In one of my previous articles, I described four types of innovation in a 2 x 2 matrix encompassing continuous improvement, disruptive, breakthrough, and transformational innovation. Continuous improvement or incremental improvement is more about value optimisation incorporating value-adding product modifications. It usually involves using existing technology and improving a product targeting an existing market.

Increased competition in the marketplace though cannot be addressed only by continuous improvement. Breakthrough innovation allows organisations to leap forward ahead of competitors by coming up with new technological developments and/or business models.

Disruptive innovations present specific challenges to all organisations because of the innovator's dilemma issue - incumbent companies having streamlined their operations and products to profitably serve specific market(s), find it difficult to back new technologies or business models which tend to, among other things, be unproven, sometimes under- performing in specific areas, and generally presenting a high risk business proposition. Transformational innovations , on the other hand, can impact on the nature of society.

Organisations need to implement different supportive mechanisms to engage with and be successful at these four types of innovation encompassing, on one hand, R&D labs and predominantly the use of internal resource, and on the other hand, forming innovation labs and employing the venture-capital model to assess and develop promising projects and technologies that are aligned with the overall strategy. Each type of innovation demands a different organisational culture that supports, nurtures and develops innovation projects in a systematic way, working across organisational silos and bringing together talented people (internal or external) from a wide variety of fields and disciplines to work together and cross-fertilise.

Whatever the type(s) of innovation an organisation is pursuing a PMO structure could be pivotal to the success of its innovation endeavours. Below, I describe three types of innovation PMO that can support different types of innovation as well as the competencies that are required for the organisation to be successful at pursuing them:

Promoter: Provides information about innovation strategies and helps the organisation to rigorously use the defined innovation methodologies; it drives and facilitates internal teams to identify problems and guards, and effectively applies stage-gate development processes. The promoter innovation PMO is more designed to support continuous improvement and 'new to the company' innovations.

Incubator: Identifies and selects new innovative ideas and develops them with appropriate resources and research. Nurtures them to grow into practical applications for products or services leading to successful product or service launch; it predominantly deals with 'new to the market' innovations.

Champion: Leads and embeds a culture of innovation into the ‘DNA’ of the organisation; integrates internal and external ideas (open innovation), nurturing innovation throughout the organisation making it adaptable and responsive to change. It equips the organisation with the skills to deal with and launch 'new to the world' innovations.

As organisations divide their innovation efforts among all types of innovation, creating a balanced innovation portfolio, the development of the 'right' type of innovation PMO to support these efforts is crucial to the success of the organisation.

In general, a PMO-type approach for innovation is likely to positively influence an organisation in different ways:

ensuring alignment with overall strategy,
achieving consistent results from innovation pursuits across longer time-scales,
capturing accurate information and presenting a better opportunity to embed lessons learned,
developing experience and knowledge to successfully launch many concurrent projects and complete them within the organisational constraints (budget, time, quality, scarce resource),
offering enhanced ability to respond to changes in the competitive market environment.

I welcome your views and comments.

What organisational structures and skills should an innovation PMO have?

Sun, 27 Feb 2022 04:57:20 GMT

In one of my recent articles ( https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-pmo-structure-support-innovation-process-costas-chryssou/ , about how the PMO can support the innovation process, I mentioned that an innovation PMO can play a vital role as an integrator, supporting and being involved in the innovation management process by

taking a portfolio approach to innovation,
being involved more in the 'fuzzy front end' of the innovation process, and
becoming a Centre of Excellence for innovation within the organisation.

The above points beg the question; what organisational structures should the innovation PMO consider having and what skills and experience should its staff possess in order to support all of the above requirements?

Of course there is not a single innovation PMO structure that will be right for all organisations; 'one size does not fit all'. PMO structures will very much depend on the size of the organisation, its culture, and its geographical, market and product or service spread.

There is always going to be a trade-off between centralised and decentralised structures as well as possible hybrid approaches such as the 'hub and spoke' innovation PMO that need to be considered for a balanced approach to be achieved.

A centralised innovation PMO could allow the executive team to retain greater control over the PMO's activities and hence ensure strong alignment with corporate strategy (key to successful and value adding change initiatives). By centrally controlling the portfolio of innovation initiatives the organisation could engage with larger transformational programmes addressing cross-organisational issues and market challenges with greater speed. However, as it is the case with most centralised structures, the programmes and projects initiated by the innovation PMO may not be aligned with the individual needs of the local business units and more importantly, resistance to change may be higher due to difficulties in stakeholder engagement and conflicting objectives/agendas. Establishing metrics to measure PMO performance may not be so straightforward either, since balancing corporate and local needs can be a challenging endeavour.

On the other hand, a decentralised innovation PMO could enable the organisation to be better in-tune with the local business unit needs. The decentralised innovation PMO could also allow the organisation to be more agile in pursuing the 'right' opportunities due to easier access to the 'right' people at the 'right' time. Importantly, embedding change (an Achilles' heel of any successful change initiative) can be enhanced by the local knowledge of change managers and sponsors. Furthermore, a decentralised PMO structure will enable the pursuit of smaller and local business opportunities. As expected, a decentralised structure for an innovation PMO, may lack strong alignment with corporate strategy, and may be limited in terms of the financial and other resources it can access from central budgets.

A 'hub and spoke' innovation PMO could in theory address the above challenges of the centralised and decentralised innovation PMO structures and build on their individual advantages. It could, for example, achieve a balanced strategic alignment between the corporate and local business units and allow the local business needs to be better addressed compared to a centralised innovation PMO structure. It could further enable the local business units to drive and lead their own corporate change initiatives and achieve better access to necessary resources (human and financial). However, such a 'hub and spoke' structure could increase the bureaucratic overhead of the innovation PMO since the change initiatives will not be effectively executed without an administrative function that maintains links between the hub and the spokes.

