The operating model and execution review checklist: the questions a COO and an executive committee should be able to answer

Operating models and execution rarely fail in one decisive way. They drift. The strategy moves and the model stays where it was set; sourcing concentrates one contract at a time until the dependence is discovered by accident; the cadence of reviews turns into a cadence of reports; the transformation portfolio is adopted on paper and worked around in practice; and the cost savings announced in one year have quietly returned by the next under other names.

The seven areas below are where an institution’s operating model and execution are most consistently tested — by the strategy, by the front line, by a cost programme, and by the day the institution stops. Each is stated as questions a chief operating officer and an executive committee should be able to answer with a specific: a decision, a name, a number the institution already holds. A description in place of a specific is the symptom.

1. The model and the strategy it must run#

• Stated as the promises the strategy makes, which of them can the current operating model keep, and which can it not?
• Was the choice between end-to-end and functional organisation taken deliberately, by whom, and for which strategy — or did the institution grow into its shape?
• When the strategy last moved, who was accountable for asking whether the model still fitted it, and what changed as a result?
• Name the last promise the institution could not keep. Traced back, which model decision was the cause?

2. Sourcing: make, buy or partner#

• For each material capability, can the institution state what it keeps, what it buys and what it partners for — and why, in each case?
• Where are the institution’s systems and data hosted, and on how few providers is it concentrated? Was that concentration decided or discovered?
• For each major sourcing commitment, what would exit cost, and is that figure written anywhere the executive committee has seen?
• Which sourcing decisions were taken as procurement rather than as balance-sheet commitments, and which of those would the COO take differently today?

3. The cadence#

• How many metrics does the executive committee review, and can each person measured actually move the number they are measured on?
• Name a decision the cadence changed in the last quarter, and the number that showed the difference afterwards.
• At the last review, what was decided — as opposed to presented?
• Is adoption of the current transformations measured in the cadence, or only their launch and training?
• What does the front line believe happens when a number is missed, and is that belief accurate?

4. The transformation portfolio#

• How many changes is the same front-line team being asked to absorb at once, and who decided that was absorbable?
• Which transformations in the portfolio are adopted as the way the work is done, and which are complete on paper and worked around in practice?
• What was sequenced, and what was launched because it was approved?
• For the last transformation that failed, where did it die — in the design, or on contact with the front line — and what did the portfolio change as a result?

5. Cost#

• Of the savings announced by the last cost programme, how much is still in the numbers a year later, and under what names did the rest return?
• Was the work removed before the people who did it, or the reverse?
• Where is the point of diminishing cuts for each major function, and was it named before the programme began?
• What did the programme cost in the capability and morale of those who stayed, and who is accountable for that figure?

6. Resilience and incident command#

• Is operational risk and continuity a standing item in the COO’s brief, or a document reviewed when a regulator or an auditor asks?
• When the institution last stopped, who was in command, and was that decided before or during the event?
• Which of the concentrations identified under sourcing would stop the institution if the provider stopped, and what is the rehearsed response?
• When was the incident command structure last exercised with the executives who would actually hold it, rather than with their deputies?

7. The COO’s standing with the board#

• Is the COO’s mandate written down as it is actually held, and has the chief executive agreed to it?
• When the board last asked whether a promise was kept, who answered, and with what?
• Does the board hear about operational risk and resilience from the COO as a standing brief, or only after an incident?
• If the chief executive left tomorrow, would the board consider the COO — and on the evidence of what?

A description in place of a specific is the symptom.

How to use it#

Run the seven areas against one business line, or one promise the strategy makes, before running them across the institution. Most of what is wrong will show in the first, and it will show while it is still cheap to fix. Answer in specifics — a decision, a name, a number — and treat every description as a finding. The cadence is the most diagnostic area: if it has changed no decision, none of the other six is being watched. Resilience is the most deferred, and the one on which the COO’s standing is decided in a single day. The COO: Operations at Scale works all seven with a cohort of chief operating officers and enterprise-remit executives from across industries.