People Strategy case study

No Mandate, No Money: The Rule That Ended Strategy Inertia

17project mandates
5framing notes
29new posts to describe
1programme axis with its own budget

The situation

The question behind the question.

The board said yes in December. In January, the institution held an approved six-year people strategy, a first-year budget and dozens of initiatives due to start in 2023. What it did not yet have was a programme to run them: no programme manager, no template for a mandate, no description for any of the new posts, and a leadership team that also had a department to run. The risk was not a false start. It was no start at all: reaching April with the strategy approved and nothing under way.

As it was asked

“Help us launch the strategy and set up its programme.”

As we reframed it

What must an initiative show before it can spend? We set that bar once, for every initiative, and let each one clear it in its own time.

How we worked

How the work unfolded.

01

Structure the programme

Delivery got its own axis. Programme and change management sat in the strategy as axis 0, with its own budget line and posts, next to the 3 content axes. With the HR leadership we set the governance: a programme manager and a management controller to recruit, a steering committee, and a strategic follow-up session. There, the leadership worked from one portfolio view of every initiative’s status, trend, dependencies and risks, tracked the benefits each was due to deliver, and took the decisions on posts and budget.

02

Write the mandates

No mandate, no kick-off: without one, an initiative could neither open a post nor engage a consultant. The mandate set out its phases, activities, milestones, interdependencies and risks, and the benefits and indicators from the business case it would move. It was written by the content expert who would lead it. We set the template, worked each draft through iterations with its lead and ran the final quality check. Where an initiative was not ready, a shorter framing note held its place: 17 mandates and 5 framing notes in all, each tracked session by session to approval.

03

Describe the posts

The strategy called for 29 new posts in its first year, and none could be advertised without a job description. We used the moment to change the rule: every new post got a standardised specification and a systematic job sheet, reviewed by an evaluation commission. Each function got its own selection route, from pre-selection and interview to case study or assessment, and a final panel that always included an expert of the domain. Recruitment was sequenced post by post, each with a target start date.

04

Arbitrate once

Then the requests met the plan. Process owners asked for about a tenth more posts than the strategy had costed. In one session, the HR leadership went through them axis by axis and settled below the plan, each post marked permanent or time-limited and its funding source named. The programme started from a budget everyone had argued over once, rather than every month.

The instrument

A licence to start, in 3 documents

The mandate. Phases, activities, milestones, interdependencies and risks for each initiative, and the benefits and indicators it answers for, written by the person who will lead it and checked against one template.

The posts. A standardised specification and job sheet for every new post, reviewed by an evaluation commission before anything is advertised.

The resources and the impact. A resource plan and a change-impact plan per project, so the programme could see who would be busy, and who would be affected, before the work began.

Until the mandate was validated, the initiative could not start, fill a post or buy outside help.

What moved

What changed, and what didn't.

12weeks from an approved strategy to a programme that could start spending
Evidence Decision taken Adopted in practice Measured impact
What moved

In 12 weeks, the strategy got the machinery to spend its first year: a programme axis with its own budget, a mandate template and a standard for every new post. The rule outlived us: every 2023 post was filled, and every initiative due in 2024 started from a validated mandate, with a procurement plan and terms of reference wherever outside consultants were needed.

What didn't move

The programme outran its manager. When we left in April, the post was still being filled, and the head of HR steered the programme ad interim, on top of running the department, until the programme manager arrived in August, when we came back to hand over the portfolio view.

What we'd say to a peer

A board approval is permission to spend, not a plan to spend. Before any money goes out, ask every initiative for the same licence to start: a written mandate tied to the benefits it owes, described posts and a resource plan. It costs a few weeks at the beginning. It is also what turns an approved document into work that is already under way when the first quarter ends.

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Method note:

Own approach in 4 steps; mandate, job-specification and resource-plan templates; portfolio dashboard; HR leadership follow-up sessions.

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