Transformation project debacle due to premature implementation roadmap – Real life example

In this blog, I have tried to analyze the disaster of Aam Admi Party (AAP) in the general elections from the lenses of consulting professionals.

Disclaimer: I am not involved with any political party actively or passively. I don’t have any political views about this country and I don’t support any political ideology. This blog is written for purely entertainment purpose.

When Aam Admi Party (AAP) won the Delhi assembly elections in Dec 2013 (in reality, they did not win but they won the hearts of people), all the a-political people like me got really excited. I could easily relate to the thoughts of the party leaders. Everything they said was coming directly from the heart of an average Indian. It wasn’t just Delhi, all the north India and major part of south India was happy about their success.

But what happened in last six months? Neither they were involved in any scams nor did they try to play sentimental politics. They fought the general elections on their principles. They did not join any other party. Still today the same average Indian doesn’t even bother about them. Nobody is interested in their debates and thoughts anymore. Entire social media is taking pot shots on them. They are not even being considered for a sympathy. For me, the only value I see in them is some daily dose of entertainment.

After doing wonders in Delhi assembly elections, they tried to do some great things in hurry burry and then abruptly stepped down and started preparing for general elections. Unlike Delhi elections where they had a clear agenda, a fresh appeal and right connect with people, in general elections they were completely directionless and unorganized. They fought from more than 450 seats and managed to pull up just around 1 crore votes. Most of their candidates lost miserably in the elections.

If I look at AAP’s journey as an outsider, it looks like a clear case of failed transformation project. Furthermore, the biggest mistake they made from the project management point of view was project execution without a roadmap. Here is my analysis:

AAP had a great idea to reduce defects from the system and improve efficiency. By looking at the magnitude of work and nature of the customer, I can classify this project as a major transformation project. They formed a team of experts. They created a blueprint which looked realistic. They were able to engage with the stakeholders at all levels. They created the need of their blueprint and therefore they were much ahead of their competition. Most of us were really excited to see their blueprint into the reality. They sold the blueprint to the people of this country and Delhi people gave them a chance to do a successful pilot run. Now the tough part starts.

1. They had no project execution roadmap for implementing the blueprint they sold to the customers.
2. After getting on-boarded, they started following their high level strategy to implement the blueprint but forgot to include exceptions and constrains.
3. They had no realistic timelines for executing each of the specified tasks in the blueprint. They did not prioritize the tasks and attempted to do all of them together
4. They failed to build a decision support system which could help them in evaluating every decision they took.
5. They did not realize the need of doing hypothetical testing and risk assessment of their major decisions. They arrived unprepared and started taking decisions abruptly
6. They oversold the blueprint to the people and failed to make it real. Eventually their pilot run failed.
7. They started discovering new constrains during the project execution and accounted them for their inability to deliver
8. After realizing their inability to deliver, they terminated the contract and left the customers in the dark

Finally, they spent a lot of time and money to justify their abrupt decisions and put blames on the competition

This was the end of Phase-1. In phase-2, instead of learning from their mistakes, they decided to go for bigger customers. Customers (people of this country) had seen their unsteadiness very closely and therefore they were not ready to take any chance this time. And the results is quite evident. AAP is out of the market and losing all the good resources every other day. Their brand value is decreasing sharply and they might not be getting another opportunity to revive it (at least in near future).

What they could have done (from the project execution point of view):

1.       First of all, they could have taken time to prepare a detailed roadmap of implementing the blueprint. Roadmap must be realistic considering constrains and exceptions.

2.       They did not have to do this roadmap preparation work before Delhi assembly elections. Rather, they could have easily bought the time to do it after making the government because customer was expecting some high quality work there

3.       Bigger customer base was closely watching them and everybody had the realization that end of the day it’s an initiative and a pilot project and some of the limitations or shortcoming wouldn’t have affected their success metrics

4.       They needed to prioritize their tasks specified in the blueprint and start the implementation. They could have asked for external help from retired bureaucrats and other experts to understand and manage the exceptions, constrains and practical challenges.

5.       They could show the improvement in Key Performance Indicators (derived from their blueprint) in 5-6 months’ timeframe and obviously people would have realized it too.

6.       They needed to focus on making the pilot run as successful as possible. They had an opportunity to change the business strategies of many competitors.

7.       They could clearly invalidate the claims of longtime incumbent vendors who claim to have best blueprint for the country.

8.       They were not supposed to show any eagerness in going for bigger customer base (general elections) without proving the worth of their blueprint

9.       They needed to focus on low hanging fruits (upcoming state elections like Haryana, Maharashtra and others) where they can revalidate the strength of their blueprint.

10.   In this journey, we might see some acceleration in the competition like following AAPs footsteps or upgrading the blue prints to challenge AAP. Nonetheless, AAP would have always remained the first choice because they had a credible success stories.

11.   And finally after doing all this,  they could attract the talent from the competition which would further strengthen their capabilities

Learnings:

1.       The moral of the story is - a great idea can become a nightmare without having a detailed blueprint and proper implementation roadmap

2.       We should never initiate a transformation project without proper roadmap. We must ensure that our commitments are realistic and achievable in the given timeframe

3.       The implementation roadmap must be comprehensive and inclusive of all the external factors. We can’t afford to discover the unknown external factors during the project execution and account our inability to deliver on them

4.       We should never hesitate to take baby steps in transformation projects. We must make the best use of any piloting opportunities.

5.       And finally, we must honor the contract (the mandate)