Regardless of its structure, an innovation PMO should aim to shape some order around the creative innovation process and effectively support it.

"…the best innovations are developed in unofficial skunk works off the radar in dark sheds…"

Ideas sometimes fail to be translated to commercial opportunities due to the length of time it takes to be developed and lack of visibility leading to lack of resources and support behind them which may result in missed opportunities for the business. It is particularly these projects that an innovation PMO can support.

From our recent experience, a large financial institution, pro-actively supports and encourages small dedicated teams to pursue innovative ideas, off the radar, in 'dark sheds' which are then presented to senior management and the most attractive projects are then selected and further developed, leading to some successful ideas being implemented in the market place as new services or products helping the organisation to maintain their product leadership position in a very crowded market.

In order to be successful and value-adding, the innovation PMO staff need to possess specific skills and have product and service development experience. The skills of the innovation PMO staff should be particularly broad encompassing business, technology (if applicable) and project management.

Innovation PMO staff should have entrepreneurial and business acumen skills ; they should be able to identify, assess and match potential market opportunities with internal development initiatives (or vice versa) linking open innovation opportunities to enable the organisation to acquire necessary IP and technologies to develop and launch new products or services and reducing time to market.

I welcome your views and comments.

Why does strategy implementation seem to be such an issue?

Mon, 21 Feb 2022 10:37:49 GMT

Even a great vision and strategy can fail to deliver the intended benefits if changes are not implemented well. Assuming that the new strategy is sound, why is that implementation seems to be such an issue?

Reasons tend to vary from

lack of stakeholder alignment - the strategic intent is interpreted in an inconsistent manner
lack of sound planning - the strategy is not being implemented as stated
lack of 'line of sight' between benefits and project deliverables - the implemented organisational changes are not linked to the benefits being sought
failure to address the 'people' issues - change is being constrained by the environment
not taking into account dependencies between projects in the change portfolio - strategy implementation is flawed.

From our experience working on large transformation projects, we have found that implementation effectiveness can be markedly improved by testing whether the stated strategy and vision can be executed through the designed Target Operating Model (TOM) for the 'new' organisation; our strategy implementation planning model is depicted in the schematic below.

Confirming the organisation's current ('As Is') and future ('To Be' - the vision) states enables the identification of the gap between the future and current organisational states leading to a thorough understanding of what needs to change and how. Having confirmed the changes that the vision demands of the organisation, the next step involves the mapping of the intended benefits to necessary organisational changes and to project deliverables, developing the ' value model ' of the programmatic change.

During this process questions that should be asked include:

what type and balance of benefits are we interested in?
what changes do we need to introduce to our current operating model?
which project deliverables will induce the desired organisational changes?
what business areas are going to be affected by the change initiatives and by how much?
what types of resources do we need to successfully implement the projects and realise the benefits?

Validating the benefit claims using indicators in the business and the market environment that underpin the assumptions for benefit statements is a powerful way to help prioritise the 'right' projects in the change portfolio based, among other things, on the benefit realisation profile.

The outcome of such an approach is the design of the new TOM which describes at a high level, the future structure of the organisation, setting out the relationships between people, culture, skills, processes, technology and products.

Such an approach can add value to the organisation in several ways

testing whether the articulated strategy is executable through the designed change programme
strengthening stakeholder buy-in by aligning the vision and expectations
enabling the execution of 'what-if' scenarios optimising the change portfolio and reducing risk and complexity, and
creating a proven plan to deliver specific types of benefit.

Can blockchain-based technologies transform the government and public sector?

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 09:56:24 GMT

Governments and the public sector worldwide continue initiating projects to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and above all enhance services and improve the way they interact with their citizens. Digital government , a successor of the e-government paradigm, refers to the creation of new public services and delivery models that harness digital technologies, citizen data, and government information assets.

While the e-government paradigm was focused on the digitalisation of public administration, digital government focuses on the provision of citizen-centric, agile, and innovative public services that are designed to develop an "easy-to-interact with" government services ecosystem reducing labour intensive processes, and freeing staff time to concentrate on the implementation of other strategic initiatives. Benefits to digital government initiatives include:

improvement of online experience for citizens,
enhanced internal productivity and efficiency for public sector organisations,
reduced labour costs, and
adoption of an innovation mindset capitalising on its beneficial spill-over effect.

Underpinning many of the digital government transformation plans is blockchain - one of the most innovative and disruptive digital technologies that are considered under the new paradigm of governmental policy-making and service delivery. Blockchain has evolved from a predominantly crypto-currency technology to a contester of wide applications across industries and markets expected to revolutionise or, at least, facilitate various government services and functions.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger , a secure decentralised database technology. As such, blockchain-based products can become a major tool to ensure protection of sensitive data, as well as enhance accountability and trust among parties. By bringing together several existing technologies in a novel way, blockchain can essentially codify “truth” and eliminate the need for “trust” . The implications are vast and perhaps most important is the elimination of intermediaries during the exchange of information assets between two "untrusted" parties [1]. Quite significantly and as a result of the above features, blockchain is considered to be one of the main drivers for the enhancement of transaction speed and reduction of cost. For example, according to a Santander FinTech study [2], blockchain could reduce financial services infrastructure cost between US$15 billion and $20 billion per annum by 2022, providing the possibility to decommission legacy systems and infrastructure and significantly reduce IT costs.

Applications of blockchain technologies considered for the public sector are numerous:

the provision of citizen records across several public sector organisations and functions,
running state registries and support to electronic voting,
the facilitation of economic transactions,
providing a regulatory oversight of markets,
fighting tax fraud/evasion and
the redistribution of public money, including grants, social transfers, and pensions.

However, despite the many potential advantages of blockchain and the significant benefits that it can bring to public sector organisations assisting them with fulfilling their broad aims of digital government, there are many challenges to blockchain adoption.

