From Open Sustainability
Activity: Continuous Improvement - Sustainable Development Organisation
Objective:
The Sustainable Development Organisation is the “vision-state” of an organisation focused on delivering sustainability excellence to the business.
To goal will be to move to a common model for Sustainable Development management and integration, to complement business models in the areas that have highest degrees of shared work practices.
Opportunities will exist to optimize resources through a hybrid model that combines centralised and distributed resources – the most effective organisational model may not require fully centralisation.
Major Deliverables:
- Changes to organisational model
- Changes to Staff and their Skill-sets
- Changes to Staff Incentives
- Changes to Communications Model
Tasks
Move to a Common Architecture and Delivery Model
Objective:
One of the strategic goals for the Sustainable Development is to have an organisational model that provides a “balance of power” across architecture, delivery and leadership. The key team members across these areas must actively collaborate through formal and informal reporting relationships to guide a strategic idea to its realisation.
This model is focused on getting capabilities out in the most efficient and effective fashion to meet the needs of the business.
Input:
- Existing Sustainability Governance team
- Strategic Business and Technology Blueprint
Output:
- Improvements to Organisational Model
Develop Staff and their Skills
Objective:
Skills development will be an ongoing activity in moving towards the Sustainability Development Organisation. As organisations have traditionally under-invested in this area and the business problems have become more complex, skills development is often a critical and significant undertaking.
Starting with a clear understanding of Foundation Capabilities is the key to developing the generalised technical skills required in the organisations. It is also important to supplement generalised technical expertise with specific business and domain knowledge.
Input:
- Staff Profiles
- Staff Reviews
- Target Organisational Model
Output:
- Improvements to staff and their skills
Implement Sustainability Governance Incentives
Objective:
In order to improve Sustainability Governance and prevent "root cause" issues, employees should receive incentives to take an Sustainability Development-style approach. These incentives should extend across staff and take into account that the many significant quality issues often result from decisions taken by lower-level staff. Governance incentives are often start by being focused on tactical improvements to quality.
Input:
- Target Organisational Model
- Documented root cause issues leading to poor Sustainability Governance
Output:
- Incentives for Improved Sustainability Governance
Review and Revise Communications Model
Objective:
As the Sustainable Development Organisation becomes more sophisticated, it becomes necessary to re-factor the communications model that is being employed. The communications model should take into account the large number of stakeholders in the organisation and the different roles and responsibilities that they hold. This model will need to account for the “balance of power” necessary to balance leadership, architecture and delivery of the Information Development team and how it should interact to deliver solutions for the business. This model must account for the difficulty in communicating across multiple level and across different technology and business domains.
Input:
- Existing Communications Model
- Target Organisational Model
Output:
- Improved Communications Model
Core Supporting Assets
Yellow Flags
- Information Development is not seen as a key business initiative, this work stays focused only with IT
- Training or hiring of staff with appropriate Sustainability Development skills is not possible
Key Resource Requirements
