THE HELIX FACTOR II

The key to streamlining your business processes

The Implementers Edition

By
Michael R. Wood

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Copyright 1999 by Michael R. Wood.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright
Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in
any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 0-9659809-2-8
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: applied for
Printed in the United States of America.
First published in the United States in 1999 by:
The Natural Intelligence Press
Electronic version published in 2009.
For more information about Michael R. Wood, this book, or other
publications email mike_wood@msn.com.

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Introduction

From Theory to Execution

Welcome to The HELIX Factor II - The Implementers Guide and Case

Study Workbook. This is the second book in the HELIX Factor series and
presents detailed instructions and examples on how to plan for, organize,
conduct and present the findings of a HELIX (process improvement /
reengineering) project. To enhance the ease of learning, the reader is
presented with a how-to approach in a case study format.
In the first book of The HELIX Factor series, the 17 key factors that
underscore the principles and philosophies of HELIX were presented. The
importance of aligning an organizations strategic direction to its objectives
and to its Value-added Delivery Systems (VADS) were discussed.
If it has been a while since you read The HELIX Factor - the key to
streamlining your business processes, you might find it helpful to review
the essential principles and alignment concepts provided in the appendix
before you begin this book. Thus, there will be no confusion over the
terminology and general concepts presented in this Implementers guide.
As you venture into your first HELIX project, keep this guidebook with you.
For the best results, follow every step and procedure. Resist the urge to take
what appear to be shortcuts. Remember, it is not how fast but how well you
finish that counts.
This guidebook provides all the tools and techniques needed to organize and
conduct a HELIX project. The methods presented have been tested and fine
tuned for over a decade. You can expect your efforts to produce results that
are nothing short of impressive. Remember, achieving returns of 500 to 1,000
percent on HELIX projects is very common.
The guidebook is organized in the sequence of a project. It walks you through
each step needed to produce successful results.
First, you will learn how to identify winning projects. Next, you will learn
how to kick off projects to achieve energy, momentum and executive support.
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From there, a realistic case study will be explored in detail to show you how
to perform the work needed to complete a project successfully. Finally, how
to package, present and implement project recommendations will be reviewed.
In short, this book contains everything you need to identify, conduct and
implement high-payback, process improvement / reengineering projects.

Identifying Winning Projects

Assessing Support, Payback and Succe ss

There seems to be an unlimited number of projects an organization can

pursue. A persons success or failure in an organization is often based on the
outcome of projects on which he or she has worked. Ideally, people want to
get involved only with projects that are guaranteed to be successful.
Unfortunately, there are no guarantees. So how are winning projects
recognized? Do projects have inherent attributes that make some more likely
to succeed than others? What about payback? What is it? Does payback
mean a high return on investment, or is it driven by perception?

How Money is Spent

First, I want to explain how organizations spend money. The monies an
organization spends can be grouped into three categories. I call the first
category positioning dollars. Positioning dollars are those monies spent
with a specific objective or return on investment (ROI) in mind. Typically,
positioning dollars are future-oriented and highly visible. Capital
expenditures, research and development and various projects are budgeted in
terms of positioning dollars. Because of their high visibility, getting
positioning dollars usually requires a proof of concept, cost justification
studies, persuasion and political skill.
I call the second category inertia dollars. Inertia dollars are found on
income statements. They represent cost of sales, salaries and operating
expenses. Justification for these dollars is typically based on what was spent
the previous year. They are spread over multiple divisions and departments
among hundreds of accounts. The costs related to projects financed through
inertia dollars are difficult to track. Many unofficial (underground) initiatives
are paid for with inertia dollars.
The third category involves bias, preference and emotion. This type of
spending always takes the form of positioning or inertia dollars; however, the
justification process is an afterthought used to rationalize and justify the
spending. Although there are no studies to reference, I believe that about 50
percent of positioning dollar spending is really biased, preference and
emotional spending in disguise.
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Process improvement, reengineering and organizational alignment projects

typically require positioning dollars. These types of projects can be justified
in two ways. The first way is to promise to reduce future costs. The concept
is that by spending positioning dollars now, the organization can save inertia
dollars in the future.
To determine the amount of savings or ROI requires an understanding of how
many inertia dollars are currently being spent compared to how many will be
spent after the project is completed. The difference is the return and should
exceed the cost of the project. This means that a project costing $250,000 in
positioning dollars would need to save $250,000 in inertia dollars to break
even. If it were to provide an annual return on investment of 15 percent over
the next three years, it would have to generate $362,500 in inertia dollar
savings ($250,000 [original investment] + $37,500 x 3 [15 percent return for 3
years]).
However, it gets more complicated than that. The monies being saved are
future dollars. Any good CFO will want to justify the project based on a
minimum ROI that takes into account the net present value of future cash
flows. Typically, in the absence of an ROI justification, the project will be
viewed as a cost without an underlying benefit and therefore will go nowhere.
Even harder to justify are projects that promise to increase revenues. These
types of projects require great salesmanship because the paybacks are focused
on forecasting the performance of customers, markets or investments, each
harder to control than costs.

