A definition · Alex McDonnell
What is Concurrent Management?
Concurrent Management is a practical blueprint for bringing together processes, operations, technology, information, people, finance, risk and change, so that the right perspectives make important decisions together, while those choices can still be influenced.
Concurrent Management is the part of Structured Collaboration that applies to senior teams.
The term was introduced by Alex McDonnell in Who Designed Your Organisation? How to Build an Organisation That Works Right First Time.
Watch
Concurrent Management in six minutes.
Alex introduces the book behind the idea: why organisations with well-designed parts still struggle to work as a whole, and how bringing the right perspectives together early builds an organisation that works right first time.
Further reading: Get Who Designed Your Organisation? → · Read the Executive Summary free →
Operational debt
The problem it solves
Many organisational problems arise not because expertise is absent, but because the necessary expertise enters decisions at different times.
Reasonable decisions can then compound into a business that is increasingly difficult and expensive to operate, manage and change. Alex calls this accumulating cost of how work really gets done operational debt.
01
Unnecessary work
People check, recheck and work around problems. It eats time and does nothing for the customer.
02
Slow execution
Decisions and work queue between functions because nobody owns the complete end-to-end result.
03
Poor experiences
Customers and employees fall into the gaps between the parts, even when each part meets its own measures.
04
Excessive cost
Every workaround adds cost: more managers, more systems, more checks. Before long it’s just how things are.
05
Fragile growth
When you grow or acquire, the weaknesses grow too.
The central question
“Who needs to make this decision together, and what information do they need to make it well?”
“Building an effective organisation requires the people responsible for its connected parts to make connected decisions.”
The approach
How Concurrent Management works
01 / Understand
See the organisation as people experience it
Start with what customers and employees actually encounter, not with the organisation chart.
02 / Idealise
Define what is needed
Clarify the outcomes, functions and capabilities required before choosing familiar solutions.
03 / Design
Connect the expertise
Consider customer, operations, process, technology, people, data, finance and risk together.
04 / Learn
Let reality improve it
Use operational evidence to improve continuously and revisit assumptions when circumstances change.
The practical output
A Business User Manual
The Business User Manual is not a static procedure manual or a collection of process documents. It is the organisation’s evolving understanding of how the business is intended to work.
Ask to see an example in your free 30-minute call.
It makes clear
How the business is intended to work
- How it creates value
- The capabilities it depends upon
- How teams and functions connect
- How important decisions are made
- How external partners contribute
- How operational learning improves the system
Concurrent Management on one page
See how the pieces fit.
The Business Execution Canvas® puts Concurrent Management on one page: what the business promises, why customers want it, and how every function and team delivers it, joined up at every level.
Start the conversation
Where would connected decisions make the biggest difference for you?
Whatever you’re facing, the first step is a conversation.