Blockchain's immutability (once data is added it cannot be removed) may not suit all applications where data needs to be added and deleted on a regular basis.
Blockchain is not designed for storing large amounts of data; if data storage is needed, then a hybrid solution may be necessary.
As is the case with every new technology, educating the prospective users and market in general of the benefits of the technology and creating broad awareness is key . Explaining blockchain to public officials and civil servants could be challenging. It is necessary though to discuss with all public sector stakeholders the increased efficiencies that can be achieved through the use of blockchain.
Although blockchain can reduce costs of any supply chain there are some high initial implementation costs that could prevent its widespread use; one way to overcome this could be the use of blockchain-as-a-service allowing low risk experimentation of the public sector staff with the technology.
High energy consumption of blockchain sometimes is flagged as a barrier for the technology; however, this is irrelevant for public-sector project implementations and apply only for permissionless / public blockchains.
Although blockchains can eliminate the need for central authority, they must be coded and governed appropriately. Public sector organisations will need to build internal technical capacity and knowledge to ensure that decisions are made correctly and to safeguard appropriate governance.

Despite of the above challenges, adoption of blockchain technologies in the Middle East is quickly gaining ground. Dubai has already announced its intention to be the world's first blockchain-powered government (smart Dubai); it plans to capitalise on the technology to remove administrative layers and improve information and data access among public sector organisations with the view to ultimately improve quality of life. Saudi Arabia , as part of its Saudi Vision 2030, and in collaboration with Elm and IBM are re-imagining and transforming the way services are provided across to citizens, residents and visitors. Bahrain has already established the appropriate legal framework and support for using blockchain and other types of technologies to conduct transactions in both Bahrain’s commercial and government sectors.

Blockchain, as is the case with all technologies, is just an enabler and it is not the solution.

As it is always the case with any technology, blockchain can only be an enabler of the digital transformation that government sector stakeholders need and aspire to. However, I think that before the introduction of blockchain to any government systems and infrastructure, there is an opportunity for processes and procedures to be re-imagined, re-engineered and streamlined to eliminate waste (lean process re-engineering). Although blockchain can bring forward increased efficiencies it would be a missed opportunity if public sector organisations did not re-design their internal and external processes to enhance their organisational structures and design-in simplified ways to interact with their citizens.

From my recent experience with a blockchain organisation, there is a significant lack of awareness about the technology, particularly outside the financial sectors, and a lack of understanding of how it works and the benefits it can bring. Although blockchain is not a panacea, efforts need to be intensified to educate the market in order to accelerate blockchain adoption and reap the anticipated rewards.

[1] Peter Fuchs, “Blockchain – Everything you need to know about how this remarkable technology will impact you, your organisation and society, Mercer, 2019.

[2] https://www.coindesk.com/business/2015/06/16/santander-blockchain-tech-can-save-banks-20-billion-a-year/

University-Industry interactions in the Sultanate of Oman

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 09:33:47 GMT

I recently published a paper in the Journal of Industry and Higher Education, studying University-Industry (U-I) interactions in Oman and I thought to share some of its findings that could be of interest to researchers, policy makers and all innovation actors (industry, universities, and intermediary organisations).

The study is based on a qualitative review of published higher education institute (HEI) quality audit reports and on two questionnaire surveys sent to HEIs and industry. It is suggested that Oman’s innovation system is currently based on the ‘statist’ Triple Helix (TH) model of innovation with some initiatives taking place to transition it towards the ‘integrated’ TH model. The results show that U–I interactions are mainly education-related, with limited emphasis on research and commercialisation activities. Barriers to U-I interactions identified include initiation and awareness constraints, limited funding, internal organisational culture and structure and industry’s limited absorptive capacity.

Some conclusions that can be drawn from this study include the following

U–I collaborations in developing and transitioning environments cannot be sustainable and successful if some interconnected elements of the innovation ecosystem are absent. On a basic level, these prerequisites include, on one hand, the existence of HEIs that are appropriately funded, with academic staff who are incentivised to undertake research and equipped with suitable research facilities, and, on the other hand, the existence of industry with adequate absorptive capacity to make use of the results of joint activities, in addition to incentives for both parties to collaborate and the means to coherently communicate.
The existence of policies (establishing and formalising IP rights), structures (intermediary organisations acting as the bridge between the innovation actors) and frameworks determines the breadth of these collaborations and ultimately their success.

Based on the study, several interventions could be considered by policymakers to stimulate collaboration between industry and HEIs in Oman where they currently do not exist and to enhance the frequency, quality and breadth of interactions already practised.

Considering the low percentage of GDP investment in R&D in Oman and existing constraints in human capital, investment in applied research areas that government, national and regional markets have identified as priorities is essential, with the business sector involved in a co-funding capacity ; such collaborations will enable the re-purposing of HEIs from teaching and research to drivers of economic development and will further enable the transition of the TH innovation model of the country towards the ‘integrated’ model.
Policymakers in Oman could consider the establishment of dedicated U–I liaison units in HEIs ; Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) in universities have become a widespread mechanism for assisting researchers in establishing links with industry and for the protection and commercialisation of their IP. To achieve critical mass and broader representation, many developed and developing countries have chosen to develop joint TTOs for groups of HEIs in the same region or that specialise in similar fields.
To address cultural barriers, and to further strengthen participation in U–I engagement projects, measures to reward academic staff for developing industry links , such as income from academic consulting and patent licensing as well as participation in spin-offs and start-ups can be considered.

The establishment of U–I liaison units by HEIs and strengthening of the existing intermediary organisations, such as business incubators already established in Oman, will further bridge the gap between industry and academia and enable the diffusion and use of technology and knowledge in the economy.

The link to the article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1177/0950422219896748

ERP systems in Higher Education - Have we automated our student journey enough? Should we?

