Why Mentor Was Built This Way
The problem that eventually brings a major program to its knees is usually already there near the start, while everything still looks fine.
The program may have been scrutinised repeatedly. It may already have a program director, PMO, suppliers, advisers, governance, dashboards and assurance.
Yet it still fails to deliver what was promised.
That’s the point at which Mentor looks beyond the program itself – and tests the delivery system around it.
A major program is actually the visible output of a much wider delivery system: the authority, capacity, capability, suppliers, dependencies, sequencing, information and decisions that have to work together across the organisation.
If that system is weak, the program will eventually show it.
Most organisations can run most programs themselves. Mentor concentrates on the ones that cross an execution threshold – when the stakes, complexity, dependencies and pressure exceed what the normal management system can safely handle.
I learned that long before Mentor existed.
I trained as an accountant, but spent most of my earlier career running large, difficult programs in the computer and telecommunications industries.
As Program Director for System X at Plessey, responsible for the joint public-switching development with GEC, I inherited a program that was badly off track.
Plessey and GEC had first-class engineers. The problem was the way the work was organised, integrated and controlled. We changed that, and System X was turned around and delivered.
Over the next three decades Mentor turned around well over a hundred major programs.
The lesson kept repeating: programs change; the structural failure patterns do not.
The warning signs often sit in the gaps between functions, suppliers and decision-makers. They are always visible long before the program is formally acknowledged to be in trouble.
That’s why Mentor was built around experienced practitioners, rather than junior leverage.
We are not there to add another layer of program management.
We are there to work out exactly why the commitment is not being delivered – what in the delivery system is causing it, and what has to change while management still has choices.
If a program is routine, Mentor is probably not the right partner for you. We become relevant when the stakes are higher and failure would rapidly become a CEO or Board issue.
That’s why Mentor was built this way.
About the author
David Hilliard is Founder of Mentor, execution specialists in strategic program execution.