The promise of Continuous Strategy in Major Programmes: Navigating the present and anticipating the future

In a world characterised by turbulent geo-politics, challenging socio-economic conditions and rapid technological advancements, the traditional approach to programme delivery is no longer suitable. Deloitte’s Major Programmes team has developed a next generation approach to large-scale delivery – Programme Aerodynamics®. In this article, we will delve into a core component of this approach - Continuous Strategy - and explore why a more flexible, resilient and proactive approach to programme management is crucial for delivering vital transformations across all sectors.

Our mission for major programmes
 

Major programmes are those that leave a lasting impact. They address some of the modern world’s most challenging economic, environmental, and societal issues - be it reimagining how we administer healthcare in response to a global pandemic, delivering critical new infrastructure to build cities and transport links for the future, or supporting industry to deliver goods and services in a more sustainable way.

At Deloitte we have redefined our approach to delivering major programmes, looking not just at the digital tools we leverage and the organisational capabilities we develop, but taking it right back to square one: our approach to problem solving. We’ve reconsidered what strategy and risk management mean to us and embraced flexibility and resilience as the cornerstones of today’s delivery landscape.
 

What is the current landscape?
 

Delivering a project is not a straightforward endeavour, whether it’s a simple home renovation or a multi-billion-pound government transformation programme. Putting aside the day-to-day challenges around budgets, timelines and resources, things become yet more complex when we consider the broader environment within which a project or programme is operating. We’ve seen the impact the external environment can have on major programme delivery time and time again. For example, how changes to the geopolitical landscape have impacted supply chains and the availability of labour and materials, or how the effects of climate change have shifted government priorities and led to the widespread adoption of Net Zero strategies, or how emerging technologies like Gen AI have changed the way organisations do business. Regardless of the size and scope of a programme or the sector in which it is operating, the external environment can often have a significant – and unforeseen – impact.
 

Understanding the external environment
 

Major programmes are, by their nature, often delivered in challenging circumstances, with significant financial, temporal and societal implications. We characterise these as high VUCA environments. VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity and provides a framework that helps organisations and leaders better understand the challenges they might face when delivering major programmes. By analysing their programme’s VUCA environment, leaders can better understand their risk profile and begin to think about mitigation whilst developing a strategy that is resilient, flexible and forward-looking. 

Why do we need a new approach?
 

Through Programme Aerodynamics®, we encourage programme teams to focus on delivering better outcomes, not just better plans. They can achieve this by rethinking the way they approach planning and decision-making - embedding strategic and forward-looking processes early on. A willingness to approach things differently and consider new ways to problem solve sits at the heart of Programme Aerodynamics® and Continuous Strategy. And this way of thinking is catching on. In ‘How Big Things Get Done’, Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner look at major programmes and some of the reasons why they fail. Drawing on extensive research, they have also concluded that successful mega-projects require a combination of strategic vision and a willingness to embrace uncertainty. They cite the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao as a successful example of a mega project that adopted this approach. The success of the Guggenheim project was largely due to the leadership team’s clear vision of their objectives, their ability to calculate risks in advance and their in-depth understanding of the issues they might encounter. While this may not sound particularly groundbreaking, too often major programmes fail to implement a robust and strategic approach to planning.

The traditional approach to programme management calls for a detailed plan which identifies deadlines for a vast number of tasks, sets major milestones and forecasts the finances, resources and safety nets required across multiple years of delivery.  Programme managers will then work as hard as possible to stick to their forecasts, even if those forecasts turn out to be wrong. This approach also incorporates ‘risk management’, which frequently takes the form of a monthly meeting where potential risks are identified and discussed - but seldom acted upon. This process is usually repeated each month until risks inevitably transition into very real issues with a direct impact on the programme’s outcomes. This outdated approach reinforces our view that often “programmes don’t go wrong, they start wrong”. (Flyvbjerg, Bent and Gardner, Dan. How Big Things Get Done, 2023).
 

What makes a strategy continuous? 
 

As a firm that is regularly called upon to deliver demanding programmes in high VUCA environments, we decided that we needed to revisit our strategic approach to major programme delivery. We wanted to be able to anticipate future requirements and be able to adapt accordingly. In essence, our approach needed to become more dynamic and proactive. We therefore developed what we call Continuous Strategy - a strategic hub at the heart of the delivery eco-system. We think of Continuous Strategy as a guiding mind for programmes – one that proactively scans the horizon, develops choices, assesses options, and evaluates outcomes throughout the lifecycle of a programme. 

A central element of the Continuous Strategy approach is the ability to anticipate what might happen in the future. This is broken down into two core features: Horizon Scanning and Scenario Planning.

Horizon Scanning is a tool that should ideally be introduced at the outset of a programme and utilised throughout. However, it can also be used to help struggling in-flight programmes pivot to more effective delivery practices. When the Crossrail programme began in 2010 to build London Underground’s new Elizabeth Line, it was Europe’s largest civil engineering construction project with a total budget of £18 billion, a peak workforce of 14,000 and an ambition to deliver 14 miles of twin-rail tunnels connecting 41 stations across London, Berkshire and Essex. Due to the complexity of the Crossrail programme, Deloitte was engaged to help reset the overall programme strategy. We used Horizon Scanning to better understand the different phases of work required to deliver successfully and developed ‘what if’ scenarios to identify potential problem areas. We scanned, evaluated and mapped how the programme could pivot away from high risk-scenarios, enabling the leadership team to evade issues that might prevent the programme from achieving its objectives. This meant that instead of falling further behind when things went wrong, the Crossrail team were able to course correct and get back to their anticipated trajectory. Fast forward to 2024 and the Elizabeth Line is open to the public, serving over 200 million passengers a year across 41 stations - increasing London’s rail capacity by 10%.