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 09:29:27 GMT

Technology has been changing the way education is being delivered for some time now. In addition to online courses, new learning techniques and online learning management systems, the management of Higher Education (HE) institutions themselves has been revolutionised through the use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems . The use of ERP software is not a new concept; it has been widely used to ease management processes and improve operations and transparency in many industries, before its increasing popularity in the HE sector. ERP systems, particularly based on the cloud, can offer significant cost savings and allow the development and pursuit of new business models under a general digital transformation path for educational institutions.

Compared to the traditional method of management, the use of an ERP system in education can assist organisations to increase productivity, enhance and streamline internal operations and processes such as HR, finance, procurement, learning management systems, library resource and student attendance in addition to enhancing the student journey and student experience , important considerations for all HE organisations in the current competitive environment.

Several benefits of using an ERP system in HE settings are summarised below,

Automation of administrative functions and processes - the ability to develop operational efficiencies by seamlessly integrating various basic functions within HE institutions such as marketing, student recruitment and management of student applications, student administration, finance, and the overall educational pathway journey.
Cost-effectiveness - by moving all operations online, organisations are able to reap significant financial benefits by reducing administrative manpower through automating and streamlining processes and procedures while at the same time achieve important responsiveness to student needs and demands, thus hugely contributing to the overall student experience.
Enhanced strategic decision-making capability - by collecting and analysing large amounts of current and historic data across the student journey, organisations can inform their decision-making processes across all functions.
Data security - with advanced data protection capabilities and business continuity advantages, when particularly the system is based on the cloud; satisfying security and confidentiality requirements (e.g. GDPR).
Enhanced service offering to students and staff - by offering to students and faculty service portals with advanced customisation capability satisfying their unique requirements and enhancing their organisational experience and interaction.

Of course there will always be limitations. Some of the ERP limitations are:

Cost of implementation and customisation - it can be significant through the planning and implementation phases, but particularly because of ongoing customisation, unless HEIs develop internal expertise developing their own driven customisations and change management processes.
Usability - the use of the system at its full capacity and capability can be difficult especially at the early stages; this is particularly the case due to resistance of adoption for systems with complicated user interfaces. Appropriate training and time needs to be invested by the HEI management to bring new staff up to speed quickly, and existing staff to explore and use new system functionalities which will enable them to continue offering advanced services to students and staff.

Student journey automation

From our recent experience leading the implementation of an ERP system in an HE organisation, the benefits of student journey automation are unprecedented. The use of an appropriate ERP system brings many advantages across all stages and touch-points between the HEI and current or prospective students

Supporting brand awareness and competitive positioning - to establish their brand as places that students want to join, to showcase their unique academic programmes and other advantages of the whole student experience. Although some manual marketing activities are still necessary, marketing automation enables outreach teams to easily develop marketing campaigns across all social media platforms, capture prospects and leads from several channels and automate communication. Data captured, together with analytics from the website itself, provide important information to marketing and student recruitment teams about responses to marketing messages, how new academic programmes are received and other university endeavours which can further inform academic and strategic decisions of the organisation.
Student recruitment - to convert interested prospective students to applicants through "personalising" their communication messages and addressing their unique interests, concerns and aspirations - capitalising on the data gathered during previous steps. HEIs can build on marketing automation across all digital platforms, identify the most engaged prospective students who are most likely to apply through more personalised messages and information and easily target them enhancing conversion rates.
Application, evaluation, admission - to keep the student application process as short and as efficient as possible by automating messages, reminding some applicants to complete and submit their application on time and keeping them excited about student life and other services which are pivotal to ensure that students prefer a particular HEI over another. Internally, ERP systems underpin standardised, streamlined processes between the academic and administrative teams reducing the time to make an offer. ERP systems provide many useful automation tools such as web bots that can provide real time information to applicants about their application status saving crucial time from the recruitment and admissions teams supporting lean operations.
Academic pathway - to make the academic journey for each student smooth and unique, supporting them to take advantage of all the opportunities presented to them through the years, making them aware of extra curricular activities, student clubs and societies, while maintaining records of their academic journey in terms of courses, grades and tutors' support reducing the administrative load and keeping the university lean while maximising added value to each student and academic staff.
Alumni - to continue engaging with their graduates by personalised communication showcasing relevant activities to be engaged with as well as seeking their support and expertise to assist existing students.

Automation - With the help of an ERP solution, automation of functions and processes allows HEIs to concentrate more on learning and teaching.

The main value of automation though for any educational institution is the allowance of additional interaction time among students and faculty. Automation of repetitive tasks and mundane processes as well as continuous monitoring of student attendance, academic progress and performance allows for early identification of potential learning gaps, giving more time to faculty to design-in some degree of individualised teaching, adding value to the student academic journey.

Find out how our digital transformation services can support Higher Education Institutions to add value to their students, academic, and administration staff here.

Access other relevant articles here.

What skills will graduates need to succeed in the future job market?

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 09:15:39 GMT

Building on the third industrial revolution, the fourth industrial revolution based on artificial intelligence, digital, virtual, big data, and robotics presents a great opportunity with the potential to connect billions more people to digital networks, improve the efficiency of organisations, enable disruptive new economic and business models, and even change the way humans exist forever.

For organisations to remain competitive they need to consider how business models will change, what these changes will mean for their internal structures and processes and how to address potential skill-gaps that will be created. In a landscape of rapid and profound change, digital has already transformed our lives with the computerisation of tasks, processes and abundance of tools that empower workers to be more effective. There is currently a lot of discussion about the skills that youth and graduates will need to be equipped with to be able to effectively compete and succeed in the job market of the future. With youth unemployment increasing worldwide ( Global Employment Trends for Youth 2020 ) and anticipated automation of many jobs over the next 15 years, what are the skills that will be most in demand?

Although AI and automation will no doubt transform current occupations and occupational categories, leading to the replacement of some of today's jobs, they will certainly also create new ones requiring graduates to adapt, re-skill and learn how to use new technologies and capitalise on new business models and opportunities.

