Week 21 – Sizing, assembling and positioning your modernization battle fleet

A modernization program is a complex piece of modern engineering. As such, it has multiple parts and pieces which work together to deliver organizational value. It is up to the modernization program designers to evaluate how these components will come together to better deliver for the organization.

The most logical way to define the modernization components is to align them to how the organization is structured today, this is relatively straightforward as the constructs are already present in the organization, the value they generate is well understood and the interactions between the different groups are also well defined. However, structuring a modernization along the existing organizational lines is typically a recipe for failure. On this model, people are not incentivized to innovate or drive change and the modernization programs ends up delivering a more expensive way of doing what the organization already does today, typically in the same fashion.

For the modernization program to succeed, it needs to replace the status quo with a new way of working, for the new way of working to “take hold”, it must create more value than the disruption it generates. The popular phrase “it is more trouble than what is worth” was probably born of a botched modernization program when people abandoned it along the way. To avoid these pitfalls, of either staying with the status quo or creating something which it is more trouble than what it is worth, we need to put our strategic commander hat and think it through.

From my perspective, a modernization program is akin to a good game of battleship, where to be successful you need to outsmart your opponent. The villain to defeat in a modernization program is typically not a person, but the status quo, apathy for change and other non-critical priorities. To defeat this treacherous villain a strategic modernization commander needs to assemble a modernization battle fleet: a collection of projects that deliver value (from small to large) and together achieve the overall modernization objectives.?

One could argue that the best way to run a modernization program is with a large, single, monolith program where everything is tightly controlled and once the program is delivered, it creates a single punch of change; however, the drawback of these “aircraft carrier” programs is speed and maneuverability. A single program which takes years to complete can indeed be a full transformation on and by itself, but it moves slow and given the speed of the change missiles and mines of apathy protecting the status quo, it is highly unlikely you can defeat the enemy without support.

Once we acknowledge we need to create workstreams, or projects within the program with their own identity, timelines, deliverables, and leadership, we start assembling our fleet. Success hinges on the commander’s ability to select the best configuration of the fleet, for the mission at hand. Be aware of analysis paralysis, I have seen organizations spend months thinking it through how they will structure the program, only to revert to the existing ways of working, ending their modernization aspirations even before the program starts taking shape.

The best way to define a modernization battle fleet is starting with the end objective in mind, visualizing what success looks like favors the organization’s ability to stack hands on the different components which will be required to achieve the goal. Once the end objective has both been defined and decomposed, it becomes significantly easier to align a vessel to deliver that part of the scope.?

Keep in mind that selecting the battle ships is a critical part of the modernization program, but so is the positioning and strategy to keep them aligned to objectives. Once you divide the program into its individual vessels it is nimbler, but so it is more prone to get out of alignment.?

While it is inevitable that some losses might occur during the mission, it is imperative for the commander to understand how the different modernization ships at their disposal are strategically aligned to the modernization objectives and understand the difference between critical elements to achieve success and decoys which can be sacrificed in benefit of the greater good.?

Similarly, to the battleship game, a modernization program is not about completing the mission with all your projects (aka vessels) intact; it is about accomplishing the mission strategic objectives with the least amount of losses while defeating your opponent!