The Resistance Factor

Because most projects threaten someones territory, they are met with varying
levels of resistance. This resistance is manifested in a number of ways. The
first way is resistance to the project being approved. This opposition may be
motivated by political or budgetary considerations. Whatever the reason, the
risk faced at this point is not getting the project approved.
Once the project is approved, resistance may then manifest itself as a lack of
cooperation and participation. This can be subtle or overt. Getting projects
approved without the right level of support is tantamount to committing
project suicide, since it is unlikely that the project will ever be completed on
time or within budget, if at all. In general, it is better to propose a project and
have it never be approved than it is to get a project approved and then fail in
its implementation.
Few organizations forgive someone who squanders millions of positioning
dollars. However, most organizations seem to unknowingly reward those who
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squander millions of inertia dollars due to inefficient operations and work

processes. Remember, inertia dollars are buried and spread out among many
entities and accounts while positioning dollars are highly visible, both
financially and politically.
In assessing potentially winning projects, two levels of risk need to be
considered. First, is the risk of promoting the project and not getting it
approved? Second, is the risk of getting approval and failing to achieve the
promised objective or payback?

Success Criteria
When assessing a projects probability for approval, consider the following:
Is there a good business case?
Be sure that the project has the potential for a higher-than-average ROI
and can be achieved within a reasonable period. Ideally, the ROI
should be a percentage greater than inflation or other competing
projects, and should be achievable within a reasonable period. For
example, most highly successful technology projects are completed in
18 to 30 months. A longer time frame increases the possibility of
technology changing or perhaps having to confront a different set of
needs.
Has low-hanging fruit been identified?
A project that starts providing paybacks right away is said to have lowhanging fruit. These immediate paybacks often help fund the project
and build the teams credibility to deliver. Always look for lowhanging fruit. Do not forget about low-hanging fruit that might be
preference or bias motivated. Remember people tend to buy on
emotion not logic.
Is there grassroots support?
Assess whether the people in the rank-and-file buy into the project.
Getting their support will often influence their superior to support the
project. Bottom-up supported projects typically have a greater chance
of succeeding than top-down driven projects. On the other hand, topdown driven projects have a better chance of being approved. Having
both types of project support is ideal.
Is there an executive sponsor?

Start with the CEO and work down. Having the right sponsor may be
all that is needed. After all, in the final analysis, it is often not what the
project can achieve but who wants it that counts.
Is there a sense of urgency?
Many organizations urgently react to fixing something in order to avoid
experiencing painful situations. The greater the pain, the greater the
urgency to relieve the pain. This will increase the chance for project
approvals. Remember, it is managements perception of pain that is
important. Sometimes management responds to perceived pain where
none really exists. Pain must be perceived and truly exist if a project is
going to be successful.
It is very difficult to convince someone to change if there is no pain.
That is one reason why people pursue habits like smoking, drinking or
taking drugs. The pain is future-based while pleasure is based on the
present. Companies are no different. They tend to do what feels good
at the moment, even though it will damage their future success.
Likewise, it is difficult to deliver true improvements where there is no
need. Pain that is merely perceived, but in fact is not present, usually
cures itself once the perception is corrected. Thus, unnecessary projects
rarely see completion.
Once the project has been approved, it needs to be assessed as to its
probability for successful completion. Here, the five preceding questions can
be used again. However, the greatest factor for potential success lies in the
answer to this question: Is the organization and the key people involved
committed to the project?
Commitment to a project often increases directly in proportion to a persons
personal stake in its success. The worst form of commitment is verbal.
Assess what each person has to lose or gain by the projects success. No
matter what the sponsorship and funding, lack of commitment will doom even
the best-intentioned or highest ROI projects.
There are no magic formulas for achieving the support, time and funding
needed to create a successful project. There are some criteria for assessing
which projects are most deserving, so beware of projects that have too many
negative answers to the previous questions.
To maximize the potential for success, consider breaking a project into small
pieces to deliver value on the completion of each piece. HELIX projects can
have either a scope that addresses an entire organization or one that is tailored
to address a single Value-added Delivery System (VADS).
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Start with a single VADS as the scope. Often, these projects can be
completed quickly with big paybacks. A single VADS project can take from a
few weeks to about three months. Market the project as a proof of concept
study focused on introducing HELIX to the organization. Select a VADS that
top management and the workgroups involved view as currently inefficient
and expensive. The projects goal should be to build consensus and to
identify opportunities for practical and cost-effective improvements.
Approaching the project in this way will minimize the political risk. It will be
funded with inertia dollars and maintain a low-profile posture. My experience
is that the implementation of the projects recommendations will be
significant and impressive (over 100 percent ROI) making future projects
easier to initiate and complete. The level of grass roots acceptance of the
process will increase, as will your creditability.