New and existing technical skills will be required. Understanding of AI , big data , machine learning , coding , cyber security , robotics and software development as well as project management skills will be in high demand.

Soft skills - competencies and positive attitudes that help employees to successfully interact and collaborate with others in the workplace - will receive more focus. These interpersonal skills, which can include communication and listening skills , conflict resolution , collaboration and team working , openness to feedback, problem-solving skills and creative thinking , will underpin future employment. While tasks and processes will continue to be automated, these soft skills cannot be replicated with technology and employers will always be looking to fill their leadership positions with appropriate talent.

Entrepreneurial skills and attitudes will also underpin opportunities that the fourth industrial revolution is creating, providing unique prospects for youth worldwide to alleviate barriers to entry into traditional employment as well as to capitalise on local knowledge and resources and create employment for others.

Although traditionally, education systems were the primary pedagogues tasked with preparing young people for the workforce, there is currently a broad consensus that there is a gap between the skills that graduates have and the skills that employers need; this disparity will only be exacerbated due to the speed that digital transformation will continue to evolve. To bridge this gap many approaches have been taken worldwide, from apprenticeships designed to ease the transition between education and the workforce, to workforce skills development programs run by non-for-profit organisations designed to offer technical expertise and in-depth experience, to government sponsored programs as well as business-led approaches where the business community, recognising the skills-gap, is willing to invest in youth development to attract new talent.

Building a lifelong learning culture entails moving from “education for employment” to “education for employability” and from “job security” to “career security”.

Whatever the form and the approach to bridging the skills-gap created, lifelong learning, the continuing pursuit of knowledge and development for personal and professional reasons, is certainly a culture that will become even more prevalent in the future as new job roles are created and existing ones become obsolete. Adaptability and frequent career changes will be part of the norm as we move from "education for employment" to the development of "skills for employability" , leading to "career security" .

Can a PMO structure support the innovation process?

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 07:08:32 GMT

Today’s competitive global environment is forcing businesses to be more flexible, responsive to change and efficient than ever before. Gaining and sustaining competitive advantage is one of the biggest priorities and challenges that all organisations, in both private and public sectors, face.

Innovation, "...the process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay…" is frequently seen as a tool to deliver and maintain an organisation’s competitive advantage

Experience shows that innovation, and particularly disruptive innovation , presents many challenges to organisations. Studies, conducted by Harvard Business School, show that a large percentage (70 – 90%) [1] of innovation products fail. Most organisations, over time, develop robust systems, processes and cultures suited to ‘steady-state’ operating conditions. High-risk discontinuous innovation projects do not fit well with the ‘traditional’ stage gate approaches to innovation, rendering their approaches unsuitable.

But why is innovation so hard to do well?

Keith Goffin, of Cranfield School of Management, describes the innovation value chain as comprising the steps of ideation, project prioritisation, implementation and commercialisation (Innovation Pentathlon framework) [2]; these aspects are complemented by the organisation’s innovation strategy, culture and organisational structures.

For organisations to be successful in the innovation management process, they need to have the capabilities that will differentiate them from the competition. Studies have confirmed that these capabilities include:

the ability to scan at the periphery with the view to identify emerging technologies and trends
the development of ‘fuzzy front end’ approaches to include the seed funding of new innovative and risky projects involving cross-functional teams
the development and nurturing of inclusive and ‘learning’ organisational cultures .

Based on the above requirements for successfully managing innovation can a PMO structure assist the innovation process in any way? Will the product or service development process benefit from a distinct organisational structure such as an innovation PMO? If yes, what would the innovation PMO look like and what characteristics would it have?

1. The innovation PMO could take a portfolio approach to innovation

Traditionally PMOs tend to focus more on project management planning, establishing methodologies and tools whilst PMOs offering enhanced value to their organisations have extended this focus to include taking a more strategic approach to project management ensuring that the organisation, in addition to ‘doing things right’ does ‘the right things’.

Taking a portfolio approach to innovation, the PMO could ensure that a mixed portfolio of innovation projects is progressing through the technology and product development pipelines; it would ensure that the innovation projects pursued are aligned to overall strategy and that the intended benefits are maximised taking into account investment required, project risk profiles, demand on resources and capabilities and any project interdependencies.

2. The innovation PMO could be involved more in the ‘fuzzy front end’ of the innovation process

The role of the innovation PMO could include creating a ‘sandbox’ for ideation and experimentation to take place in a ‘safe’ environment involving cross-functional teams. The ‘right’ ideas can then be identified and elevated quickly to compete for resources. The innovation PMO working across silos and having responsibility for project resource management can further be a catalyst to accelerating innovation by involving the right people (with the right skills) at the right time. An innovative PMO could also support the organisation's open innovation initiatives taking a pro-active, non-committal, approach exploring beneficial linkages with partners across the value chain, in addition to long-term strategic alliances, becoming an efficient integrator within the organisation.

3. The innovation PMO could become the Centre of Excellence for innovation within the organisation.

The role of the PMO could also include initiatives to make sure that the organisation develops, enhances and maintains critical innovation capabilities nurturing the right organisational culture and establishing best practice. The innovation PMO can capture and disseminate success stories, and can also be the conduit for establishing partnerships across organisational silos and with external partners.

Business strategy drives the need for appropriate capabilities which in turn drive the delivery of a specific portfolio of initiatives. These initiatives include innovation projects which are designed to support the development of products or services linked to gaining and sustaining competitive advantage for the organisation. The innovation PMO can play a vital role as an integrator, supporting and being involved in the innovation management process, especially in the ideation stage, providing effective use of resources and fostering the right cultures.

