A Coalition of the Motivated
Parallaxis has seen many organizations seek to address internal challenges through either tooling or control mechanisms, such as implementing a Center of Excellence or creating rigid governance structures. A Center of Excellence (COE or CoE), in this context, is a team, a shared facility, or an entity that defines policy, provides leadership, sets best practices, and creates enforcement mechanisms (like review boards) for a specific focus area.
Prescriptive Nature
The challenge with CoEs is that they are designed to enforce standards and consistency. While this may be beneficial in the short term, it leads to a rigid and gated impediment to progress. Over time, CoEs become more about adherence to procedures than about solving real business value problems for the customer. This rigidity stifles the very innovation and adaptability needed in today’s fast-paced business environment.
Customer Obsession is Lacking
A fundamental flaw in many CoEs is their lack of true customer obsession. CoEs often try to cover too broad or too narrow a scope, losing touch with the specific needs and pain points of their consumers. As a result, they struggle to deliver tangible value and become another bureaucratic layer that teams must navigate.
How do we address this challenge?
The Power of Communities of Collaboration
We’ve successfully driven change through Communities of Collaboration.
A Community must be:
Driven by the people that are affected, the actual consumers, the ones most motivated to drive change (coalition of the motivated)
Created out of a problem statement that has a defined outcome
Temporary, exists for as long as it’s needed
Guided by tenets that drive the implementation of solutions decided on by all parties involved
Sponsored by an executive who will clear barriers for the community
Led by a rotating group of facilitators
Empowered to rethink processes and implementations
Focused on a particular business problem
Comprised of people from all affected and relevant disciplines
Driven by the people who are affected
Change does not happen unless there’s buy-in from the consumer. Compare this to a product in a store. If people don’t like the product or don’t see a use for it, it will stay on the shelves. If it solves a need, it will sell itself almost. Those products get created through many loops of customer feedback. That feedback comes from people who are actively trying to help. Their motivation can come from many angles, but is usually driven by a need to change a current state or process.
A problem statement and a defined outcome
It’s often said that you should not solve problems that don’t exist yet. In this case, we would emphasize that one should recognize issues and do something about them. Working backward from the consumer is the only way to successfully solve business problems quickly, effectively, and accurately. If the consumer disagrees that you’ve solved their problem, you most likely have not. Clearly define the outcome with the consumer and agree that it would solve their problem. Involve all the parties that influence this problem and don’t compromise on the outcome. A common pitfall for organizations is for CoEs trying to maintain control while losing the customer obsession mindset. The result is an organization that can no longer innovate and compete due to painful processes that are slow to evolve, a culture of stagnation, and an exit for motivated people. When you succeed in a Community, you will expose your actual problems, drive change effectively, and see an increase in drive and momentum across the board. This will lead to improved business outcomes, increased customer retention, and enhanced innovation.
Tenets that bind the solution
The community must have tenets for the implementation to be successful for all parties involved. This will keep the focus on the fundamentals that need to be included in a solution. The intent here is that the solution needs to keep all these tenets in mind. Some can be contradictory, so it’s essential to find a balance between all tenets. There needs to be an agreement between all parties to find that balance.
Executive Sponsor
For the Community to have advocacy within the organization, there needs to be a concerned and involved executive leader who can act as its sponsor. This leader should be empathetic to the consumer's pain and motivated to advocate for the effort to succeed. This can involve bringing other leaders in to help resolve disputes, drive change across departments, or find the necessary funding to solve the problem. This person should again prioritize customer obsession and effectively advocate for the Community and the customer.
Facilitation Rotation
Long-running Communities run the risk of becoming stagnant. Often, people leading the Community get burned out, in a rut, or become demotivated. Rotating the leadership and facilitation of the Community periodically keeps energy levels high and ensures the Community remains focused on solving real business problems. Determine a cadence that works for the leader and the Community.
Is Empowered
Empowerment, next to customer obsession, and a lack of progress, are the most frequent reasons why a Community will succeed or fail. The Community must be empowered to think creatively, drive change, and achieve tangible outcomes. Without empowering the Community to make change happen, it will compound frustration and lead to wasted time and effort. The executive sponsor and your company culture play a huge role in rebuilding trust and fostering collaboration.
Cross Discipline
If the particular business issue were easy to solve, then the customer could make the necessary changes on their own. However, in many cases (such as our example), the solution requires thoughtful contributions from multiple disciplines within the organization (e.g., HR, Security, Engineering, Compliance, …). By creating a Community around a particular business issue, we allow the organization to develop unique and innovative solutions to those issues. By including the concerned and impacted parts of the business, concerns related to security, compliance, maintenance, and operations can be addressed while still achieving the fundamental objective of increased business value.
