The link between Customer, Process and Technology - The Magic Triangle

The magic triangle, what is it I hear you ask? It’s similar to the Bermuda Triangle, a mysterious area where things of significant value can disappear without a trace. In our case, instead of being lost at sea between three geographic locations, our magic triangle is the link between three pillars within our organisations.

The link between Customer, Process and Technology – The Magic Triangle

The magic triangle, what is it I hear you ask? It’s similar to the Bermuda Triangle, a mysterious area where things of significant value can disappear without a trace.

In our case, instead of being lost at sea between three geographic locations, our magic triangle is the link between three pillars within our organisations. It’s the triangle formed by your customer, process and technology functions and believe me when I say this–figuratively speaking–the distance between these points can be far greater for some organisations! And as a result, the things of significant value that go missing is your project funds, your time, your motivation and therefore the success of your project implementation.

So how can you sail your project through this vast body of work without capsizing? Why can’t we seem to bring the pillars of customer, process and technology together in harmony to produce great experiences and an operating model that supports it?

Why is it so?

It’s because we try to simplify it down to just these three pillars; they’re tangible and easy to comprehend. But the magic happens in bringing them together and thinking of them as one. 

But this can be difficult to imagine, let alone do! Organisations have become so large and so complex that we run these functions as separate entities and cause a divide in what, how and why we are delivering what we’re delivering. It creates a disconnect in the end-to-end service that we are delivering for the customer.

How can you overcome this challenge?

You need your enablers. They keep your ship balanced, helping to navigate smoothly through the mysterious waters while keeping your crew happy and engaged throughout your journey. When we get this right we reduce the time we need to invest and we have more motivated teams.

What are these magic enablers and how can you bring them together?

Purpose

We all need to understand where we’re going and why and when you truly understand your purpose, it drives your strategy like nothing else. Once your purpose and strategy are clearly defined, you will link in with people and get behind it. No matter where you are your people will align to the greater outcome. 

I’ve previously worked with a zoo and they had such an amazing improvement program, it didn’t matter who you were or what you did – everyone was focused on making improvements–why?–because they had such a clearly defined purpose and they understood that every dollar that they saved went into helping endangered species. As an animal lover myself, I can understand how that helped get people moving forward as one. In addition to a strong purpose is then measuring how you are tracking towards that strategic objective. It’s important for people to see how their efforts are directly contributing to the overall goals. 

So what is your strategy and how can you give your people a purpose in rallying behind it effectively? 

People

It should go without saying, but you’ll need to have the right people with you on the journey. This doesn’t mean going out and hiring new agile thinkers, you need to develop and nurture the mindsets and capabilities within your team first. Invest in your people and don’t just tell them what is going to happen in the new process, bring them along on the journey with you and get them involved in co-creating the pathway. This generates loyalty to make things work and ensure that the project is a success. How many times have you seen a special innovation project be torn down by the employees of the parent company because they weren’t involved? 

It’s a balance but you need to keep people engaged. 

You also need to co-create but maintain boundaries. Too much freedom to think and your ship will go around in circles. A client in the education sector found their perfect balance and discovered that their people needed a solid starting point and guidelines in which to proceed, without that and they can easily get lost in the process.

Culture

Your culture is the invisible but driving force behind the way you work. It can stop a successful transformation in its tracks. Culture is huge, it’s how individual teams engage with your ways of working. It is unique and nuanced to each team and company but needs to be considered. Before you set sail you need to uncover your blockers, understand how you can overcome them and discover what ways of working are going to lead you to success moving forward. How do you lead large teams that sit across customer, process and technology in a multidisciplinary approach and still have efficiencies of scale? It’s a difficult balance and that’s why it’s such a mystery to successfully cross the magic triangle. 

These enablers are what helps bring together the frameworks of your customer experience, process improvement and technology implementation and deliver an operating model built for success.

So are you ready to cross the magic triangle?

Nina Muhleisen
Founder & Principal Consultant