[1] https://hbr.org/2006/06/eager-sellers-and-stony-buyers-understanding-the-psychology-of-new-product-adoption

[2] http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/p16897/Knowledge-Interchange/Management-Themes/Innovation-and-Operations-Management/Key-Concepts-Innovation-and-Operations-Management/The-Innovation-Pentathlon

ERP implementation in a newly launched university in the Middle East - Lessons learned

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 09:51:37 GMT

Recently, I had the privilege of being part of the executive team that launched a new, high quality, technological university in the Middle East. I thought in this article to capture the lessons learned from the successful implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software solution which together with all of the policies, processes, procedures and systems comprised the young university's administrative backbone allowing it to operate and accept undergraduate and graduate students in record time.

"…The opportunity to start from a blank page and create an entire institution from concept to reality is a rare and precious gift. It enables many possibilities that would be unthinkable at established universities…But it requires vision, passion, and courage to attempt to innovate and to deliberately create a new and improved learning culture…" Richard Miller

Implementing an ERP system, whatever the size or sector of the organisation, can be a risky, time-consuming, complex and sometimes a costly undertaking. Attempting though to implement such system in a start-up introduces additional unique challenges, but also unique rewards for a young organisation.

For the newly launched university, the successful implementation of the ERP system was key to fulfilling its strategic operational objectives linked to offering an enhanced student experience allowing prospective students to interact seamlessly with the university's administration; increased operational efficiencies developing a lean and nimble administrative structure; streamlined administrative processes integrating different departments and functions including marketing, student recruitment, student administration, finance and HR; assistance with regulatory compliance through capturing and making available student and other data required by the licensing authorities; and ultimately linked to the development of the university's brand equity culminating in the fulfilment of student recruitment efforts.

On reflection, the critical success factors that positively influenced the implementation of the ERP system, but also served the university in many other ways, are:

A functional resource acting as the project champion that understands the project's technical aspects, but also the overall business benefits is critical to the successful implementation of the ERP.
Sponsor commitment , making available the right resources, focusing on the timely realisation of the expected business benefits, keeping the rest of the executive team engaged and informed while maintaining project momentum when schedules are amended, is crucial.
Identifying the "right" ERP vendor from the start that understands the challenges of dealing with a start-up and is willing to work closely with the team to also offer best-practice advice on the development of processes, procedures and systems while the administrative policies are being written, is precious.
Selecting an ERP system that is economical and represents value for money is paramount due to the small student and staff numbers at the beginning, but also since any start-up needs to manage the all important cashflow while investing in the university's educational mission. The choice of a cloud-based solution paid dividends on several fronts including reduced cost and manpower as well as ease of accessing software updates.
Having a dedicated internal ERP team and not relying entirely on the ERP vendor's consultants was proven to be the right decision; the internal university ERP team, in a very short time, became the single point of contact for all staff and students capturing and disseminating information while gaining crucial understanding and know-how about the system.
A phased approach to ERP implementation is a wised choice ; mission critical functions dealing with the university's prospective and current students should be prioritised. Subsequent phases of the implementation should include less critical but still very important functions such as finance and HR allowing the university to grow its student population while internal functions are seamlessly integrated.
Internal policies, processes and procedures need to be completely aligned with the software solution . This was proven to be a significant advantage for the young organisation having the opportunity to design all policies and procedures in a systematic manner alongside the ERP implementation, as was the lack of legacy student data which is always a big consideration for implementing an ERP solution in a mature organisation.
Customisation of the ERP system should be avoided at the early stages of the implementation. As the organisation gains understanding about the effectiveness of its own processes and receives feedback from all its users some customisation can be pursued at a later stage as part of continuous improvement efforts.
Robust IT infrastructure with fast internet access is crucial to the implementation and more importantly for the use of a cloud-based ERP solution to guarantee optimum user experience.
User acceptance and training of all staff on the latest software releases minimises staff resistance and provides early feedback to the implementation team about potential user issues and challenges.
As with every change project, frequent and succinct communication is important while implementing the ERP system; successes, challenges and issues at each implementation stage should be communicated to the end-user to maintain rapport with all staff.

...the implementation of an ERP software solution is an example of a never-ending-story...

The go-live day is not the end of the journey of course. The solution needs to continue to be developed and its features to be learned and further explored. It has to be accepted by all staff, to be used and maintained, but also to grow in tandem with the university's growth plans and ambitions.

There is no doubt that the successful implementation of the ERP solution contributed immensely to the achievement of many of the young university's strategic objectives and set it to a path of sustainable growth with administrative and academic functions seamlessly integrated providing excellent value to all university's stakeholders.

Access other relevant articles here.

Risk registers - Management tool or trap?

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 09:21:53 GMT

Effective risk management , is critical to the success of any business or project and it is one area that demands a great deal of the management team's time and attention.

Risk management is the process of identifying, assessing, prioritising and responding to risk factors in order to minimise the negative impact they may have on an organisation....

One of the most common techniques used for recording , analysing and capturing responses to risk factors is the risk register . Risk registers provide the platform for capturing identified risks – also confirming that the perceived risk is a risk and not a business worry or a constraint; evaluating the risk's size – its impact, probability and proximity; and identifying a risk response – looking at the alternatives and deciding whether it is worth taking pre-emptive action, for example. If the cost of management action exceeds the beneficial impact then we just need to monitor the risk and plan our post-maturity actions (mitigation after the risk event); otherwise we need to plan for managing the risk and develop an appropriate risk management strategy – risk avoidance, risk reduction, risk transfer, or protect against the risk.

Although risk registers can be valuable in providing a thorough process and a single place for identifying and capturing risks, sometimes they can also act as a management trap.

Risk registers may for example encourage the impression that risks are static and that we just need to only identify and capture risks at the initial stages of a project or propose management responses and then re-visit the business risk register occasionally. They also tend to contain a large number of risks, often badly stated, that should not be in the risk register in the first place, overwhelming the business and risk managers with too many items to be able to actively monitor and respond to.

