Why operating model projects stall in month three

The first two months of an operating model project feel productive. Teams are interviewed, the new structure is drawn and the leadership team signs it off. Then, around week ten, progress slows to a stop. We see the same three causes again and again.

Nobody owns the move

The design has an owner. The move from the old way of working to the new one usually doesn’t. Every change becomes someone’s second job, so it waits behind the work that pays this month. Name one person who owns the transition, give them time in their calendar and have them report to the leadership team every two weeks.

This person doesn’t need to be the most senior in the room. They need to be trusted by the teams, close to the daily work and free to spend at least two days a week on the move.

Decisions were drawn, not agreed

An org chart shows who reports to whom. It doesn’t say who decides on price, hiring or a new product. When those questions come up in month three, people fall back on the old routes because nobody wrote down the new ones.

• List the twenty decisions that matter most in the business.

• For each one, write who decides, who must be asked and who is told.

• Test the list on three real decisions before you share it.

The old meetings never stopped

New teams get new meetings, and the old ones carry on beside them. By month three managers spend their week in both. Cancel the old meetings on the day the new structure starts, and review the calendar again after six weeks.

Ask each manager to send you their calendar for one normal week. If more than a third of it is meetings that existed before the change, the old structure is still running the company.

If you’re already stuck

Pick the one part of the design that matters most to customers and finish it first. One team working the new way does more for the project than ten teams halfway there.

Then use that team as the example. Let other managers sit in on its meetings, share what changed in its numbers and ask its people what they would do differently. A working example settles more arguments than another round of slides.