There is increasing recognition of the need for strategic tools like Horizon Scanning. In their study of mega projects, Flyvbjerg and Gardner recognise it as a “powerful strategic tool; an ongoing process, that should be integrated throughout the programme lifecycle”. (Flyvbjerg, Bent and Gardner, Dan. How Big Things Get Done, 2023). While we aren’t suggesting that Horizon Scanning is a silver bullet, we do believe that by gaining a strong understanding of the wider environment, programme leaders will be better equipped to navigate high VUCA environments with greater perspective and confidence.

In our article about harnessing the genius of Formula 1 we looked at how F1 teams leverage Scenario Planning to make real-time adjustments to their race strategies.  Imagine you’re driving a race car - you're in an incredibly complex machine made up of hundreds of thousands of parts, in a high-speed, high-stakes situation with endless variables. In this situation you’d want to be sure that you had the insights and the tools at your disposal to increase your chances of success. By collecting huge amounts of data on their cars and simulating thousands of possible race day variables, McLaren did just that. They leveraged Scenario Planning to analyse potential scenarios in advance, enabling them to pivot their in-race strategy and switch quickly from obsolete plans to ones capable of delivering their goal. Rather than making risky split-second decisions, McLaren provided themselves with the foresight to predict, learn and adapt their strategy in-flight. Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing, highlights the significance of data led decision-making in Formula 1: “When we are making decisions, Formula 1 is a data-driven business. We have over 200 sensors on the race car pulling down over a terabyte a weekend. So, we bring this data in to help us make informed decisions, both on the pit wall during race strategies and then back here at the factory when we are developing and trying to enhance our race car”. This way of thinking is built into our Continuous Strategy approach, as we believe that the most successful major programmes are those that can anticipate and rapidly respond to change throughout the programme lifecycle. 

While working on Crossrail, Deloitte leveraged Scenario Planning to anticipate future issues and to understand where strategic interventions and mitigations could be built into the programme. Using this approach, we developed an end-to-end integrated plan via a series of planning exercises with the programme team, enabling them to understand critical sequences in each phase of delivery. This improved the overall resilience of the programme, allowing it to pivot at times of stress whilst maintaining progress against its overarching objectives – an essential capability for a programme operating in a high VUCA environment.
 

What should leaders think about before undertaking a major programme?
 

To maintain programme resilience in high VUCA environments, programme leaders must be equipped to successfully respond to internal and external shocks. By assessing the programme environment ahead of time, they can make the right decisions - at the right point in the programme - to minimise negative impact. To do this, leaders need to ask themselves some frank questions early on:

• Do we understand the VUCA environment in which our programme is operating?
• Can we identify potential risk scenarios that could lead to programme failure?
• Do we have a well-articulated list of conditions that the programme will need to meet to deliver successfully?
• Do we understand the capabilities needed to achieve these conditions, and do we have any gaps that might put the programme at risk of failure?

Deloitte’s Major Programmes team can help programmes evaluate and navigate their environment using our VUCA analysis toolkit, which supports teams to identify key risk areas and develop tangible, implementable plans to de-risk delivery. The VUCA analysis forms a key component of our NextGen Delivery Greenhouse – a full day facilitated workshop where we work alongside our clients to future-proof delivery of either in-flight or upcoming major programmes.

We believe that major programmes should embrace a shift in the way they think about success – focusing on collision avoidance rather than damage limitation. By applying tools like Horizon Scanning and Scenario Planning, programme leaders can shift from a reactive to a proactive mindset. This shift in mindset will help develop informed hypotheses around programme uncertainties and identify leading indicators of risk, ultimately supporting the implementation of strategic interventions to de-risk delivery and capitalise on unforeseen opportunities.
 

In summary
 

As we know, delivering major programmes can be challenging, especially in high VUCA environments. Our Continuous Strategy approach represents a departure from traditional ways of thinking about strategy and delivery, promoting the idea that experimentation and flexibility can lead programmes to better outcomes.  We’ve built on our years of experience across hundreds of programmes to develop tools like Horizon Scanning and Scenario Planning – constantly learning and experimenting to find the best way to deliver successfully for our clients in increasingly uncertain and complex environments. Through Continuous Strategy – our guiding mind of delivery - we hope to equip programme leaders with the capability and foresight to remain resilient, adaptive and innovative in a rapidly changing world.
 

Further Reading and Acknowledgements

Throughout this article, we have referred to thinking and case-studies discussed in ‘How Big Things Get Done’ by Professor Emeritus Bent Flyvbjerg and bestselling author Dan Gardner. The book’s practical insights support the core elements of Continuous Strategy, and therefore this book serves as an indispensable resource for leaders and strategists seeking to understand strategy and its evolving role in today’s dynamic environment. 

Illustrations produced by Ghalia Al-Wizan