Mission Control:
It's not rocket science!
Erick Mohr
@erickmohr
PwC's Experience Centre
UX Australia 2018

Apollo 1
Let me start with the story of the Apollo 1. In 1967, the astronauts were ge<ng ready for their mission. The objecBve was to fly around the
earth and test the spacecraE that would eventually take men to the moon.

The dress rehearsal
launch test
A few weeks before the launch date, NASA was doing a launch dress rehearsal.
Gene Kranz was the flight director overseeing the mission, suddenly heard this voice in his headset…FIRE! WE HAVE FIRE IN THE COCKPIT! And
then the radio went silent60 years on, Mission Control sBll operates under the lessons learned the hard way in the Apollo 1 fire.
.

An electric spark caused a fire inside the spacecraE. The astronauts were trapped inside and died in less than 30 seconds. The following day,
Gene got his team together and delivered this speech, where he talked about how they should learn from their mistakes. And this is an
extract of the speech that Gene himself re-enacted for a documentary.

Mission Control
and the legacy of
the Apollo 1 fire
60 years on, Mission Control sBll operates under the lessons learned the hard way in the Apollo 1 fire.

How might we create a
mission control to help
organisations better manage
digital transformation?

tip: it's about people
and culture!
How might we create a
mission control to help
organisations better manage
digital transformation?
And digital transformaBon can be a bit of a misleading term. Just like what we just learned from the Apollo 1 story, transformaBon is really
about people and culture, and less so about technology.

in fact, if you do a Google image search and type digital transformaBon, this is the kind of stuff you get. As if it's something magical. We know
that's quite not the case....

Transformation:
better customer experiences,
more efficient businesses
Over the last couple of years I worked with a few companies in NZ (SC, AT, BNZ) that were going through quite substanBal transformaBon
programmes to create beeer customer experiences, while ensuring that their businesses were running as efficiently as possible.

outcome-based
decision making
create alignment by
making work transparent
Transformation
Mission Control
dashboards to
track progress
And to help them out, we implemented a mission control in
these organisaBons. In a nutshell, the aim of mission control is
to create more transparency and visibility across all projects
and as a result enable the senior leadership team and
everyone involved to beeer track progress and make
adjustments as needed.

4 elements to
create a successful
mission control
There are 4 key common elements that we can draw from the experience and lessons learned from se<ng up Mission Control at this
companies.

1. Start with purpose
2. Outcomes, not deliverables
3. A dedicated space
4. Rituals and habits

1. Start with
a purpose
Having a shared purpose that brings the hearts and minds of people involved in a project (OR THE ORGANISATION AS A WHOLE) is probably
the most important element. It gives everyone a clear sense of direcBon, helps people to be aligned towards a common goal. Let's take a
look at what the people I worked with from SC, AT and BNZ say about that.

But quite oEen, what we find in organisaBons (specially larger ones) are overblown, meaningless vision and mission statements. How many of
you can tell the mission statement of your company? And if you do, what does it actually mean to you? Mission and vision statements are not
purpose. Purpose is what makes people get out of bed in the morning. A good purpose should be aspiraBonal. It should get team members
to be driven by more than just personal gain.

"Empower kiwis to live
their healthiest lives"
Southern Cross Health Society's Purpose:
And Southern Cross is quite ahead in this aspect, they have a preey clear purpose that is well engrained in their organisaBonal culture. It's
hard to explain, but if you visit their office it's quite noBceable. You can really see that people care about the work they do.

Embedding purpose in the
organisational culture
And surely this isn't something that happened overnight. They invest a lot of Bme and effort to create the right culture. For example, one of
the things that I noBced as an 'outsider' when working with Natalie and her team is that preey much everyone wears a fit bit. And this is by
design. They have wellbeing programmes, including a compeBBon across teams to see who does more steps in a given week.

Once you define your purpose, it will give you a clear sense of direcBon

STEP 1:
SET YOUR DESTINATION
It becomes a north star to guide all the work that is happening in your transformaBon programme.

STEP 1:
SET YOUR DESTINATION
STEP 2:
WORK BACKWARDS TO DEFINE MILESTONES
THAT WILL GET YOU THERE
So the next step is to work backwards and
define a set of milestones to help you get
there. Or, the other analogy is: if the purpose
is your desBnaBon, you then need to define a
set of waypoints so you can trace your
trajectory.

