Method
A five-stage method, run on a fixed cadence, closed by data.
Analysis → proposal → development on a rolling four-week cycle. Implementation and validation quarterly.
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01
Analysis
Weeks 1–2 of each cycle
Operational workshops: the current state first, then validation of the candidate pathways.
In the room — The people who do the work
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02
Proposal
Week 3
A committed, costed pathway. No development proceeds without agreement.
In the room — Distribution, support and decision-making stakeholders
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03
Development
Week 4 — proposals approved last cycle are built this cycle
The build: process, system, or both.
In the room — Delivery
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04
Implementation
Quarterly
Working groups collecting feedback; the process is adjusted as it lands.
In the room — The people affected
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05
Validation
Quarterly, measured weekly
Data-gated acceptance, weekly metrics, remedial action routed to an owner.
In the room — Everyone
The gates
A stage is complete when its measure is met, not when a document is signed. Every engagement is validated against three things:
- A target percentage reduction in handling time for the affected role
- A decrease or elimination of named escalation categories
- A measured change in decision and override behaviour — evidence that decision rights actually moved
Measurement that is not wired to a remediation owner is reporting, not control. Here, metrics are reported weekly and communicated broadly — and where a gate is missed, remedial action is routed through the coaching and training function. A missed number has somewhere to go.
Resistance does not come from fear of redundancy or from technology. It comes from people losing decision-making responsibility while gaining capacity.
Show the affected party that the change improves their own KPI by an outsized margin, then hand them ownership of the delivered process's longevity.
Entry point
That diagnosis determines the intervention. If the loss is ownership, the remedy is a larger ownership stake somewhere else — visible in the metric the affected team is personally measured on.
Because the method has a defined week-one deliverable, an engagement can begin against an objective without a discovery phase. Week one produces a 2–3 page current-state analysis with candidate pathways, and a 1-page committed pathway proposal. Both are validated with stakeholders in week two.