INTERACTIVE PLANNING IN ACTION

The account that follows picks some highlights from an interactive planning project conducted in the DuPont Specialty Chemicals Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) Function. Further details can be found in Leeman (2002), who was central throughout. Acko¡ was involved at various points as an advisor and has endorsed the project as a good example by including a version in Re-creating the Corporation (1999b). My account is drawn from these two sources. During the period that the work was ongoing (1995^

1998) DuPont was undergoing major corporate-wide transformation and downsizing. The circumstances were not necessarily favourable, therefore, for a successful application of interactive planning.

Throughout its long history, in the chemical production industry, DuPont has prided itself on the attention it pays to the health and safety of its employees. More recently, it has evinced similar concern about its impact on the environment. The year 1994 saw a further step forward in all these areas when its SHE policy was revised and released as ‘The DuPont Commitment ^ Safety, Health and the Environment’. From this commit-ment, the corporation derived a new slogan, ‘The Goal is ZERO’. Its business units were to aim for zero injuries and illnesses, zero wastes and

emissions, and zero environmental, process and transportation accidents and incidents. In the Specialty Chemicals business unit it was recognized that this meant the SHE function would need to go about its work in a radically di¡erent fashion.

Leeman realized that bringing about such a transformation would require a methodology that allowed purposes to be rethought and new goals sys-temically pursued, and that encouraged widespread participation. Following a chance meeting with Acko¡ and an analysis using the System Of Systems Methodologies (SOSM) (see Chapter 2), it became apparent that interactive planning would be suitable.

Mess formulation was curtailed as Acko¡ pointed out that DuPont was already a leader in needed, occupational health and environmental protec-tion, and the real e¡ort, therefore, should go into improving its leadership position by gaining competitive advantage by further developing the excellence of its SHE function. Nevertheless, a brief systems analysis was conducted to ensure that SHE professionals were fully acquainted with Specialty Chemicals’ businesses. And a brief obstruction analysis helped to reveal certain weaknesses in the way SHE performed its current role. It was structured in a centralized^hierarchical manner with a regulative rather than facilitative orientation. As a result its expertise was not integrated into business decision-making. SHE professionals were caught in a situation of having to perform a multitude of mundane tasks and operating in a reactive mode to crises. Knowledge management was poor.

Ends planning, featuring idealized design, was divided into two parts. First, a group of consumers of SHE information and knowledge was invited to specify the properties of an ideal SHE system. Second, a designer group was asked to redesign the SHE system according to those speci¢cations.

The consumer group consisted of individuals from Specialty Chemicals chosen on the basis of six criteria:

. they use SHE information;

. they are responsible for its implementation;

. they are capable of specifying what they need from a SHE system;

. they represented diversity in thought and in gender and race;

. they are capable of thinking ‘out of the box’;

. they understand the need for SHE and its role in the business.

A number of SHE professionals were irritated by the role given to the consumer group, believing that only they had the expertise to contribute sensibly to the redesign of SHE.

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A ¢rst session concentrated on identifying positive and negative outputs from the current SHE system. Some of Senge’s ideas (see Chapter 5) helped the group to recognize the main structural problem as being the failure of the SHE function to connect to the business needs of the Strategic Business Units (SBUs). The next step was to specify the properties for an ideal SHE system based on the presumption that the existing system had been destroyed the night before and the new system could be designed unhindered by traditional constraints. The consumer group identi¢ed 58 speci¢cations for the ideal system; later narrowed to 19 and categorized in 9 major arenas.

The designer group was then put together, consisting of an even number of SHE professionals and other managers from within Specialty Chemicals with detailed knowledge of SHE. The group was tasked with designing an ideal SHE system, to replace the one destroyed the previous night, using all the speci¢cations from the consumer group and being sure to dissolve all the negative outputs that had been identi¢ed.

The process began with the identi¢cation of nine stakeholders crucial to SHE’s success: customers; employees; representatives from plant sites; busi-ness functions; government agencies; SBUs; local communities; the DuPont Company; and the corporate SHE function. The expectations of each of these groups with regard to the SHE system were considered. John Pourdehnad, from ACASA, then suggested following a version of idealized design that required three iterations of four major steps:

. creating a mission statement;

. identifying the functions of the SHE system;

. formulating the processes for doing the SHE work;

. organizing the SHE structure to do the SHE work.

The ¢nal version of the mission statement read as follows:

A seamless SHE system that integrates, enables, and installs the core DuPont SHE competency to successfully make chemicals, win in business, and sustain our communities.

Paying attention to stakeholder expectations, the designer group then

identi-¢ed the key functions that the redesigned SHE system needed to o¡er. The eventual list was:

. performance auditing and analysis;

. related project front-end loading guidance;

. training and education;

. personnel development;

. knowledge and learning;

. risk assessment and recommendations;

. federal, state and local regulatory advocacy;

. community interactions;

. methodology and technology development;

. management and decision-making (planning);

. core competency management;

. information management.

