Leading industry experts Chris DeBrusk, Julian Granger-Bevan, and Suzy Torta delve into managing critical risks in large-scale transformation projects. Learn how executives can navigate organizational change and address similar challenges faced by clients in Australia and the Americas. Gain insights on knowledge risk, execution risk, and the importance of intentional change in achieving successful outcomes.

Suzy Torta

What are the most material risks our clients can encounter?

Chris DeBrusk

Knowledge risk. In other words, I may not actually know what I need to know in order to build a plan that I can trust. 

Julian Granger-Bevan

What advice would you give to executives?

Chris

I think what's important is they have to accept that it will change, but that change should be intentional.

[series intro clip]

Suzy

Today we're joined by Chris DeBrusk, a partner based in our Chicago office. Chris leads our Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Transformation Advisory Practice in the US. He has over 30 years of digital and financial services experience, both in consulting and in-house roles where he managed billion-dollar transformation budgets for two S&P 500 businesses. We're here today in our Sydney office to learn from Chris's experience in leading large scale technology transformation. Thanks for joining us today, Chris.

Chris

Thanks for having me.

Suzy

In your experience, you've led multiple material transformation programs. What are the most material risks our clients can encounter when undertaking this type of work and how do they mitigate those?

Chris

As we consult with clients on these large transformation programs, there's three areas that we encourage them to focus on from the very beginning. The first is to be very, very clear about the outcome that they are attempting to achieve. It's amazing how many large programs start without clarity around the outcome or where they want to go as an organization and what they want to accomplish.

The second is to make sure that accountability is really clear, so that as they assign executives in these roles and these transformation programs, that they're very clear about what they're accountable for and how that accountability is going to be measured and how their efforts will contribute to the overall outcomes that they're attempting to accomplish.  And the third is always to lead with risk; to really think about risk from the beginning, identify the risks that could potentially cause failure and to put in place the mitigation programs and the approaches and processes in order to control for that risk. And to make sure, most importantly, that they have contingency in their overall plan to cover the risks that they may not see at the beginning.

Suzy

Could you talk to us about some of the contingencies that they may need to consider if I'm a CRO or CIO undertaking this type of work?

Chris

There's two categories. There's lots of potential areas of contingency, but the two categories that we encourage people to focus on are knowledge risk. In other words, I may not actually know what I need to know in order to build a plan that I can trust. There's always a lack of knowledge in a large program, there's things you don't know. And then execution risk. Execution risk can manifest in lots of different ways. It could be vendor risk, third party risk, it could be key person risk.

There's people in the process that are really critical and they're often oversubscribed as it relates to the overall change. These are two categories of risk that are super important to quantify and to build into the overall plan. 

Julian

And that risk mitigation is so important to get to the outcome of the program. Thinking about that outcome, what advice would you give to executives who are struggling with the tension point between holding very true to the original outcome that a transformation program was set up to achieve versus revolving that outcome as the program moves on?   

Chris

I think what's important is they have to accept that it will change. It's a rare program, especially a multi-year program, that finishes exactly as was expected and planned at the beginning, but that change should be intentional. What you find in a lot of large transformation programs is that there's change drift. So, the objectives change, the outcomes change, but not intentionally and not with transparency.

It's very important to capture and track and monitor change over time and to make sure the decisions are made in order to allow that change. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a way of getting to the right outcome, even though you perhaps end up in a place that's a little bit different than you intended.

Julian

I imagine that's an exciting journey to go through to figure out the outcome that you'll ultimately get to.

Chris

A 100%. The other thing to acknowledge is that markets change, businesses change, the landscape changes. There's lots of external factors that happen over the course of a longer transformation program. And you have to build a plan that's resilient to that and is able to adapt accordingly. 

Julian

We've been speaking to a number of our Australian clients this week around large-scale transformations. How have those gone? Have the conversations been similar to the conversations you're having in the US at the moment? Are there similar challenges being faced here? 

Chris

Perhaps a bit surprisingly, what I found in the conversations we've had across a range of large Australian companies is that they're all facing the same challenges as they're facing in the United States, in Europe, Canada, and South America. The world is definitely dealing with a lot of transformation, a lot of change, and in the technology space, a lot of technical debt that they've got to overcome in order to be prepared for the future. 

Suzy

Thank you so much for joining us today, Chris. 

Chris

Thank you very much for having me.

