making solutions work
what's involved
You may have reached a good decision, but nothing will change until you get everyone on board and implement it. Once you start implementing you will almost certainly encounter snags along the way, requiring new solutions and further effort to get/keep everyone on board - and then there may be unexpected outcomes to deal with once complete.
how it's done
The first step is to convince everyone who needs to be convinced - for example colleagues, customers, suppliers, regulators - that your preferred solution is the right one. Good practice here includes
- ensuring key stakeholders are on board early and avoiding surprises
- presenting the case in the appropriate way:
- providing quality evidence for regulators and funders
- proving benefits for customers (specially if they'll be inconvenienced)
- earning trust of the wider public.
Then all you have to do (!) is put the agreed changes into practice and sort out any problems along the way. Here you'll want to
- identify project risks in advance and plan how to tackle them, and
- be open with customers, suppliers, regulators (etc) along the way - they may be able to help you with snags as well as create them.
what can go wrong
Some of the problems we come across are
- failure to secure necessary approvals
- unexpected snags that escalate costs and timescales
- disputes over how to deal with snags and who should pay
- challenges to regulatory or legal decisions, and
- unexpected outcomes that compromise the case for the changes.
how we help
We help both 'upstream' and 'downstream' of key decisions. We both prevent and help resolve disputes and disagreements.
Before the decision we help you structure and test your case so that it will be persuasive to the people who matter. We often get involved in independent research or analysis and engage a wide variety of stakeholders along the way. We test your ideas against good practice elsewhere, and provide independent test and challenge of your evaluation.
After the decision we help identify and deal with project risks. We facilitate finding and agreeing solutions to problems that arise during a project, or dealing with unexpected outcomes after changes have been introduced.
Communication is central in this area - people may have strong and entrenched views not just about risks but also about arrangements for dealing with them. We can't stand being inconvenienced by obviously ineffective measures put there "for your safety or security" and lots of other people feel the same way. Your solutions need to be accepted as in the best interests of the people who matter - so you need excellent communication as well as excellent solutions!
You can read more about communication on risk and uncertainty in a Government guide on "Risk Communication, A Guide to Regulatory Practice", which resulted from a project Tony Taig led whilst at AEA Technology. This is now well into its second decade, has had several print runs, and is available via the Health & Safety Executive web site here.