Establishing a mechanism for better decision making

All organisations are divided into functional teams; issues arise when teams that need to work together have competing objectives, leading to unhealthy tensions and poor decision-making. 

Insights that Reson8

  • Leakage Performance – Avoided penalty payment of £900k by improving leakage response time  
  • Customer Experience – Improved key customer metric KPI from 73% to 97%
  • Organisational Focus – Organisational recognition of an underlying capacity shortfall within the team, issues escalated to the board 

Challenge

Targets were extremely tough and ratcheting throughout AMP, and our client was in danger of falling behind in their performance ambitions.

Leakage performance fell short of regulatory targets due to organisational complexity and misaligned objectives. Improving performance required different teams and directorates to work together, but the systems and processes were not in place to manage ”tension” between teams.

The issues were complex, as two directorates had competing priorities, leading to organisational conflict. Teams could not agree on the ”best” organisational response to issues, leading to sub-optimal decision-making and loss of trust between teams.

Solution

  • Working with the director and their senior teams, we developed a ”cross-functional” view of performance with clearly defined KPIs aligned with regulatory and business plan targets.
  • We established weekly performance review meetings, bringing together senior leaders. Decisions were based on making the optimum decision for the organisation
  • Developed a set of modelling tools to support leaders in making effective decisions. The tools allowed leaders to understand the impact of changing performance and its impact on regulatory rewards/penalties to support effective decision-making.
  • Defined business rules for frontline teams to help them make the most effective ”prioritisation” decisions. Business rules were dynamic to reflect the most updated set of business priorities.

Results

Establishing a mechanism for leaders and teams to make decisions based on the best business outcomes resulted in significant improvements in directorate and functional team performance.

  • Response times for leakage improved, meeting regulatory targets
  • Improved compliance with customer appointments (C-MeX driver)

The approach fostered improved teamwork between the two directorates, reducing unhealthy tension and conflict between teams.

If you would like to know more about our experiences, please email dean.wheeler@reson8.group.