Where this applies
A joint venture or alliance has to work as one.
The contract sets out how the parties will work together, and neither party works exactly that way today.
How it shows up
- Issues reach governance late, when they are already expensive to resolve.
- Work moves forward while key people on one side are not aware of it.
- Decisions are revisited each time leadership changes on either side.
- The same term means different things to each party.
The context
A joint venture or alliance is generally set up through its agreement, the governance structure, the commercial terms and the division of responsibility between the parties. The agreement describes one integrated operation. Each party brings its own processes, systems, approval paths, terminology and commercial interests, all of them shaped by its own business before the agreement existed.
In practice the integrated operation forms at the interfaces, where people from each party resolve the differences as the work requires. Those arrangements are usually sound and usually unrecorded, and each party's leadership holds a complete view of its own organisation and a partial view of the joint one. As people change on either side over the life of the venture, the arrangements change with them. The cost becomes evident when a commercial or delivery issue reaches governance and the parties find they have been operating to different readings of the same agreement.
When
The arrangements between the parties keep forming for the life of the venture, as people change and the work moves through its phases.
Before
Before the joint venture mobilises, while the agreement is being translated into how the parties will work together day to day.
During
During delivery, when the parties need to realign on what they are there to achieve together and who does what, before an interface issue reaches governance.
After
After completion, where the contract carries a continuous improvement obligation or the parties intend to work together again, a retrospective with people from both sides carries what was learned forward.
What we do
Establish the real starting conditions.
We establish how the joint operation currently works at each interface, with people from both parties, against what the agreement and the governance structure describe.
Define how it needs to work.
We design how the joint operation needs to work with both parties, and pressure-test it against scenarios the venture is likely to face, drawing on the experience of people from each side.
Set the sequence and the measures.
We define the order in which the joint arrangements are put in place, the conditions each phase has to meet, and the shared measures both parties report against.
What you get
How each party works at the interface.
How the joint operation runs today at each interface, set out side by side for both parties, recorded and confirmed by people from each.
Decision rights between the parties.
Who decides what across the joint operation, which party approves, and where an issue escalates when the parties hold different views.
One language and one source of truth.
The terms both parties use with the same meaning, and a single record of decisions, commitments and interfaces that both parties work from.
Shared measures.
Measures both parties report against, including how the interface performs, such as decision turnaround across the boundary and the issues resolved at the interface before they reach governance.
The conditions for each phase.
What each phase has to deliver before the next begins, defined in advance and agreed by both parties.
How the plan stays current.
At each milestone, what has been delivered is checked against the conditions set for it, and the phases that follow are reassessed against where the joint operation now stands, with a defined way for both parties to approve changes to the plan itself.
Where else this applies
Technology and AI
A technology or AI implementation is going in.
The requirements were specified against the documented process, and the conditions the pilot succeeded in are not the ones it has to scale into.
Major project
A major project or program is being mobilised.
The schedule and the delivery plan assume an organisation that behaves the way the org chart describes it.
Transformation
A transformation has been signed off.
The plan was approved against how the business is described, and it now has to succeed under the conditions in which the business currently operates.
To start that conversation, get in touch.
The first step is a conversation about the program, what has been committed, and where the open questions are. It takes about an hour and it produces a view on whether this is the right work to do.
The first stage can also be commissioned on its own. It sets the starting conditions and defines what the rest of the work would involve.
Get in touch