From my experience, risk registers can become more effective in assisting an organisation to monitor and respond to strategic and operational risks by

making sure the risk is well understood stating clearly for all risks the ‘cause’, the ‘condition’, the ‘consequence’, an appropriate agreed ‘management action’ that addresses the cause, consequence or both, and a 'risk owner'.
eliminating 'generic' risks – risks such as ‘a project might be late’, ‘business resources may not be available’, and ‘project requirements may be wrong’. These should be addressed by using organisational standard operating procedures and project management methods, particularly during the planning process.
treating as business or operational assumptions risks that have low probability and low impact, and keeping them out of the risk register document. These business assumptions should be monitored and elevated to risks (and to the risk register document) only if a change has occurred affecting their probability and/or impact that changes their significance above a specific threshold level that needs to be determined from the outset across the organisation.
treating as critical success factors risks that have high probability of occurrence and high impact. If such risks, critical to the success of the business strategy or a change management project, exist then they should be dealt with outside the risk register document elevated to business priorities.
defining and standardising across the organisation what 'low probability, 'high probability', 'low impact' and 'high impact' actually mean in the organisational context, based on the organisation's actual past experience, enabling risk managers, risk owners and the business to use the same terminology making communications clearer.

By putting into practice the above points, I have found that organisations are left with a reduced number of well-articulated risks that are more effectively monitored and acted upon according to the risk management strategies and actions that have been agreed by the organisation and the person that has the responsibility to do so.

What does the 70:20:10 model and approach tell us in the various contexts it can be applied to?

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 08:14:52 GMT

Over the last decade there has been a lot of discussion about the 70:20:10 model, particularly in the learning and development community. So while I was considering the Dotnxt programme's approach for this academic year ( https://dotnxt.om/ ) - a large corporate social responsibility programme, exclusively sponsored by Occidental Oman LLC, designed to up-skill young graduates in 4IR technical, soft and entrepreneurial skills - I was thinking that the 70:20:10 framework is not only applied to learning, but in many other business contexts and pursuits; one of them being managing innovation .

But what does the 70:20:10 model and approach tell us in the various contexts it can be applied to?

The 70:20:10 model for learning and development is a well-known formula within the learning community that describes the optimum mix of sources of learning for successful personal and organisational capability development. It provides a general guideline for organisations that seek to maximise the effectiveness of their learning initiatives and development programmes, and enrich them with a blend of activities and inputs.

It advocates that hands-on experience (70%) is the most beneficial element of learning since it allows employees to discover and refine job-related skills, learn from their mistakes and receive immediate feedback on their performance. Also, employees learn from their peers (20%) through a variety of social interactions that can involve coaching and mentoring, and other collaborative learning approaches. The model also promotes that importantly, only 10% of the professional development and learning should occur through traditional classroom-based interactions.

In the learning and development context, the 70:20:10 model reminds us that the most effective learning occurs through experiential learning, gaining on-the-job experience and through peer-to-peer interactions, all of which are much more economical when compared to more formal learning that occurs through classroom-based events.

The 70:20:10 model for managing innovation is based on the approach that, for example, Google has taken when allocating resources to specific innovation related pursuits (innovation ambitions). It suggests that, broadly speaking, organisations should allocate 70% of their time and resources to core business activities - business as usual involving the incremental improvements of existing products or services that serve predominantly existing markets. It further suggests that businesses should allocate 20% of their time to innovation activities that effectively build on existing products and by adding some improved features allows the organisation to expand into new and existing customer market segments. The 10% of their time should be allocated to experimentation with transformational innovative ideas and challenges that can lead to significant changes in the market place enabling the organisation to enter or even create new markets and satisfy customer needs that sometimes have not even been clearly articulated yet.

In the managing innovation context, the 70:20:10 model assists organisations to formalise their structured thinking around how they can manage effectively, and achieve a balanced innovation portfolio , mapping the organisational ambition to specific innovation projects and resource allocation. Studies have confirmed that companies allocating resources according to the 70:20:10 approach (70% to core activities, 20% to adjacent ones, and 10% to transformational) seem to outperform their peers by 10% to 20% in terms of price-earnings ratio (P/E) [1].

A further interesting point is that consistently, research finds that the return ratio is roughly the inverse of this resource allocation we discussed, i.e. core innovation efforts typically contribute 10% to the long-term cumulative return on innovation investment, adjacent activities 20% and transformational innovation efforts 70%.

The 70:20:10 model seems to also be insightful in other business contexts and pursuits such as in marketing and PR and the effective scarce resource allocation into various marketing activities and channels maximising return on investment. For example, when Coca Cola considered investing in their marketing campaign of a new fizzy drink they developed a 70:20:10 approach where 70% of their communication efforts was directed through low risk content, 20% on innovative content that they knew it works well, while the 10% was content involving brand new ideas which were more experimental in nature and thus higher risk.

Generalising, the 70:20:10 model and approaches remind us that although innovation pursuits are by nature risky endeavours, if we do not clearly define our innovation ambitions and dedicate appropriate resources and time, then they will never have the opportunity to be successful.

[1] https://hbr.org/7930526410/managing-your-innovation-portfolio

What change management behaviours can the private sector learn from the public sector?

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 08:02:52 GMT

Although innovation is defined as “…the process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value (however defined) or for which customers will pay”, in the public sector innovation is less about new products and more about improving efficiencies and quality of interactions and outcomes.

Innovation in the public sector is less linked to technology and “product innovation” and instead is more about re-designing and streamlining internal organisational processes and structures leading for example to new approaches to serving the public – “client service innovation” – or new approaches to reaching out to the public – “engagement innovation” – or new methods for transforming and delivering information – “information innovation”.

