Orchestrating outcomes Flashcards
Merger
Taking advantage of parallel corporate activities (that could have worked against my project) to improve organisational objectives all round - desksharing and business planning [digital pioneer: mysites]
Stakeholder engagement strategy
Learning from the mistakes of successive reviews, building an undeniable case for action. Undeniable problem, compelling case, but switching focus away from a simple set of recommendations towards the elephant in the room - why haven’t we made progress? Difficult questions, creative suggestions, fit with raft of interdependent corporate pieces (open-policymaking, digital by default, CSR, employee engagement strategy).
Management guidance map
Self-initiated, accessible visual interface for existing guidance that imposed a much-needed narrative and made it immediately clear how it all fits together from the point of view of a line manager. Immediately picked up for department-wide use by HR.
Capability Reviews
Spreading “bright spots” across the different departments I looked after, and going out of my way to see what worked elsewhere in Whitehall, to provide support to my counterparts. Making it just about holding them to account missed the point. Directors metrics workshop. DfES “bridge”. DfID stakeholder management. DEFRA’s matrix management.
Alumni network
Only person to suggest (and pilot) using LinkedIN as a way of maintaining a bank of reservists. Inspiration for other networks being set up - essentially, I’ve made and proven the case. (Risk aversion - making it happen) [digital pioneer]
TFAG
Re-established cross-Government and cross-Government agency and drove the agenda on this as it had been neglected; learned what US was doing and how (post 9-11) they’d changed their agency interactions on this. Made a range of recommendations - critically, re-established relationships just before 7/7. As a result, changes were made (between Whitehall relationships, agencies, and credit card companies) that enabled the reduction in investigation time of 18 days (was 20, became 2).
Dissolution
Team filled an immediate need but wasn’t sound from an org.design perspective. Worked with my team to make the case, sold it to senior leadership, then devolved and delegated responsibilities to their proper homes.
Adjectives
- Communicates how local issues fit into the bigger picture
- Strategic thinker
- Solves problems not seen before
- Understands the questions to ask
- Challenges convention
- Problem-solver
Group strategic narrative
Centre was making significant demands for content for various platforms, but requests weren’t joined up (sometimes completely blind to other requests). I saw this was going on, asked around to find out who was doing what, scoped some timescales, and provided my senior management team with a heads-up and routemap to the most efficient way of producing a consistent, coherent narrative across multiple platforms. I then shared with the centre, who then circulated it round the other groups.
