The Transformational Flow

A CEO issues a brief mandate to digitise customer services without further detail. A team is now translating this into initial scope, outline benefits, and a recommendation on whether to proceed to detailed design. Which transformational flow process is being carried out?

• AIdentify the programme - translating a mandate into a programme brief and confirming sufficient justification to proceed✓
• BDeliver the capabilities - coordinating the projects that build the outputs the programme has already approved and funded
• CClose the programme - confirming the outcomes have been achieved and formally disbanding the programme organisation and its board
• DDesign the outcomes

Answer: 'Identify the programme' translates an initial mandate into a programme brief and confirms there is enough justification to invest in detailed design, exactly the activity described.

A programme brief has been approved and initial justification confirmed, but a board member insists the SRO should already have produced the full target operating model before the brief was even signed off. Why is this request inconsistent with the transformational flow's sequencing?

• AThe board member is right; the target operating model must precede the programme brief
• BThe target operating model is a product of design the outcomes, which follows identify the programme once sufficient justification exists to invest in detailed design✓
• CThe target operating model is never produced in MSP
• DIdentify the programme and design the outcomes happen in parallel with no defined order

Answer: The transformational flow sequences 'identify the programme' (establishing the mandate and initial justification) before 'design the outcomes' (which produces the detailed target operating model); demanding the full model before the brief is approved reverses this sequence.

A programme mandate arrives from the board with only a one-page description of the desired change and no detail on scope, benefits or governance. What is the immediate next step according to the transformational flow?

• AClose the programme, since the mandate is insufficiently detailed
• BEmbed the outcomes based on the mandate's high-level description
• CIdentify the programme - develop the mandate into a programme brief with enough detail to confirm justification for further investment✓
• DDeliver the capabilities immediately using the mandate as the specification

Answer: A brief, high-level mandate is the normal starting point for 'identify the programme', which develops it into a programme brief providing enough definition and justification to proceed.