Programme leadership and business readiness, held together, for organisations running serious change.
Take the Six Signals CheckSix questions, under three minutes.
Going live is a delivery milestone. Landing is a business outcome.
Most major programmes have clear ownership for delivery, technology, change and operations. What can still be missing is one senior view across all of them answering a single question: can the business actually absorb, operate and sustain what is being delivered?
That is the seam I work in. Not business readiness as another workstream reporting into delivery, but a joined-up view of operational reality with enough seniority and evidence behind it to influence pace, scope, sequencing and capacity while those choices can still be changed.
Six ways the business readiness picture can break down between the programme delivering the change and the business expected to absorb it.
The programme can see delivery readiness clearly, but the business position does not carry the same weight when pace, scope and sequencing are decided.
A plan can be deliverable and still ask too much of the business at the same time.
Delivery, operations and change can each hold a valid view of readiness without those views ever being reconciled into one business position.
The programme knows what it needs to deliver, but not always what that demand takes from the operational teams expected to absorb it.
What changes for roles and processes becomes clear after some of the useful choices about design, scope or sequencing have already narrowed.
There is confidence about go-live, but less clarity about the evidence that would genuinely cause the decision to change.
Three routes, depending on where the programme is and what is already in place.
I lead the programme, with business readiness shaping pace, scope and sequencing throughout.
I set up, elevate or lead business readiness where programme leadership is already in place.
Hands-on readiness leadership through go-live and stabilisation.
Engaged fractionally, on a flexible part-time commitment; on a retainer, for ongoing senior leadership and assurance; or on a fixed scope, for mobilisation, recovery or a defined readiness outcome. Work is contracted through Verdare Consulting Limited on a statement of work.
Described by sector and scale rather than by client name.
UK life and pensions group, moving its policy book onto a new administration platform alongside a delivery partner. I led the business readiness workstream for the first release, coordinating functional areas across both organisations, chairing the readiness governance forums and holding stakeholders to alignment.
Readiness acceptance criteria were agreed, evidenced and signed off, the first release was delivered to schedule, and a readiness framework was left in place for the releases that followed.
International bank. A three-year, $100m+ programme across more than twenty markets, optimising the branch footprint and deploying new technology for colleagues and customers. I led a transformation team of twenty-five and co-led a value stream of over two hundred people alongside the business and technology leads, developing the business case with the senior sponsor and taking it through governance.
The programme achieved its objectives, delivering over $100m in recurring annual benefits.
UK financial services. A programme to deploy new automation capability across a national branch estate. I mobilised it from a standing start, establishing governance, steering committees, delivery structures and resourcing across multiple interdependent projects, and holding budget, forecasting and business case ownership throughout.
Technical and business readiness were delivered at successive phases, moving the programme from solution readiness into deployment.
The Six Signals Check can show the shape of a readiness gap. The Readiness Diagnostic is for when you need to establish the real position.
It is a fixed-scope senior review across both the programme and the business. It is designed to establish:
If this is the question you are carrying on a live programme, you can reach me at contact@matthewforey.com.
I am a programme director and transformation leader. I have extensive experience delivering complex, business-critical programmes ranging from $1m to over $100m, across financial services and the public sector, including global transformation programmes, multi-phase migrations, integrations and target operating model development.
On those programmes I have held the business case and the budget, negotiated with suppliers, and delivered in agile, waterfall and hybrid environments.
Business readiness has been the focus throughout: making sure processes, people and technology are aligned and prepared for change before, during and after delivery. I work across the full span of a programme, from strategy and business case through execution to benefits realisation, and across the full span of an organisation, from the C-suite to the teams who have to operate the change.
If a go-live is coming and you are not sure the business is ready for it, that is the conversation worth having early.