Leading industry experts Chris DeBrusk, Julian Granger-Bevan, and Suzy Torta delve into managing critical risks in large-scale transformation projects. Learn how executives can navigate organizational change and address similar challenges faced by clients in Australia and the Americas. Gain insights on knowledge risk, execution risk, and the importance of intentional change in achieving successful outcomes.

Suzy Torta

What are the most material risks our clients can encounter?

Chris DeBrusk

Knowledge risk. In other words, I may not actually know what I need to know in order to build a plan that I can trust. 

Julian Granger-Bevan

What advice would you give to executives?

Chris

I think what's important is they have to accept that it will change, but that change should be intentional.

[series intro clip]

Suzy

Today we're joined by Chris DeBrusk, a partner based in our Chicago office. Chris leads our Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Transformation Advisory Practice in the US. He has over 30 years of digital and financial services experience, both in consulting and in-house roles where he managed billion-dollar transformation budgets for two S&P 500 businesses. We're here today in our Sydney office to learn from Chris's experience in leading large scale technology transformation. Thanks for joining us today, Chris.

Chris

Thanks for having me.

Suzy

In your experience, you've led multiple material transformation programs. What are the most material risks our clients can encounter when undertaking this type of work and how do they mitigate those?

Chris

As we consult with clients on these large transformation programs, there's three areas that we encourage them to focus on from the very beginning. The first is to be very, very clear about the outcome that they are attempting to achieve. It's amazing how many large programs start without clarity around the outcome or where they want to go as an organization and what they want to accomplish.

The second is to make sure that accountability is really clear, so that as they assign executives in these roles and these transformation programs, that they're very clear about what they're accountable for and how that accountability is going to be measured and how their efforts will contribute to the overall outcomes that they're attempting to accomplish.  And the third is always to lead with risk; to really think about risk from the beginning, identify the risks that could potentially cause failure and to put in place the mitigation programs and the approaches and processes in order to control for that risk. And to make sure, most importantly, that they have contingency in their overall plan to cover the risks that they may not see at the beginning.

Suzy

Could you talk to us about some of the contingencies that they may need to consider if I'm a CRO or CIO undertaking this type of work?

Chris

There's two categories. There's lots of potential areas of contingency, but the two categories that we encourage people to focus on are knowledge risk. In other words, I may not actually know what I need to know in order to build a plan that I can trust. There's always a lack of knowledge in a large program, there's things you don't know. And then execution risk. Execution risk can manifest in lots of different ways. It could be vendor risk, third party risk, it could be key person risk.

There's people in the process that are really critical and they're often oversubscribed as it relates to the overall change. These are two categories of risk that are super important to quantify and to build into the overall plan. 

Julian

And that risk mitigation is so important to get to the outcome of the program. Thinking about that outcome, what advice would you give to executives who are struggling with the tension point between holding very true to the original outcome that a transformation program was set up to achieve versus revolving that outcome as the program moves on?   

Chris

I think what's important is they have to accept that it will change. It's a rare program, especially a multi-year program, that finishes exactly as was expected and planned at the beginning, but that change should be intentional. What you find in a lot of large transformation programs is that there's change drift. So, the objectives change, the outcomes change, but not intentionally and not with transparency.

It's very important to capture and track and monitor change over time and to make sure the decisions are made in order to allow that change. There's nothing wrong with that. It's a way of getting to the right outcome, even though you perhaps end up in a place that's a little bit different than you intended.

Julian

I imagine that's an exciting journey to go through to figure out the outcome that you'll ultimately get to.

Chris

A 100%. The other thing to acknowledge is that markets change, businesses change, the landscape changes. There's lots of external factors that happen over the course of a longer transformation program. And you have to build a plan that's resilient to that and is able to adapt accordingly. 

Julian

We've been speaking to a number of our Australian clients this week around large-scale transformations. How have those gone? Have the conversations been similar to the conversations you're having in the US at the moment? Are there similar challenges being faced here? 

Chris

Perhaps a bit surprisingly, what I found in the conversations we've had across a range of large Australian companies is that they're all facing the same challenges as they're facing in the United States, in Europe, Canada, and South America. The world is definitely dealing with a lot of transformation, a lot of change, and in the technology space, a lot of technical debt that they've got to overcome in order to be prepared for the future. 

Suzy

Thank you so much for joining us today, Chris. 

Chris

Thank you very much for having me.