The Publin report D20 [1] introduces the concept of innovation in the public sector as a “…deliberate change (in behaviour) with a specific objective in mind...”. Innovation and change share a common DNA and in the public sector innovation and change are linked to improvements and novelty in systems, processes and products that add value to the public by allowing them to be more efficient and effective. In other words, innovation in public sector organisations involves the successful implementation of change.

Innovation examples in the public sector include: the use of new technology (for example, currently a lot of efforts are being made worldwide towards digital transformation of the public sector); the drive towards public-centric processes with the view to deliver simpler services and greater convenience; or the empowerment of staff and the public to better engage and participate in the design and implementation of new policies/services. To enable all these innovations to be successfully delivered in the public sector organisations, we need effective change management methodologies and approaches.

So, based on the above context, what can the private sector learn from the experiences of the public sector about the challenges of changing organisational structures, processes and behaviours?

Many of the barriers to innovation are common to both the private and public sectors; resistance to change, risk adverse cultures, centralised structures, internal politics, etc. From my experience, some of the lessons learned from the public sector innovations are:

1. Promote collaboration and collaborative working cultures within and across divisions and departments by identifying clear accountabilities and mapping (sometimes even creating) the cross-organisational interdependencies that need to work in order for the desired outcomes to be achieved.

2. Beware that ‘fear of failure’ stifles innovation and change in organisations: in fact successful change organisations tolerate failure as part of learning, and growing change capability and move to a culture of ‘fail fast’ and embed lessons learned.

3. Articulate an all-encompassing vision of what the change initiative will accomplish and align all stakeholders behind the vision.

4. Capture all the expected benefits and the changes in the organisation that will realise the benefits and then establish the right metrics to monitor and track benefit realisation following the end of the change initiative.

5. Smart individual and group incentives are needed to instil the desired culture. The most successful of these are about recognition of efforts and achievements , rather than financial reward.

6. Finally, be careful what you measure and what you reward , as these will strongly influence and drive behaviours, sometimes in unintended ways.

[1] https://nifu.brage.unit.no/nifu-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/226575/d24-summary-final.pdf?sequence=

Can an innovation PMO structure support organisations to become ambidextrous?

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 07:40:09 GMT

The challenges that innovation management can present to organisations are well understood as is the possible value and support that a distinct organisational structure, such as an innovation PMO , could offer to the process of innovation [1]. Innovation has a broad scope and typology - from product, to process, to marketing, to business model innovation, etc. Similarly, innovation can be viewed as a continuum incorporating product modifications at one end (continuous improvement) and changes in the nature of society at the other end (transformational).

Disruptive innovation is '...the process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors...' [2].

Incumbent companies generally streamline their operations to serve efficiently and profitably their current market(s) making their senior managers' decision to back new technologies or business models more difficult due to, among other things, their unproven nature, small initial target markets due to the diffusion of innovation curve, and inherent risks of such endeavours leading to the innovator's dilemma [3] issue. Breakthrough innovation , on the other hand, refers to new technological developments that enable existing products or services to leap forward ahead of competitors.

Experience shows that innovation, particularly disruptive and transformational, presents increased challenges to organisations. It seems that high-risk, discontinuous innovation projects do not fit well with the ‘traditional’ stage gate approaches to new product development, rendering their approaches unsuitable. On the other hand, ambidextrous organisations - organisations that for example have developed structurally different teams to exploit existing and explore emerging business opportunities and products - have been proven successful in breakthrough innovation 90% of the time, whereas all other types of organisations were only 25% successful [4].

Taking into account the difficulty for incumbent companies to identify and respond to disruptive and transformational technologies and business models, is it possible for an innovation PMO structure to support companies to be better prepared for disruption and develop ambidextrous qualities?

At a first glance, managing disruptive innovation may seem as contradiction in terms, however an appropriate PMO structure around the innovation activities of an organisation may enable the organisation to pro-actively anticipate and quickly respond to such challenges.

A transformational or disruptive innovation PMO could:

take a portfolio approach to innovation - making sure that the organisation manages a diversified and balanced portfolio of innovation projects comprising existing and new technology-based projects. By purposefully scouting for new technologies/business models, assigning some resources to evaluate them and prioritise them, and developing technology pipelines in parallel to product pipelines could allow organisations to pro-actively pursue opportunities and remain aware of possible products, technologies and business models that can disrupt their operations.
support the ideation stage - scanning at the periphery ensuring that knowledge, experience and learning from pursuing cutting edge concepts and ideas is not lost, and instead contribute to organisational learning. A lot of the time these experimentations are pursued by small groups in 'skunk' like environments that would benefit from a loose structure around them enabling them to tap to financial and human resources, when needed, without stifling their creativity.
support commercialisation - forming diverse user groups and coordinating pilot roll outs.
develop a centre for excellence for innovation - developing an 'agile' and adaptable culture within the organisation that is able to work across silos.
assist the organisation's open innovation activities (a term introduced by Henry Chesbrough [5]) - linking internal innovation projects to external technologies, resources and partnerships potentially leading to

increased profitability - accelerating product development projects, reducing time to market, increasing product/service differentiation, creating new revenue streams,
gaining a sustainable competitive advantage for the organisation – maintaining or gaining a market leadership position,
minimising innovation risks - expanding breadth of ideas, opportunities and know-how whilst minimising technical and market risks,
evolved business models in light of changes to the marketplace, through external and internal ideas.

A disruptive innovation PMO could play a key role in serving the innovation pursuits of organisations by supporting them to being more ambidextrous. It can enable organisations to be better prepared to launch their own disruptive innovations in the market place and at the same time respond faster to changes in the competitive environment before the organisation itself is disrupted.

Please contact us to discuss your organisation's innovation endeavours and ways that we can support your innovation projects.

[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-pmo-structure-support-innovation-process-costas-chryssou/

[2] http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma

[4] https://hbr.org/2004/04/the-ambidextrous-organization

[5] http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrychesbrough/2011/03/21/everything-you-need-to-know-about-open-innovation/