2. Outcomes,
not deliverables
Once you do that, the next step is to shiE the focus from project deliverables to project outcomes (and how to measure these outcomes).
Again, let's see what our friends from BNZ, AT and SC say.

DELIVERABLE
TradiBonally, teams work towards a set of deliverables. And this is probably because how people are incenBvised and measured. Deliverables
are easy to track, oEen is a tangible thing that gets produced at the end. But the problem is that oEen, teams get this tunnel vision, they are
so focused on the deliverable, they don't get to see how they fit in the wider picture. To make things even worse, someBmes the work that
they are doing might not be aligned with what everyone else is trying to achieve.

OUTCOME
OUTCOME
OUTCOME
OUTCOME
PURPOSE
But if you shiE the focus to outcomes, it becomes a glue that brings individual projects together. And most importantly, when you start
measuring outcomes, you can then start to see how things are linked, and how each individual project is contribuBng to the ulBmate goal.

DEPENDENCIESPROJECTS
NO PRIOR DEPENDENCIES SOME DEPENDENCIES ON OTHER OUTCOMES HEAVILY DEPENDENT ON OTHER OUTCOMES
TradiBonally, teams work towards a set of deliverables. And this is
probably because how people are incenBvised and measured.
Deliverables are easy to track, oEen is a tangible thing that gets
produced at the end. But the problem is that oEen, teams get this
tunnel vision, they are so focused on the deliverable, they don't get to
see how they fit in the wider picture. To make things even worse,
someBmes the work that they are doing might not be aligned with
what everyone else is trying to achieve.

3. A dedicated space

A wall will do too...
If you can't find a room to set up a mission control, a wall will do too. And when you start pu<ng things on the wall and making them visible
(as opposed to hidden in some powerpoint deck or business case documentaBon), you can get more transparency to drive accountability and
track progress. For example, oEen in a stand up meeBng people will say – hang on, these other guys are also working on a similar thing,
maybe we should talk to them.

PURPOSE
PROJECTS
grouped by
strategic priorities
OUTCOME
METRICS
to track progress
ENTERPRISE-LEVEL
MEASURES
aligned to our purpose
And this is what we did at Southern Cross – this is a schemaBc illustraBon of the Mission control wall we have there, it sits at a corner in their
office. The wall works from leE to right – starBng with individual projects, followed by outcome metrics to track progress and how these
metrics are affecBng enterprise level measures that in turn are directly linked to their purpose. This allows people to have a direct line of sight
and see how their individual contribuBon is helping to move the needle at the end.

Spaces shape behaviour.
Behaviour over time is culture.
What I observed working with all these different companies is that space shape behaviour, and behaviour over Bme is culture. So, hanging
some stuff on the wall and have some structure can be very powerful.

4. Rituals and habits
The last point is about embedding rituals and habits, that eventually helps to shape culture.
Just like the NASA mission patches, which became a tradiBon and helps to create a bond amongst the crew in every mission. Let's take a look
at what our friends say.

So, a good example of how you can crystallise behaviour into culture is the Friday morning stand ups that Susan from Auckland transport
menBoned. At the beginning, not everyone was aeending, but by persevering and sBcking to the ritual, over Bme other team members
realised they were missing out on important decisions. So they started to aeend, and eventually this became the norm.

Where to from here?
Where to from here?
What could mission control look like in the near future?

Time travel!
Well, there is only one way to find out. Time travel!
But I'll need a volunteer. I have a Bme machine si<ng just outside this room, and I'd like to send someone into the future so they can tell us
what's like.

MISSION CONTROL
OK, what I can tell you is that more and more we will be able to automate data collecBon, and with the help of machine learning, smart
algorithms we can track and monitor the work we are doing.
For example, say we are developing a new service and the metric to track outcomes is customer complaints.
Using natural language processing we can analyse complaints in a call centre and create a feedback loop to improve the service.

1. Be clear about purpose
2. Define outcomes upfront
3. Get a project space (or wall!)
4. Nurture the right rituals and habits
To finalise, I have a mission for you all. Think about your next project.
Are you clear about the purpose?
do you have outcomes clearly defined?
Get a room (or a wall at least).
Nurture the right rituals and habits.

Erick Mohr
@erickmohr
PwC's Experience Centre
music from www.fesliyanstudios.com