Joining up the dots
Two years of keeping DWP’s transformation on the right track
Two years ago I joined a small, recently formed group in DWP that was charged with transforming the Department. It turned out to be the most exciting team I’ve worked for, and one which is making a real impact on DWP and the broader civil service.
Over time, this small group expanded into what is now the 1,300 person Business Transformation Group (BTG), and it has moved from strength to strength. Over the first couple of years, a lot of our teams were built from scratch, including my one: the Support Team.
Like others, my team has evolved over time to keep pace with changes in BTG. And throughout all of this one thing has stayed the same: what the Support Team delivers is critical to business transformation. In short, we’re the Group’s project managers, the administrators, and the people who ensure the delivery of our strategic priorities over the long term.
It’s no small job.
Context for the work
Let’s start zoomed out. DWP is big. We know this. Last year, we paid around 22 million people over £160bn in various benefits and pensions. We employ more than 80,000 people, and the business costs about £7.2 billion to operate.
With such a large, complex, well established organisation, transformation is hard (not complex, just hard). I won’t get into the detail of this, as our Head of Business Design writes really eloquently about it here. Safe to say that the effort involves every part of DWP and teams from across Government.
Keeping this all together is where we come in. The Support Team is that small little cluster of people who you find in good delivery units, keeping the work joined up and delivering DWP’s transformation.
Joining up the dots
In a sentence, the role of the Support Team is to ensure the senior team delivers. Day to day, we’re the team that supports the Director General, and we’re pretty much by his side for at least 10 hours a day. There’s nobody better placed to provide an insight on the highest priorities and the context to a team’s work. There’s nobody better placed to clarify intent across the 80,000 person team that is DWP, and there’s nobody better placed to make sure he’s aware of what’s going on across the Department.
This is the most important thing we provide for BTG: context. It’s our job to know what’s going on, to know the ins and outs of the Department, and to be approachable to everyone (both on and off the record).
In a large organisation, you need people who can join up the dots. Being able to use knowledge and relationships to make things happen in the right way (to the right effect) is critical to making sure DWP’s transformation happens smoothly and collaboratively. This is what a good Support Team can do.
Project managers
If we join dots up on a day to day basis, over the long term the Support Team is effectively the Business Transformation Group’s project managers.
Through recording and tracking delivery against a transparent milestone plan, we are able to know what BTG is up to and — critically — when we’re going off track. This is our main tool to manage our delivery over the medium and long term, defining success and highlighting dangers to the senior team.
But to be honest most of the work — and the best of it — happens before it gets there. The Support Team should already know if things are going well or badly. I work with every team, and understand their work (often through providing context or offering support / escalation, I get to know the detail). I take pride in knowing that I’ve spotted and resolved an issue before it gets to the management team discussion about the milestone plan.
Not only does this have the direct impact of helping our management team focus on the important stuff, it provides a quiet assurance to the rest of the Department that our transformation is delivering as planned. It frees up our senior team, enabling them to dedicate their time to the more tricky tasks and bigger relationships.
It’s not aligned to any strict methodology (and doing so would really restrict our work), but this is project management. It’s one of the main ways the Support Team keep DWP’s transformation on track.
Behind the curtain
Obviously we don’t talk about this much. By design, we put ourselves out of view; nobody wants to see what’s behind the curtain if things run well.
But every now and then, it’s worth taking a quick peek, just to know it’s all ok. And then you’ll see me and my team working hard.
We sit in the middle of all of the intense work; keeping the transformation on the right track; providing the context to make sure we deliver; the pivot in the centre of all of it. And DWP’s transformation is on the right track.
