Effective on-going capability building for everyone
Capability building is needed for everyone in your organization involved in an Improvement program whether its for a major Transformation or for a Continuous Improvement program.
Some people in your organization may have come from an Improvement background but many others will be unaware of what their responsibilities are or how to carry their roles.
They will need help. Capability building can be provided in the form of:
- Training – including online courses, class room training and/or Field and Forum approaches
- Coaching – providing on-going one-on-one coaching to key members of the Improvement team whenever needed
When considering the capability building requirements of your organization, you need to consider the key roles and responsibilities involved in any improvement program and capability building each role needs.
The key roles include:
- Business sponsors
- Gate approvers
- Initiative owners (+ rest of workforce)
- Workstream/change team leads
This guide will go through each of these roles in detail to provide more understanding about the role and responsibilities of each and then what capability building they will need (as that is driven by the role they play).
Business owner/sponsor
The business owner funds the implementation for costs for any planned improvement, incurs the associated business risks, but also, ultimately benefits from the resulting improvements.
Whilst there is quite a lot to the role of the business owner/sponsor – most of these responsibilities are directly in line with the expected leadership responsibilities expected of a business owner.
Capability building for this role may be some initial training sessions on the basics of an Improvement program and what is expected from a business owner/sponsor – so potentially only a few hours of training is needed.
However, additional capability building here might be valuable for some business owners/sponsors, and if they request it, particular around crafting the ‘need for change’ and communication messages/change stories, setting improvement targets and how to run progress reviews for an Improvement program.
On-going coaching can be provided by the improvement lead for that area and by the program lead – most likely during or after progress reviews.
Gate approvers
The gate approver is responsible for giving gate approval when requested by ensuring the initiative meets gate requirements and – crucially – giving guidance if the initiative does not meet requirements.
Gate approvers are generally of three types:
- Business owner, their perspective as the owner will be to review the initiative as a business case and determine whether the initiative is worth implementing.
- Finance: focused on the expected dollars from the initiative and if the estimated value is correct ? and will it really deliver the expected dollars to the business.
- Improvement or Transformation team: focused on Quality Control and looking at what general improvements that can be made to the initiative e.g., implementation plan, right KPIs?
Whilst business owner and finance gate approvers are not expected to need any training in the decision making around the gate (they are the expert after all), they will need to understand how the general stage gating process works and that they need to give good feedback back to the initiative owners if they do not give gate approval i.e., if they want the initiative owner to take additional steps before resubmitting the initiative for approval they need to be fairly explicit about what is needed.
Capability building is likely a short session of only an hour or so specifically on the stage gating process to enable them to meet their commitments but, if requested, gate approvers might also want additional training on the general mechanics of the improvement program i.e., a high level overview of how each of the key process work.
Initiative owners (+ rest of workforce)
The initiative owner is usually someone within the business who has potentially come up with the initiative and/or is well positioned to implement it (as the initiative is in their area). The initiative owner is responsible for successfully implementing the initiative through to ‘lock-in’.
The initiative owner needs training in the bare essentials of how to generate and prioritise opportunities, how to define the value of an initiative, complete implementation planning, drive the initiative through the stage gating process and lastly how to sustain and lock in the value of an initiative.
This ‘essentials’ training can be done a one-day in person training session or using online courses. The training will need to be supplemented by coaching from the improvement lead (for that workstream or change team) throughout the implementation. One way of providing the additional coaching to the initiative owners is via a ‘field-and-forum’ approach run over several weeks:
- Forum sessions (the ‘theory’), which might be once a week, are held in a class setting and with a planned agenda
- Field work (the ‘practice’) is then done by attendees actually practicing what has been learnt in the classroom e.g., planning, valuing and implementing an initiative
The Field work can also be supported by active coaching by Improvement leads. This is a great ‘adult learning’ methodology where emphasis is put on experiential learning i.e., practicing, hands-on the theory.
Given that anyone can become an initiative owner depending on where they sit in the business and what the initiative is, then pretty much anyone in the workforce can become an initiative owner. Additionally, this training makes potential future initiative owners a valuable asset –if they can continue generating opportunities and delivering initiatives that improve the business.
Providing online capability building for the rest of the workforce so that they can become initiative owners at any point is a good investment to be made by your organization. This will then allow people to train themselves at a time and place of their own convenience.
Improvement leads (for the workstream or change team)
The improvement lead is responsible for driving improvement in the business area (or workstream if part of a large program).
This type of role is usually full time or close to it and, along with the Program lead, is one of the most involved roles in the Improvement program.
To help ensure that the business is able to make on-going improvement, the Improvement Lead needs to build capabilities both within their improvement team but also across their whole business area – so they need an good expertise themselves in all areas to be able to coach others.
To cover all these responsibilities, the improvement lead needs extended in-depth coaching. A really effective format for the improvement leads is to run a ‘boot camp’ at the outset of an improvement program or transformation running for several days. This needs to be quite intensive but can be well planned and well structured to ensure that the improvement lead gets all the training needed upfront (if possible).
Ideally, the improvement lead also gets additional coaching during the improvement program – either from the improvement program lead or external coaches if available.
Who provides the capability building ? And in what format ?
If you’re a Chief Transformation Office, Head of Improvement or Business Excellence or even just leading Business Improvement in your organization, you ‘re probably asking yourself this question – and suspecting the answer – its you 😊.
It may not be entirely on you, and you may set-up additional support to help you do this, but it is ultimately going to be your responsibility that everyone across your organization gets the capability building they need.
We’ve discussed the appropriate training, format and coaching needs of each role in the Improvement program. Most of the capability building is fairly straight forward.
However, as you would expect the key role of Improvement lead does require extensive training and the documentation and training for the leads needs to be well planned and structured ahead of time.
Conclusion
Capability building for your Improvement program needs to consider the responsibilities involved for each of the key roles in any improvement program:
- Business sponsors
- Gate approvers
- Initiative owners (+ rest of workforce)
- Workstream/change team leads
Treat the capability building as an upfront investment in the Improvement Program. The success of you program will ultimately reside with the execution of the program by everyone involved.
Furthermore, the more people who receive some form of capability building in Improvement and the more people involved in on-going Improvement programs all help to build a long term sustainable ‘Always-on’ change capability for the organization.
Read further for more information on capability building for your Improvement Program: