Planning Excellence Programme
A major utility needed to introduce a strong link between its annual corporate budgeting round and operational quality improvement activities undertaken in its local offices. The existing annual planning system was entirely financial and top-down gaining little ownership from the local operational staff.
The aim was to create a robust bottom-up system that would link practical action on the ground to the national level targetry and in doing so improve the strategic alignment of local and national thinking.
Over the course of nine months the new system was designed and introduced with training delivered to enable local level teams to produce their contributions to the national picture. Not only did the annual planning round, thereafter, have a firm base in reality but the process of creating local plans liberated innovative ideas at local level and vastly improved coordination between functions at both local and national levels.