Where I am useful in a transformation

That can be before choosing a solution, when governance is no longer working, when sponsors disagree, or when adoption is weaker than expected. Here is what each of those situations tends to look like, and what I do.

A leadership team is deciding whether to launch a programme, how far to go, and what problem it is actually trying to solve. Often those three questions have different answers depending on who you ask.

I help clarify what needs to change, what should stay as it is, and whether the programme is ready to start. My role at this stage can also be to challenge the scope or the timing. It is usually better to rethink a programme before launch than to correct it once commitments have been made.

I look beyond the product demonstration. What I want to understand is how the solution fits the processes, the data, the integrations, the local requirements and the teams who will have to operate it every day.

I spent my first years implementing HR systems rather than selling them, so I know which questions a demonstration is not designed to answer.

When a programme starts missing milestones, generating conflict or losing the confidence of its sponsors, the first job is to understand why. The problem may sit in governance, in scope, in the architecture, in delivery, or in the way decisions are being made.

Those need different responses, so I try not to guess. Once we know which one it is, we can agree what gets fixed, in what order, and who decides.

Many programme problems are really decision problems. I help make responsibilities explicit, bring out the choices that are being avoided, and take the discussion back to what the programme actually has to deliver.

When adoption is weak, I do not start from the assumption that people are resistant to change. I look first at whether the process makes sense, whether the tool genuinely helps someone do their job, and whether managers are reinforcing the new way of working.

More communication is rarely what is missing.

One of the programmes I led covered more than 50 entities across 22 countries, which meant working across different organisational, cultural and regulatory contexts. Before that I ran the HR department of a group of more than 6,000 employees, so I have also been the person on the receiving end of a transformation programme.