Phoenix frankly speaking, Part II: The continuing story of a …
I see people struggling to make sense of Phoenix — in large part given the urgency of finding a way forward — and fast — to fix things. We have seen this before — a system failure that has huge negative impacts on people. And the first, instinctive response, is to find someone, some event, some trigger to blame. Classic move: take a complex problem and reduce it down to something bite-sized to tackle.
Throw Phoenix out and start a new build! Nope. This wasn’t even close to being solely an IT problem, so an IT solution won’t cut it.
Streamline all the Collective Agreements and their 80 000 business rules! Hmm, I can think of a few labour associations that would rightly point out that those business rules are not the cause of the problem (and also: union autonomy).
We need to stop looking for a simple solution to a complex problem. Never works.
Can’t work, because the issues that gave rise to disaster — and make no mistake, Phoenix is a disaster — are not simple. Have you ever seen the PPT slide meant to convey the complexity of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, the one that prompted the US military General Stanley McChrystal to declare that “When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war”?
Yeah — swap out the nouns and you’ll be on your way to understanding Phoenix. This is a non-linear problem, there is no one person to blame, and the only way to fix it is to get a clear sense of the current problem space.
As we build an accurate, complete map of the problem space (using appropriate meaningful indicators of systems performance) we can begin to narrow down the possible necessary requirements of a solution state — the desired future state of a stable compensation system.
Sounds boring huh? No immediate white charger riding in to save us. No, but it is the approach used to put people on the moon, that we use to deliver emergency response in complex theatres of combat, that we use to deploy resources in fire management — it can handle Phoenix.
But first, the not-so-sexy but very useful mapping of the problem space before talking about useful supporting performance indicators. If you want to skip the crunchy bits necessary for the actual work of tackling the problem, you might want to click out here. I’m going to spend the rest of this post suggesting to you what we minimally need to be doing and measuring to map current to future state.
Respect for People
The public service has incredible talent within its ranks, but the inability to leverage its talent is a widely known issue. and yet, public servants have just complex set of skills for this problem: HR business process expertise; project management expertise; IT expertise, etc. At CAPE, we are the risk managers, the evaluation experts, the performance measurement specialists — we know all about setting priorities, developing plans, conducting risk assessments, selecting the appropriate performance measurement metrics, evaluating and course correcting, and then reporting on progress.
The employer should be leveraging its existing resources first and foremost on this file — it needs to use the talent it already has and listen to its analysis and advice. It could leverage innovation in HR staffing processes in the public service to stand up cross-functional teams to tackle this file.
The employer should recognise that the chilling effect of the previous government will not dissipate overnight — and that many in the management cadre today are products of that environment. In order to respect people’s needs while also surfacing issues, the employer should create an anonymous Early Warning System (EWS) that employees at all levels can use to surface issues going forward. It worked for the Federal Aviation Administration, it can work for the public service — and can be reported on to the Canadian public as evidence of risk and issues management.
Concrete commitment to staff, as well as a first hand glimpse of the complexities of the file, could be made with senior management commitment to spend time on the shop floor, walking the line. It is a time-proven trusted method to gain insight into complex systems and the very real impact on people. Given the existing culture of the public service, this would best be done with trained business process innovation coaches at their side (call EDC — they can hook you up). Ditch the two-page briefing notes and grab the comfy shoes.
Collaborative Service Re-design
Clearly, consultations with organised labour have failed to produce meaningful engagement to date. Content gets pushed at the representatives; information is not timely, not shared, and/or not useful. Union efforts to raise issues went unheeded. To move the relationship forward, cross-functional, joint employer-employee committees need to have clear mandates to act in their Terms of Reference (viz. access to senior decision-makers; mandate beyond ‘being informed/advised/advised’) supported by subject matter experts knowledge.
To date, service business process mapping exercises done behind closed doors have produced sub-optimal results, as have the resulting coding exercises.
The public service currently possesses the design expertise that understand human-centred service design as well as the business process mapping expertise needed to capture these aspects of the system — capture, share, and engage other stakeholders and partners. We need to leverage what we have — adopting collaborative business process design practices are a known fix to leverage expert knowledge to the benefit of all. There is simply no valid reason not to draw on the expertise of all in tackling the complex systems issues the pay transformation initiative has results in.
Employer commitment to valuing the work of public servants can also be demonstrated by meaningful engagement with the compensation advisor community on pay transactions — beyond those advisors being used to pinch hit now that the roll-out has gone sideways. The employer can make amends for not valuing the expertise of their staff in the first place as well as shorten the distance toward achieving objectives. There is tremendous subject matter expertise that has the potential to walk out the door if not invited to sit at the table.
Terms of Reference of joint committees should be public, and progress on objectives should be reported publicly as well. As well, the work of the business process mapping/service design groups, along with the subject matter expertise should open and shared. It would facilitate capability development; reduce frustrations; and provide additional opportunities for input.
Results Delivery
Here’s something you can’t do, if you’re the employer, with this file going forward: you can’t have artful metrics about what’s going on with this project. In the first place, there’s a mountain of anecdotal evidence out in the wild just waiting to be verified that can refute any claims about the system being stabilised. Secondly, to remain consistent with the Results Agenda of this government means to commit to tracking performance — even if what you report on in underperformance. There’s no better way to encourage the uptake of the motto ‘it’s ok to fail if you’re learning from your failures’ — a favoured expression in innovative sector these days — than to model that failure without penalising the agents that report on the failure. This will spur on the willingness of public servants to try new things to do better for Canadians.
Thirdly, you need to rebuild trust with the employees. It’s taken a beating. It has created reputational harm for the government since government as employer is seen as harming its employees. Having an Expected Results management plan with tracking of metrics related to areas such as the effectiveness of the business transformation as well as the efficiency and quality of operations will go some way to managing that risk.
This next bit is where I get all systems (re)engineery on you. There are some key expected results (ERs) for a stable Phoenix (the desired future state). From those ERs you can generate robust performance indicators to measure system performance — to ensure you’re getting closer to your objectives. I’ve clustered them into chunky bits — and put them into Part III cos I’m violating some norms around human cognition and attention , and I shouldn’t do that.
Read the next Part III.
