Are sponsors ‘for Christmas’ or ‘for life’? Have your say Journey Assurance Royal Mail presentation created by Peter Horsted, and on the evening presented by Ashley Cox evening event by the APM Governance Specific Interest Group Tuesday 15 May 2018 Event write up: https://www.apm.org.uk/news/are-sponsors-for-christmas-or-for-life-have-your-say/

1. Journey Assurance
Peter Horsted RPP HONFAPM
Programme Manager

2. Terms of Reference – our scope
There are four strands to Journey Assurance:
Sponsor
Design
Ops Portfolio
Operations
To raise awareness through engagement the challenges
faced when delivering sponsorship accountabilities
To offer collective and individually targeted support to
sponsors to enable enhanced delivery of their business
case, blended with internal and external buddying,
mentoring and coaching
To provide project managers with the knowledge and
confidence to understand sponsorship accountabilities
and how they can better support and guide them
To design and develop a framework
by which a project can be reviewed
more fully from a people’s
perspective
To ensure the impacted audience is
comprehensively assessed,
considered and engaged with from
an early stage in the project lifecycle
To design and implement a post-
deployment review process with a
robust feedback loop
To further raise awareness of
business change and the value it
brings to the deployment and
realisation of business case benefits
To expand the use of the Journey
Assurance framework across the
portfolio with tangible support and
guidance through a network of
change champions

3. Sponsor Quadrant

4. Purpose of session….
• A huge amount of change has been
delivered in recent years.
• Accountabilities of sponsors are wide-
ranging and it takes up a significant
amount of time for those involved.
• Today is about progressing the
conversation around how we can make
good, better.
The challenge we face is how much accountability a sponsor has for each
business case, as part of the overall day job.
We have an opportunity to examine the change load of business cases to
sponsors and begin to nurture the sponsors of tomorrow.

5. Being a Sponsor
• Sponsors need to:
• champion the project and own the
specification
• own the benefits and ensure they are
delivered
• lend weight when the project comes
up against obstacles
• ‘fight the corner’ of the changes when
necessary, creating the ‘headspace’
needed for themselves and others to
deliver the change
• Sponsors need to:
• own the approach to change
• lead by example
• Ensure that the project is assured
through the Gateway checks –
Concept, Design, Deployment, Review
• Actively participate in Steering Groups,
constructively and in an integrated
fashion to improve the delivery
performance of the project
Sponsorship requires time. Time to understand the change and challenge it where necessary. Time to
support the change and empower the people driving the change.
We have reflected on our approach and the
external view to develop our proposal

6. Change Load Issue To Address - proposition
to consider
• Existing L&N sponsors to retain the role of Executive Sponsor for ALL projects in their
area/function of accountability
• Review who in their structure has, or could be equipped with, the skills to undertake
day-to-day sponsorship accountabilities on projects
• Each example is different so we need to explore how we appoint each sponsor which
should be at the discretion of the Executive Sponsor (ES). For example, the ES might
sponsor all GOLD projects but if there are currently no gold projects, then they would
hands on direct SILVER projects. This should be examined on case-by-case basis and
also flow through to Bronze & BAU
• The ask: give consideration to who could pick up day-to-day sponsor requirements
across projects - – this could highlight some tangible & broader development
opportunities for people in your teams

7. Change Loading

8. Processing
PAT Projects
Gold • Collection Hub Optimisation and Enhanced Mail Preparation
• Parcels Automation
Silver • Integrated Mail Processor Control Refresh
• AutoMIS and IWT database hardware migration
Bronze • Workplace Organisation Best Methods Phase 2- Conveyors
• Workplace Organisation Best Methods Phase 2- Tugs and Trailers
Other • Loss Opportunity Model
• CILA
• Gravity Conveyors
• MEARS Contract Renewal
• Machine Critical Continuity
• Visual Management i.e. Tablets
• Keys & Tabs Automation
• Weekend Operations Review
• Postbox Strategy 2
• Continuous Improvement
• 2 x NDA/USPA5
Continues as
sponsor
Delegates
sponsor
responsibilies to
appropriate team
member
Retainsexecutivesponsorship
18 business cases
£X million investment
£X million incremental benefits

9. Tailored individual support available
Individual one-to-one
conversations with sponsors,
led by Peter Horsted with
Fiona Gilbert, to understand
experiences of being a sponsor
Use this conversation to
highlight key areas of focus
Tailored plan to support
sponsors own identified
requirements
Access to external
guidance, support,
potential buddying with
sponsors from other
organisations
The results will further improve the way we deploy our projects into the RM L&N operation by time, cost and
quality but more importantly, improve the way we take our people with us on the journey. The focus on
change load may result in an increased number of sponsors, which we will build into this solution.
Contact: Peter Horsted, Field Ops Programme Manager or Fiona Gilbert, Journey Assurance (L&N) Project Manager

