Operational Management Expertise

Process & People

A successful organization depends on getting the best work out of the right people. It’s not enough to recruit talent– you have to be able to use them effectively. A focus on process effectiveness and a strong alignment of people and processes can enable you to capitalize on their skills and knowledge to drive desired results.
Our Process and People services can help you:

Align processes, resources and business objectives
Maximize limited resources without sacrificing business results
Optimize processes to streamline workflows and reduce risk
Instill sustainable improvements to organizational culture
Support organizational transformation and renewal
Implement metrics that can drive desired behavior and results

A progressive financial services firm hired Pinnacle to assess the impact of process changes resulting from facility consolidations. New processes, roles & responsibilities and training programs were developed and implemented in conjunction with reengineering efforts across several SBUs and locations.

Talent Management

Talent Management encompasses the processes used to address end-to-end human capital needs. These largely rest with addressing Needs (talent acquisition, capability identification & planning), Individual growth (performance and career management) thru Development & Satisfaction (capability development rewards, governance).

Pinnacle’s Best Practices and methodologies help ensure the right people are hired, placed in the proper positions and their performance is properly measured and improved; Organizational productivity follows.

Identify organizational strengths and shortcomings with aspects of the employee lifecycle – acquisition thru retirement
Align roles and responsibilities with changes emanating from new initiatives
Evaluate performance management systems and their alignment with organizational direction and goals
Increase your effectiveness of varying preferences and core competencies across demographic diversity
Create career pathways and strong development prospects

The Talent Acquisition Department of a Government entity asked us to assess end-to-end acquisition processes. Best Practices were used to evaluate detailed processes, supporting technologies, resource allocation methods and the leadership practices used to gauge staff productivity and staffing outcomes.

Compliance Review

Structure, policies and practices are critical to organizational efficiency and effectiveness. The necessity to create standards, rules and protocols enable economies of scale and total quality management in operations. Consequently, compliance is required to ensure these benefits are being realized.

Our Best Practices inventory of approaches are used as the basis to assist clients in ensuring compliance standards are being met. Each project is tailored to the specific compliance need. The compliance reviews we perform often involve these intertwined elements:

Claims investigation – investigative reviews to determine adherence to rules and regulations involving unemployment, insurance, medical, to help clients ensure compliance, legal enforcement and agreement.
Fraud detection and prevention – a.k.a. prevent, detect, respond. Digital evolution has created fraudulent opportunities and motives. Performing investigative reviews of activities, indicators, controls and measurements improves client’s abilities, defenses and responses.
Predictive analytics – essential to building compliance capabilities in an economical manner, favoring quality assurance over quality control. Fraud schemes highlight this area of compliance review as indicators and flags are often the initial warning signs that compliance gaps exist.
Technology effectiveness – using technology assessment practices, such as computer forensics to leverage best practices in compliance examination is crucial to sustainable efforts and to reducing reliance on manual processes.
Operational auditing – we use specialized competencies to collectively review people, processes and technologies involved in client SOP development and enforcement.
Reporting protocols – compliance review involves specialized skills, from information gathering through reporting the results of the work. A consistent and thorough approach is required to objectively and expertly perform the reviews and report the results.

A Government Agency asked us to perform compliance attestation on a Pilot program pertaining to several new regulations recently launched. They also asked us to perform audit work on 11 divisions to ensure their compliance with certification standards prior to their annual audit.

Productivity Measurement

Resources are always limited and budget processes always under continuous improvement. At the heart of these dynamics is the need for objective and effective measurements of performance. High performing organizations have productive systems for identifying and measuring performance drivers, processes and resource allocations. Our approaches help improve client measurement systems by:

Analyzing drivers behind key performance attributes, to ensure that metrics exist at activity levels and are measuring the proper driver
Performing cost benefit analyses to add objective analysis for improved decision making
Evaluating staffing models and resource allocation practices to assess efficiency and effectiveness
Diagnosing Measurement Alignment – bottom up and top down consistency in application of strategic goals & initiatives to daily operations
Appraise the effectiveness of key policies, recently implemented programs and strategic initiatives through practical criteria and measurement vehicles

A Government Agency asked us to identify and evaluate productivity measurements for all end-to-end talent acquisition and employee development processes – both at the corporate HR level and the individual Division levels. Opportunities for improvement were identified and collaborated on with core processes, testing standards, technology enablement and workflow throughput.

