Approximately 20 years ago, a senior member of our consulting team was tasked with implementing a significant national transport planning and optimisation system for one of the UK’s largest grocery retailers. Clearly this was a major task and not one that any project manager could embark upon alone without support.
On that project our consultant got to work with very experienced operations and systems implementation specialist, who imparted a bit of knowledge that has become a mantra for our consulting team…
“A ‘Grade A’ implementation of a ‘Grade B’ system will always outperform a ‘Grade B’ implementation of a ‘Grade A’ system”.
This mantra resonated with our consultant to the extent that this has stuck with them throughout their career. It holds true as you can easily replace the word ‘system’ with any other type of process implementation, workflow change, organisation design etc. On the project in question the mantra was absolutely correct, and in every other project our team have subsequently undertaken, there has been nothing to suggest otherwise.
So many potentially beneficial or even ‘world changing’ projects and programmes falter due to poor planning and execution. Sometimes the very best solutions can be derailed due to problems with aligning delivery of tasks, ensuring multiple streams of activity are delivered concurrently on the right schedule or simply things are just forgotten, overlooked or assumed as not important.
A common failure is delivering a project that does not culturally fit with the organisation in which it is being delivered, particularly if little effort is made to adapt either the project or the culture in advance of the implementation. Sometimes the culture of an organisation leads to rash decisions and a desire to implement the project at any cost, even if it has not been fully tested or taken to the marketplace in advance of go-live.
We all remember the catastrophic launch of Windows 8, and the impact that had on Microsoft and its customers. Windows 9 never even existed as a result, and we jumped straight to Windows 10. In the logistics world, there have been some real notable planning and implementation disasters that have had a significant impact on the businesses those programmes were designed to improve.
The project to migrate the service for KFC’s UK operation from one third party logistics provider to another was so calamitous that KFC had to shut many of its stores on the basis that they could not supply the one thing ultimately essential to the brand… its chicken. Sainsbury’s famously suffered massive availability problems when they rushed a network change and automation implementation programme that led to weeks and months of empty shelves in their stores and ultimately cost the job of the group’s CEO.
Another adage that may often get used is ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’. Ultimately this is also true, and it’s a trap that many organisations, large and small fall into. Not all projects require heavy-handed full-time box ticking project management, some projects simply need A touch of experience and guidance in the right direction to ensure that the correct items are captured on the critical path. This type of approach can work well particularly in smaller organisations where perhaps the level of change may not be as significant as you may find in a large multinational or multisystem implementation.
The key to getting planning right is to make sure you think about it in advance, and that you get the right support at the right time as you head towards migration. That support may not always need to come from outside the business, there may be perfectly capable project management resource internally who may just need a little support, mentoring or guidance to help them get the implementation plan in the right shape.
The biggest mistake to make is thinking that you can get away with implementing a major project in your business just by using your business-as-usual management teams to deliver the task. When we at Logistics Consulting are called in to help fix broken projects, this is often one of the first things we see that has not gone right in a project.
Ultimately in every case we have come across, taking a short term view about implementation cost has led to ongoing delays and cost impacts that would significantly outweigh the original cost of getting the right support. This applies across warehouse implementation, transport implementation and many other forms of operational implementation consulting support we provided.
Of course the right thing to do is to perform a ‘grade A’ implementation of a ‘grade A’ system. By planning your programmes correctly and achieving this objective, you will accentuate the benefits of the solution you implement, and enable your business to move forward to its next transition with much more confidence and of course greater benefit in the bank having delivered the original objectives.
