Only 30 percent of business transformation efforts deliver their intended benefits and meet their planned targets, but a new article from McKinsey & Co. reveals a few tips that can help increase your organization’s odds for success.

  • Collect as many ideas as possible, regardless of their feasibility or size. McKinsey recommends holding broad, disciplined ideation workshops with frontline team leaders and representatives to generate valuable insights from the people whose day-to-day work gives them a unique perspective on real opportunities to improve the business.
  • Define a set of milestones and provide a monthly schedule of expected value to be captured on the bottom line. Four milestones are typically enough to provide early warning about potential problems without getting in the way of implementation.
  • Plan for delays. Approximately 31 percent of initiatives will have their execution end date changed at least once. Reduce delays by conducting weekly reviews to monitor progress against milestones, allowing initiative owners to report issues to company leaders early so they can be solved with minimal effort.

See the full McKinsey & Co. report: “Keeping Transformations on Target.”