Ways of Working
How things are done
Ways of Working (WoW) used to mean how we work together and was often defined by the policies and procedures that set expectations for people by employers. Another way of describing a company’s operating model, if you will. Today, Ways of Working may be
- New Ways of Working – transformative practices aligned to multigenerational workers’ expectations of flexibility and autonomy
- Agile Ways of Working – allowing employees to work where and how they choose to effectively deliver on a task
- Our Ways of Working – taking ownership of the change to ways of working for an organisation to improve outcomes
Perhaps the biggest change for organisations considering a change to the way they work is the focus on the culture and the people impacted. Mindset and a sense of purpose matters. Now more than ever, employees are having a say in how they want to work, and their input and knowledge of the detail of work needs to be considered.
Regardless of the branding, today’s ways of working approach require some key elements. Namely
- Start with Why. Be clear about the inspiration for new ways of working and why you are instigating a change. What is the purpose of the change?
- Communicate. Often. Using various channels. Collaborate and co-create the change with your people. Engage in conversations about the why, the how and the what.
- Feedback loops. While it may seem obvious, it is important to be flexible and nimble as you navigate new ways of working. Create options for testing the pulse and be prepared to correct course. Be clear about your intent but provide autonomy for the means of achieving change.
What we do
Accuteque itself embraces new ways of working; we operate in a contemporary operating model, based on agility and self-managing teams. We work collaboratively with our clients. We find that successful engagements are built on open and transparent relationships that build trust and respect, fostered and developed over time. Our collaborative approach ensures honest and timely information flow and exchange.
Accuteque’s Ways of Working is about continuously evolving how we work. The values and behaviours we bring to our clients include building empowered teams, operating with transparency and collaborating and co-creating with your people. Our ways of working directly relate to how we can help you find your way of working.
We believe strongly in co-design and share the responsibility for any change with key members of the client team. The Accuteque team guides and facilitates the process to ensure all voices are heard, to manage differences, to create opportunities for consensus-building and to constructively challenge. Key leaders and people will be active participants, their experience and knowledge enriching the process of information gathering, sense making, scenario analysis and recommendations.
The driver for our service is to ensure that we leave a client in a better position than when we started. Our intent is to ensure that our clients understand our role is to be an enabler, a guide and a coach through the change. Our success is demonstrated in our clients’ ability to be able to continue to embed the change through the leadership capability and guardrails that we have built through our change programs.
How we can help you
We have helped several clients navigate their ways to newer ways of working. For some, this has been as a result of system changes that required a new operating model. For others an organisational reshuffling with new views on delivering value.
We will start with a situational analysis to understand the reasons and root causes leading to a change of work practices. And identify what is working well.
We will take a Human Centred Design (HCD) approach to facilitating workshops with people across the organisation.
We will guide you through the change from as-is to to-be and share generously our tools and experiences. We will work collaboratively and co-create new ways of working with you, and the people responsible for the work. What we won’t do is sweep in all consultant-like and leave you with a tabled report of things you already know.
We will help you navigate potentially new ways of leading and work with your HR and people teams to create support networks and centres of excellence.
Our principles will inform our engagement as both the guardrails and the guidelines for how we can improve your culture and align with your needs.
Our Services
Our Service offerings include:
- Defining change experiments and hypotheses and facilitating workshops to uncover concerns and issues
- Hosting Lean Coffee style catchup’s to broaden our understanding of the problem space
- Creating a Project Space and Visual Boards to demonstrate transparency and engender feedback
- Project Inception workshop to develop a Lean Canvas for the project that aligns the team
- Sprint Planning with Steering Committees or teams to determine sprint objectives and measures of success
- Communications Plan development
- Fly on the wall observations – unobtrusive observations of behaviours of leaders and teams
- Deep Dive Interviews – to probe areas of concern raised in initial interviews and research
- Contextual Inquiry – looking at the difference between what people say they do and what they do in their own environment. Office relationship, meetings, stand-ups etc.
- Discovery Brainstorming – Compiling initial findings to determine affinities and areas for deeper review
- Prototyping agreed deliverables
- Team Immersion workshops with teams to introduce them to the program and gather data and feedback
- Operating Model Design – how might we best organise and manage resources to effectively operate the business, deliver services as intended, and meet goals?
- Lean Process Review
- Impact Assessment
- Capability Uplift Planning and Delivery
- Cultural Alignment through new ways of working
- Leadership Coaching