For each function the group then designed the necessary work processes for getting the work done. Finally, an organizational structure was proposed for SHE that provided for appropriate relationships between units and

£ows of responsibility, authority, communications and resources, in order to deliver the functions to the businesses. At the end of the three iterations the designer group was convinced that their idealized design would meet stakeholder expectations, match consumer speci¢cations and dissolve all the output issues. The SHE ideal system is shown compared with the SHE current state, in terms of mission, function, process and structure, in Table 9.1.

The next phase of interactive planning, means planning, involves deter-mining how the gaps between the idealized design and the current state are going to be ¢lled. The team chosen for this task consisted of SHE pro-fessionals from within Specialty Chemicals, most of whom had also been in the designer group. The critical gaps identi¢ed were as follows:

. current SHE system does not adjust to changing needs;

. SHE professionals do not have time to deliver the ‘high value’

functions ^ prevention versus intervention;

. we currently do not deliver many of the ideal state primary functions;

. we do not know where the ‘required inputs’ reside;

. SHE is focused on operations, not on increasing the business com-petitive advantage.

For each of these, ways of closing the gap were proposed. For example, ‘SHE is focused on operations. . .’ could be addressed by:

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. clearly de¢ned connections between SHE and business leaders;

. clearly de¢ned and supported SHE functions for business teams and customers;

. make SHE part of the SBU sta¡ to increase status.

Leeman emphasizes the e¡orts needed during this phase to keep the team focused, integrated and committed, and to ensure continued high-level management support.

The resource plan, aimed at identifying and providing the resources neces-sary to bridge the gaps and realize the idealized design, was then put in place. This consisted of personnel planning, ¢nancial planning, facilities and equipment planning, and materials, suppliers and services planning. In personnel planning, for example, the need to hire a full-time project manager and new facilitator, and to set up eight SHE knowledge networks, a core team and a steering team were identi¢ed.

Implementation concerns who is going to do what, when, where and how.

It was achieved successfully by paying particular attention to ‘the human factor’, ‘the organizational factor’ and ‘the commitment factor’, and by ensuring that controls over implementation were designed that allowed tracking of progress.

At the end of the interactive planning project in DuPont, it was possible to identify the following clear bene¢ts:

. a step-change improvement in SHE performance, shown by the most signi¢cant improvement in operational SHE performance metrics in its history;

. SHE work was aligned with business goals and objectives to such an extent that relationships between SHE professionals and people in the business were transformed into a partnership;

. SHE began to be perceived as a value-adding pro¢t centre rather than a

‘cost-of-doing-business’ unit, and its services became highly valued by the wider organization and recognized as a powerful di¡erentiator by external customers;

. organizational learning £ourished among SHE professionals who were enabled to do more higher value-adding work, while their knowledge was made available to all to aid decision-making and routine SHE tasks were carried out by line employees;

. a wider range of creative and less expensive solutions to SHE issues and problems were explored and implemented.

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Table 9.1 Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) fundamental changes.

SHE current state SHE ideal state

Mission Mission

1. Compliance-driven 1. Stakeholder-driven 2. Reactive/Intervention 2. Proactive/Prevention

3. Not aligned with business 3. Fully integrated within the business 4. Cost of doing business 4. Revenue enhancer/Value adder

Function Function

1. SHE is operations support 1. SHE is business, operations and customer support

2. Regulation tracking and interpretation 2. Regulation knowledge:

f shaping regulations

f quick access to regulation interpretations

f shaping business plans

3. SHE training 3. SHE education

4. Data/Information generation 4. Knowledge/Understanding generation

Process Process

1. Policing through auditing 1. Risk assessment and loss prevention 2. Government report preparation 2. Automated/Electronic reporting 3. Manual data collection/documentation 3. Automated data collection/

documentation

4. Classroom training 4. Online learn^teach^learn SHE system

Structure Structure

1. SHE is ‘centralized’ 1. SHE is leveraged and distributed 2. ‘Stovepiped’ 2. SHE is on cross-functional business

teams

3. Hierarchical 3. ‘Lowerarchical’

4. SHE personnel con¢ned to plant 4. SHE personnel on transunit teams 5. Line accountable for safety 5. Business and line accountable for

SHE

6. SHE reports to operations 6. SHE reports to vice-president/

general manager

Leeman is convinced that the project’s success was due to the principles of participation, continuity and holism embraced and operationalized through interactive planning. The idealized design process was essential for unleash-ing creativity, and participation ensured that energy and commitment levels were maintained during the hard work of implementation.