One of the key focuses of all our engagements is creating sustainability of implemented changes and achieved operational improvements.  In a typical engagement, the last third of the engagement’s overall schedule is dedicated to designing and installing tools and behavioral expectations to facilitate sustainable results within the client organization, even after the engagement has concluded.

We need to clearly understand what “sustainable results” mean, and the pitfalls on the road to achieving sustainable engagement results.  Particularly, we must distinguish between “sustainable actions” and “sustainable behavior”.  It is relatively easy to achieve sustainable actions, i.e. regular usage by the client personnel of various tools, reports, meetings, and dashboards that have been developed in the course of the engagement.  This will definitely provide better visibility into operational results, or areas that require attention by management, etc.  However, sustainable actions alone will not reap full benefits of all the changes that were implemented in the engagement if corresponding changes in behavior are not motivated and nurtured.  Sustainable behavior, on the other hand, penetrates the client organization with a continuous improvement mindset and motivates proactive search for further improvements in the organization.

Therefore, we must start thinking “sustainable behavior” from the first week of the engagement in order to ensure that the engagement results are not lost in time, and that the client receives maximum return on investment from the engagement.

In the end, this is what the client expects from us, isn’t it?

By: Anas Dabbakh