Cascading reports

We worked with a matrix organisation whose structure comprised Group, Division, subsidiary and operating unit levels, all overlaid with a functional hierarchy.

Having put in place monthly Divisional reporting, we were asked by its executive team to cascade coherent monthly and weekly reporting through the three levels.

This provided consistent information and a common focus across the organisation – from executive meeting to staff notice board – and allowed the executive team to devolve responsibility with confidence.

The problem

The Division suffered from not being ‘joined up’: executives did not have a regular mechanism for communicating priorities to their managers. Or for understanding achievement against these. Equally, managers communicated in a piecemeal way both to the executives and to their teams.

Several previous attempts, primarily functional initiatives, had foundered – messages were inconsistent, data flow was slow and intermittent and production was primarily manual. When reports eventually appeared they were out of date and disconnected from what was ‘really going on’.

What we did

From the executive team’s priorities and measures of success, we derived a consistent set of performance drivers for subsidiaries and operating units. We ensured the focus was on the future, anticipating issues and identifying opportunities.

We then designed a process where subsidiary reports were produced immediately monthly data was available, discussed by their management teams and the results fed into the Divisional executive meeting; this, in turn, was sufficiently in advance of the Group executive meeting for further information to be gathered, decisions agreed and action initiated.

To avoid an information gap between monthly meetings, ‘lite’ versions of the monthly reports were produced weekly.  Executives and management could then monitor trends and see the effects of the actions they were taking.

What happened

For the first time, all levels have a common understanding of their objectives, and time to decide how best to achieve them. Behaviour has changed. The whole Division is now on the front foot, quickly taking measured steps to avoid problems and able to take advantage of opportunities as they emerge.

With greater communication across the organisation has come greater trust: managers can draw back from the detail and focus on the few really challenging business issues.