Review of the Defence Sector – Part 7
“Our flexible working helps us to deliver innovation. It is about outputs rather than “do it like this”.”
This is the concluding post about the engineering design and build companies and public Defence sector programme management organisations working on 3, long-term, major multi-billion pound, advanced technological projects. Although these relationships faced serious environmental challenges nevertheless some progress was made to implement productive collaborative working.
Positive Dynamics
Although these relationships were subject to considerable political and technological pressures, significant efforts were being expended to achieve benefits from collaborative working.
Motivation to collaborate
Accepting the new way of working – In this new world the customer’s role changed significantly from being part of the operation to “eyes on, hands off” where the supplier took full responsibility for delivery
“The contract structure helps us to deliver innovation. It is about outputs rather than “do it like this”.”
“We are now focussed on outputs and getting things right, not on details of process. Before, our partner wanted to tell us how to do the work. We think it is an uncomfortable place for our partner to be. The focus on output and longer term funding has helped this.”
“However we still need to improve our joint understanding of budgetary processes”.
Gain-sharing – A key part of this change was the recognition that the sharing of financial gains was an important motivational factor
“We recognise benefits of the long-term programme; we are motivated and incentivised by the profit sharing scheme.”
“Although the financial incentive is seemingly weighted in their favour, we have to work together to secure the long-term benefits.“
“We are motivated by profit sharing and as a result large savings have been made.”
Team Working
Where positive enterprise relationship management was in place there was effective collaborative team working.
Quality communications –A critical success factor was the quality of communication
“The joint team is integrated together and includes a senior relationship improvement manager. It is working really fantastically. The team was hand-picked by interview, team delivered shape/size complementary.”
“The team leader has been completely open with the MD and the hands-off, eyes on relationship has been and completely transparent. There is a weekly telephone conversation.”
“We have regular, frequent, informal face-to-face meetings and phone conversations where both sides are comfortable exposing their agendas, concerns and risk.”
“Our partner’s on site team can go to any of our meetings.”
The beneficial results of joint working
“Under the old system project issues would result in a customer complaint. Now we work together to provide ideas and we take them forward.”
“There have been a couple of incidents where either one side or the other has been at fault. They have taken a pragmatic view and resolved the problems jointly.”
“We can’t do it without each other. Some people have been here a long time through hell and high water.”
“The personal relationships between the programme office and us are very good and this is helped by having our secondees addressing issues as they occur.”
“We have a very healthy improved relationship with the external stakeholders.”
Committed but not always – Although commitment was generally high amongst senior managers, it could wain significantly through the organisations at lower levels
“A joint programme of change to improve and cover all aspects of the relationship is now in place. There has been a significant improvement in many areas but still a long way to go.”
“Some individuals at lower levels still work in a ‘them and us’ way. It is important for them to realise that we are dependent on each other.“
Conclusion
In order to set up very long-term programmes an essential element of preparation is the Enterprise Relationship Management Plan. It is a robust framework or target operating model for co-ordinating all the business processes and activities that are essential for successful collaboration. It is the communications hub where all plans, activities, decisions, changes and performance are recorded. It allows progress to be monitored, risks and issues to be managed and opportunities to be exploited and, is available to all participants. It is also a valuable resource for inducting new team members and for briefing stakeholders. In these projects effective relationship management was patchy from the outset.
Poor partnering implementation – Relationship performance will not generally improve if partnering implementation is fragmented. Collaboration must be instilled throughout the joint project organisation and maintained resolutely to enable the relationship to meet its objectives over the long-term regardless of environmental changes. An essential feature of this is the partners must continue to be incentivised by the benefits that accrue. In two out of these three projects relationship quality did not improve, if anything it actually deteriorated
“After an 8 year absence I was surprised by how much the relationship had changed for the worse.”
Role of stakeholders – Generally the part played by stakeholders was disruptive rather than supportive. Relationship management was often undermined by instances where the parties or their stakeholders bypassed the project management. This resulted in confusion, delay, expensive changes, wrangling over costs and funding and, lowering of staff morale
“Our partner’s specialist groups want to make changes that have a significant cost and impact on the programme.”