Cycle Sensitivity and Change Delivery

 

A discussion  group I am part of has been discussing why "mega-projects" appear have a higher failure rate than smaller ones.

Now the scales quoted are way beyond my experience ie a mega-project was over $1 billion!!!! , but I have seen differences driven by the scale of a planned change.

There was general concensus that the increased complexity was a contributin factor, with complexity growing exponentially with size. Just the communication lines between a large group of people (ie those involved) is rises exponentially, but then the scale of the solution and those involved will merely compounded that.

The interesting piece for me was a comment that the mega-projects tend to become like corporate entities and that is when they struggle. This resonated with something I have observed in more modest, mere £ multi-million projects and programmes so I though I would share it here.

Once again I draw upon my science background to illustrate the issue and I look at frequency and synchronicity.

In business and in politics there are cycles. The main cycle is typified by the periodicity of personal and business reviews, budget setting, reward allocation and personal promotion/shifting. In business this is typically an annual cycle, though in politics one can consider the duration of an administration as the relevant cycle.

What I have observed is that if a programme is conceived in one cycle then it really needs to deliver in that cycle or the next. If it is planned or turns out to stretch into the third cycle then the pressure to deliver is turned up and the risks of changes in requirements, diminishing support and perceived failure raises exponentially. I cannot think of any change that spread four cycles that was considered a success even if it did deliver what it set out to.

This is the result of both movement of key personnel and the resultant challenges and shifts in support that result PLUS the fact that the world will have moved in a significant degree changing the opportunity to deliver benefit and/or the environment into which the change will be delivered.

I think that should an endeavour span three or more cycles it is no surprise that it starts looking like a corporate entity as it needs all the trapping of such an organisation, such as succession planning.

The other significance of this is that the over-arching cycles can change. In times of stress and crisis the cycles will shorten, sometimes dramatically (eg from annual to quarterly) or the cycle may reset at an odd time when for example the CEO changes or a new government is required. At these times it is beholden to the intelligent change leader to review and revise their approach to change and look to re-synchronise to the new background cycle. Just continuing as previously planned is rarely the best option.

I would be interested to know if this resonates with others? Is it something you consider when leading change?