Reconfiguring internal teams

Sector

Accountancy Firm

Business Size

300 people

The Client

Our client is a multi-office firm with five major offices and around four hundred staff.

The Engagement

The firm has divided its internal IT function into two teams; one is focused on infrastructure and service delivery, and the other on innovation and progress.

The firm wanted a leadership function outside of either division that could work with the Executive Board to manage these two functions and maintain alignment with the commercial goals.

Our Approach

We put in place a structure to recognise the skills of each team correctly and respectfully. This ensured that each could fulfil its remit effectively, to agreed timescales and budget and within reasonable resource constraints.

We introduced processes and governance for the take-on of new projects to provide a formal, level playing field for assessment of budget and resource requirements. As well as achieving this primary goal, this approach also harmonised the operation of the two divisions and engendered a good understanding between them of projects in progress or coming up.

We work with the heads of each team in monthly one-to-one sessions, exploring and resolving issues and helping prioritise work respecting key practice goals. We help to resolve unavoidable resource challenges and interdependencies, and we speak with staff within those teams to assist in personal development as well.

We facilitate regular executive meetings, attended by team leads, the managing partner and the IT partner; in these meetings we review progress and priorities, and put together managing partner communiques to the wider firm to ensure we are delivering IT messages in a consistent manner.

The Result

The firm has a clear IT strategy against which new projects are measured and either rejected, postponed or accepted.

They also now have an operational delivery team that maintains existing and new IT systems in an entirely aligned manner, with pride and confidence in their role.