What an initiative is.
A pillar says what the company wants to achieve. An initiative is a project that gets part of it done. Two of the initiatives under Halden’s pillar Win wholesale are Open trade in Leeds and Manchester, which Maya owns, and Launch a trade portal, which Ravi owns.
Every initiative has the same five parts.
- It belongs to one pillar, or to Not in a pillar if it works towards none of them.
- It has a title that names the project.
- It has one owner.
- It runs from the start of one period to the end of another. A period can be a month, a quarter, a half, or a whole financial year, which runs from April to March.
- It has a “done when” line that says what will be true when it’s finished.
The work itself is done through climbs. Each quarter, the climbs that help finish an initiative are linked to it, and the initiative’s progress is the share of milestones ticked across all of those climbs.
Write a “done when” you could tick off.
The “done when” line says what will be true when the initiative is finished. On the last day, anyone in the company should be able to look at it and agree whether it happened.
A line you can tick off describes an end state and uses a number or something people can see. A line you can’t tick off describes effort (“make good progress”), a feeling (“customers love it”), or the pillar again in other words.
“Customers love the new subscription.”
If the leadership team can’t agree on the line, the project usually isn’t clear enough to start. Keep talking until everyone would give the same answer on the last day.
Give each one a single owner.
The owner is the person who makes sure the initiative is finished. Each quarter they make sure the right climbs are set for it, they say whether it’s on track or off track, and they raise an issue when it’s stuck. Other people do much of the work through climbs of their own.
An initiative has one owner in Headwater. When two people share one, neither of them is clearly responsible for it. If two people lead a project together, choose one to own it, and give the other a climb that links to it.
Choose owners by the time they have as well as by their job. The person who leads a pillar often ends up owning every initiative under it, on top of running a team.
Most companies of Halden’s size can run five or six initiatives at the same time. Each pillar usually needs one to three, and one person shouldn’t own more than two at once.
Below is Halden’s year as it was first written. Group it by owner to see how many each person has at the same time, then drag the bars or change an owner to spread the work out.
Drag a bar, or press ← →. Pick a face to change the owner.
How to spread initiatives across the year.
- Stagger the start dates, so that a new initiative starts when another one finishes.
- Give an initiative to someone with more time, and let the pillar’s leader help through a climb linked to it.
- Shorten an initiative so it ends sooner, and plan a follow-on for later in the year.
- Move an initiative to next year’s plan if it can wait.
Tell initiatives, climbs, and everyday work apart.
An initiative is a project that works towards a pillar and usually takes more than a quarter. A climb is something that has to be finished this quarter, and most climbs are steps in an initiative. Everyday work is what the business does every week to keep running, such as roasting, delivering, and answering customers. It’s never finished, so it has no “done when” and belongs in someone’s role.
Drag it to a column, or tap one.Drag it to a column, or press 1, 2, or 3.
If it can be finished in one quarter, it’s a climb. If it takes longer and changes what the company sells or how it works, it’s an initiative. If it will still need doing next year, it’s everyday work.
Some work belongs to no pillar.
Some projects change how the company runs without working towards any one pillar. Moving every site onto one stock system, changing how the finance team closes the month, and reorganising the teams are all examples. This is operating-model work.
In Headwater these initiatives go in the Not in a pillar group. They have an owner, dates, and a “done when” like any other initiative, and they take up people’s time in the same way. Keep the group small. If most of your initiatives sit outside the pillars, the pillars probably don’t describe what the company is working on.
Look at them again every quarter.
Initiatives are planned for the year and reviewed in every quarterly planning session, before the next quarter’s climbs are set. For each initiative, the leadership team answers four questions.
- Is it on track? The owner says whether it is, and its progress shows the share of milestones ticked across its climbs.
- Does it have climbs next quarter? An initiative with no climbs linked to it makes no progress.
- Are the dates still right? Move the end date if you need to, and write down why.
- Is it done, or should it stop? Mark it done when the “done when” line is true. If it no longer helps its pillar, drop it.
Common mistakes.
- Too many at onceEvery extra initiative takes time from the others. Choose the ones that matter most this year, and keep a list of the rest for next year.
- The pillar’s leader owns everythingThe person who leads a pillar can help with an initiative without owning it. Give some initiatives to people with more time.
- A “done when” nobody can checkWords like improve, grow, and better can’t be ticked off. Say what will be true on the last day, with a number or something people can see.
- Climbs written up as initiativesIf it can be finished in one quarter, it’s a climb. Listing it as an initiative makes the plan longer and harder to read.
- Everyday work written up as a projectRunning the cafés well is part of Dan’s job every week. It needs no initiative, because it’s never finished.
- Everything starts in AprilWhen every initiative starts on the first day of the year, the first quarters are full and the last ones are empty. Stagger the start dates.
- A quarter with no climbsAn initiative’s progress only changes when milestones on its climbs are ticked. Check that every initiative has climbs in each quarter it runs.