10. Design Quadrant
Core Change Questions (RM L&N)
August 2017

11. Core Change Questions
• Where does the project sit on the strategic roadmap?
Customer focused
Agile and efficient
Flexible & engaged workforce
• Who is the sponsor? How does this fit with change load?
• Has the project sponsor given evident public support to the change?
Have they clearly articulated the case for change?
• What is the case for change? Why do we need to do this?
How will the need for change be communicated?
Have the key impacted groups/stakeholders been engaged with?
• Have all stakeholders been identified and analysed?
Is there an engagement plan in place?
Have you agreed the sponsor’s role and accountabilities?
• What is the impact on the affected audience?
• Change Load: how much other change/increase in workload is hitting those affected at the same
time?
Design

12. Ops Portfolio Quadrant

13. Want to know more?
Contact Fiona Gilbert on 07725 826340 or
Peter Horsted 07808 390970 for more information
Passionate
about people? Already
involved in
deploying
projects into
operations?
Journey Assurance
(Letters & Network)
Interested in
being part of a
network across
the portfolio?
Keen to share your
own experiences
and knowledge
with others?
Want to
develop your
skills?
Attracted to
Change
Management?
Fancy a
development
opportunity
alongside the
day job?
Interested in sponsorship,
design, our ops portfolio and
operations?

14. Operations Quadrant
Post Deployment Reviews

15. Deliverables for the ‘Operations’ strand
Operations
Design a set of questions to be used post-
deployment to measure change effectiveness
Develop a repository to hold all post-deployment
feedback with a robust feedback mechanism into
both Ops & the project teams
Hold familiarisation sessions with individuals
who will run post-deployment feedback sessions
to ensure consistency and effectiveness

16. Post Deployment Reviews
• We deploy change in the operation but that
change is not always successfully embedded into
the BAU ways of working to successfully deliver
benefits and achieve long-term engagement
• We consistently score low against the “we manage
change well” question on the Employee Survey
• This is the opportunity for us to do something to
contribute to the improvement of that metric
• A virtual team will seek informal meetings with frontline managers and
colleagues for feedback on how that change has been received and
whether the engagement was sufficient and if the training (where
relevant) was appropriate

17. The Process
•Analyse national change
load tool to point us to
detailed timing of
deployment
•Overlay with locations
of our virtual team
•Engage with Delivery
Leaders/ Ops Managers
to confirm involvement
when appropriate
•Informally run
through a set of
questions with
willing colleagues on
the floor
Feedback
•Robust feedback in
place – “you said we
did” process
•Feedback to both unit
and project team
•Make sure we say thank
you – recognition
process
•Overlay with other
‘people’ metrics to
identify trends
•Lessons learnt to
influence future
deployments
•SharePoint to collate
responses.

18. The talking points
• When did you learn of the change?
• How was it communicated to you?
• Who communicated it?
• Was the message right?
• What did it mean to you?
• How was the change managed?
• What would have made it better?
• What was the impact on you (positive or negative?)
• What opportunity have you had to feedback?
• Do you think the change is taking us in the right direction?
• How have customers reacted? Does it benefit them?
• Do you have anything else to add?

19. Good system but I
don’t feel like I’m
managing the work
flow at our unit any
more
Really made
to feel part of
the change
It would have
been better if
we could have
had……
Didn’t want to
change to
Sunday but
understood
why
Didn’t make
much
difference to
me
Had the
opportunity
to input
Everyone
knows what is
expected of
them
Time given by
project team is
insufficient for
BAU teams
Good early life
support
Not enough
focus on
delivering
benefits – just
‘get it in’
Good
communications
and straight-
forward change
Key
Fleet Booking
Sunday Offices
Traffic Trans
LLWS
RDC Mech
Didn’t explain
why our site was
chosen as the
pilot
Want it to work
but don’t feel
like we can
influence how it
evolves
Wrong people
were trained –
DOMs rather
than DLMs
Training
felt rushed
Kit saved the day
at Christmas –
can we have
another?
Secondary
handling
reduced which is
a big bonus
Training could
be improved by
targeting the
right people
More notice
before
conveyors
installed would
be good
Examples of feedback gathered….

20. What’s next?
• Still early in our journey but confident the sum of the parts will have a positive impact
• Invite us back in 12 months for an update
• For us tactical is good – Does not have to rocket science with loads of bells and
whistles
• What’s your view on buddying sponsors up? Would you want to get involved in this?
• Do we need a sponsorship club to bring this group together a couple of times a year?
• Would you like to see some kind of accreditation for sponsors (Badge of Honour)?

21. Contacts
Journey Assurance / Sponsorship Club / Buddying Up
peter.horsted@royalmail.com
Fiona Gilbert – Journey Assurance Project Manager
fiona.gilbert@royalmail.com
Presenting on behalf of Peter Horsted was Ashley Cox
ashley.d.cox@royalmail.com

22. This presentation was delivered
at an APM event
To find out more about
upcoming events please visit our
website www.apm.org.uk/events