Canadian Government Executive - Volume 22

/ Canadian Government Executive

// September 2016

Deliverology

(a.k.a. Deliverology)

Strategizing for

“Results and Delivery”

Craig

Szelestowski

op-down, target-driven service

improvement initiatives like De-

liverology intuitively make sense

to most public sector leaders:

Set a target, create a plan, follow-up and

adjust as necessary. In reality the results

have been mixed. While these approaches

offer some useful advantages, there are

five key challenges to executing them ef-

fectively to attain long-term improved

delivery to citizens. The Lean approach to

strategy deployment provides a set of solu-

tions to overcome these challenges, most

of which are within the direct control of

the organization.

Challenge 1:

Low-buy-in

Deliverology has often been implemented

top-down without sufficiently engaging

front-line staff, or middle management,

in the planning process. Without their in-

put and ownership of the strategy to meet

the target, new initiatives often meet re-

sistance and are very difficult to sustain.

Front-line staff see what happens on the

ground every day and have insights that

executives do not—changing the delivery

strategy without fully engaging front-lin-

ers can put the brakes on delivering de-

sired change. If the implementers do not

own the plan, how likely is it that they will

implement it effectively? “In the history

of the world, nobody has ever washed a

rented car” Ownership is important.

Solution:

“Catchball”

“Catchball” is a structured approach in

Lean Strategy Deployment where “the per-

son who initiates a project [most common-

ly a manager] articulates the purpose, ob-

jectives, and other ideas and concerns and

then ‘throws’ them to other stakeholders for

feedback, support and action”. (This insight

is from Don Tapping and Tom Shuker, Val-

ue StreamManagement for the Lean Office:

Eight Steps to Planning, Mapping and Sus-

taining Lean Improvements in Administra-

tive Areas (CRC Press 2003). Following the

systemized approach of “Catchball”, senior

leadership identifies and shares with levels

below them a measurable “Must-Do, Can’t

Fail A to B” goal and demonstrate why the

goal is important.

Leaders include their thinking on the

root causes of the problem that needs to

be solved with an incomplete summary

of the plan to achieve the goal. Essentially

leaders ask staff: “What are your thoughts

about how to get to this goal?” and “what

would prevent us from reaching it?” Back

and forth, like tossing a ball between the

two groups, a better understanding of the

issues is created, improving the quality of

the solution and building ownership with

the people who will ultimately be expect-

ed to execute the plan.

Challenge 2:

Too many

priorities.

High levels of ownership, however, don’t

guarantee success if your organization is

overloaded with priorities. Although the

Deliverology approach attempts to create

laser-like focus in assessing and managing

the capacity of the organization to reach

the target, many organizations simply

add Deliverology activities to the existing

workload without eliminating other pri-

orities. If Deliverology targets are seen as

something in addition to the regular work,

then people will become overwhelmed.

If everything is important, then nothing

is really important. The result? Poor ex-

ecution, low morale and more effort spent

managing multiple priorities than spent

actually delivering them. Studies have

shown that a team pursuing one priority

will spend close to100 percent of its avail-