Fig 1. is an image often circulated on social media. According to internet legend it originated in a 1960s marriage-guidance counselling manual. It works primarily on line-of-sight: The husband is unable to see the snake and therefore does not understand why his wife is wriggling despite her precarious dangle. The wife is unable to see the rock crushing the husband’s back and cannot therefore comprehend why he isn’t pulling her up.
A similar situation often arises between clients and suppliers within programmes: Whilst each party is able to see certain behaviours (her wriggling and his inaction), neither party is properly sighted on the root causes (the snake and the rock), leading to assumptions and misunderstandings. Accordingly, effective situational analysis relies on seeing beyond the observable behaviours to understand the root causes.
One of my formative experiences was twelve years ago having just arrived on a programme. I was the seventh person to sit in the hot-seat, and one of my objectives was to ensure that there was never an eighth. Pivotal to that objective was the performance of the SI (Systems Integrator), who by this stage of the programme, was not much loved. The client view of the supplier was that they were drawing out the programme in order to maximise their revenue, and that they therefore had no particular interest in seeing the programme conclude.
Shortly after my arrival, I had a lucky break; a visit from the CEO of this multi-billion-dollar global SI. He was on a whirlwind tour of the UK, but he also had a fondness for a full English breakfast, so I snook into his diary with a promise of bacon-and-eggs. He was a remarkably down-to-earth, urbane and well-informed gent, so I took the opportunity to share with him, tactfully but candidly, the view of his company. His reaction was a mixture of shock and laughter: “Do you know how important this account is to our organisation? It is very highly visible in a sector – UK Financial Services – that is our number one target for the next five years. Every month that ticks by without a go-live is another month’s delay to a referenceable success that could unlock so many opportunities.”
He immediately re-jigged his schedule so that we could sit down with his account director to understand the issues that the SI was experiencing – ‘the rock’. Many of them dated back to the early days of the programme, but because there has been so much churn on the programme team, few people were even aware of what had happened. But the ripple effects had continued to affect the programme and were the root cause of most of the Change Requests that were causing so much client angst. The SI had tried previously to persuade the client to tackle the root causes but this had been misinterpreted as supplier excuses.
We then turned to the ‘snake’ – the client’s problems. The SI was totally unaware of the budgetary situation because it had never been explained to them, and they were kept away from that aspect for fear they might seek to take advantage. The CEO’s reaction was to immediately authorise £2M of credit back to the programme by way of apology for any part they might have played in delays, and to demonstrate their genuine commitment to the outcome, including the business case. So much for allegations of profiteering.
That gesture proved instantly transformative for the programme. Any suspicions of bad motives disappeared instantly. Collaboration and performance climbed rapidly. And we got it over the line – without the need for an eighth programme manager.
The morals of the tale:
Fig 1. is an image often circulated on social media. According to internet legend it originated in a 1960s marriage-guidance counselling manual. It works primarily on line-of-sight: The husband is unable to see the snake and therefore does not understand why his wife is wriggling despite her precarious dangle. The wife is unable to see the rock crushing the husband’s back and cannot therefore comprehend why he isn’t pulling her up.
A similar situation often arises between clients and suppliers within programmes: Whilst each party is able to see certain behaviours (her wriggling and his inaction), neither party is properly sighted on the root causes (the snake and the rock), leading to assumptions and misunderstandings. Accordingly, effective situational analysis relies on seeing beyond the observable behaviours to understand the root causes.
One of my formative experiences of this was twelve years ago having just arrived on a programme. I was the seventh person to sit in the hot-seat, and one of my objectives was to ensure that there was never an eighth. Pivotal to that objective was the performance of the SI (Systems Integrator), who by this stage of the programme, was not much loved. The client view of the supplier was that they were drawing out the programme in order to maximise their revenue, and that they therefore had no particular interest in seeing the programme conclude.
Shortly after my arrival, I had a lucky break; a visit from the CEO of this multi-billion-dollar global SI. He was on a whirlwind tour of the UK, but he also had a fondness for a full English breakfast, so I snook into his diary with a promise of bacon-and-eggs. He was a remarkably down-to-earth, urbane and well-informed gent, so I took the opportunity to share with him, tactfully but candidly, the view of his company. His reaction was a mixture of shock and laughter: “Do you know how important this account is to our organisation? It is very highly visible in a sector – UK Financial Services – that is our number one target for the next five years. Every month that ticks by without a go-live is another month’s delay to a referenceable success that could unlock so many opportunities.”
He immediately re-jigged his schedule so that we could sit down with his account director to understand the issues that the SI was experiencing – ‘the rock’. Many of them dated back to the early days of the programme, but because there has been so much churn on the programme team, few people were even aware of what had happened. But the ripple effects had continued to affect the programme and were the root cause of most of the Change Requests that were causing so much client angst. The SI had tried previously to persuade the client to tackle the root causes but this had been misinterpreted as supplier excuses.
We then turned to the ‘snake’ – the client’s problems. The SI was totally unaware of the budgetary situation because it had never been explained to them, and they were kept away from that aspect for fear they might seek to take advantage. The CEO’s reaction was to immediately authorise £2M of credit back to the programme by way of apology for any part they might have played in delays, and to demonstrate their genuine commitment to the outcome, including the business case. So much for allegations of profiteering.
That gesture proved instantly transformative for the programme. Any suspicions of bad motives disappeared instantly. Collaboration and performance climbed rapidly. And we got it over the line – without the need for an eighth programme manager.
The morals of the tale:
1.
If you don’t have your supplier’s perspective, go and get it.
2.
Observable behaviours can be deceptive.
3.
Root causes are hugely helpful. Your chances of fixing something go up exponentially if you know what the real problem is.
4.
Never underestimate the power of a full English breakfast.
Dedicated to Dick Parkhouse, who passed away last year, well before his time, and who gave me the opportunity to be Number 7. A fabulous teacher and a sad loss.