Change Management

Change is a constant in modern life. Technology is continuously changing; so are ideas and attitudes, and the relationships between people and organizations. In business, the behaviors and practices that were good enough to make a company successful a few years ago just don’t measure up to current needs. An organization needs to change to prosper.

But… most attempts by organizations to undertake significant change do not reach their goal—from 50% to 70% do not reach their goals, despite all the planning and investment.

Pinnacle services employ proven approaches at all levels of employee engagement and positions of authority. Time-tested methodologies and tools applied throughout the change lifecycle ensure success and address key elements such as:

Create an appropriate cadence of targeted communications
Proactively manage sources of resistance and build consensus
Address cross-cultural considerations and create a shared change vision
Coordinate efforts among teams and ensure congruence of messages and behaviors
Support the flow of information employees need to make smart decisions
Help preserve and transfer the learning gained from the change effort

A major global pharmaceutical organization engaged Pinnacle to drive the change management aspects of an ERP system implementation. Pinnacle increased user commitment and leadership and helped the company overcome cross-cultural and commitment challenges for users in nine different countries.

New Venturing

Small businesses and new ventures are at the heart of innovation, opportunity and growth. This growth is imperative to enabling individuals, organizations and communities to prosper. Many individuals want to test their entrepreneurial skills, convert an idea into a new business and/or seize an opportunity.

Our experienced staff has considerable expertise in helping turn opportunities and initiative into successful new ventures. The services cover the lifecycle of new ventures from start-up to “this is going to work!” to sustainable growth. Examples of value-added assistance include collaboration, evaluation, analyses, coaching and alignment with very specific expertise.

Our new venturing services can help you:

Assess the feasibility of launching a new venture
Analyze opportunities and the resources needed to convert them into products or services
Identify industry and market key success factors and the capabilities needed to flourish
Develop the business and marketing plans needed to offer successful products or services
Align your needs with assistance – consultants, funding sources, people…
Leverage community-based organizations to increase reach, knowledge and economics

Pinnacle assisted the State of Colorado increase small business start-up education and growth thru a program aimed at new venturing for businesses younger than 3-years old. The services provided customized advice to over 220 businesses in a 3-month time span. Workshops and Reference Guides helped transfer knowledge to Agency champions and to creat a framework for a sustainable program.

Governmental Entity Productivity

Local and State Government organizations are unique entities. Their organizational systems – structures, leadership practices, funding/budgeting mechanisms, business processes and talent management practices, collectively define powerful and unique cultures. Understanding these interrelated dynamics is integral to achieving productivity gains, particularly with increasingly strict budget environments – achieve more with less.

Pinnacle has dedicated an entire Practice Segment to assisting Government entities achieve desired productivity gains. We hand-picked our staff from each of the other Pinnacle Practice Segments to produce specialized Governmental expertise. Governmental clients benefit from knowledge and experience garnered from multi-disciplinary professionals because specific expertise is applied to specific client goals to assess and improve productivity. Approaches include:

Performing Assessments that target specific client requirements to diagnose problems (vs. symptoms) for recommended improvement, e.g. culture, Accreditation Programs, core processes. Objective and practical opportunities for improvement result from this work.
Examining Divisional/Departmental alignment with Organizational direction, strategies and initiatives, to improve processes, structures and culture, e.g. strategic plan implementation, operational excellence programs, community initiatives. Alignment and productivity gaps are identified and reduced.
Utilizing high performing Benchmarks and Best Practices to identify and assess where Divisions/Departments stand relative to desired standards, stretch goal establishment, performance gap identification, productivity gains – efficiency & effectiveness. Go-forward improvements raise org. performance and continuous improvement methods.
Developing Staffing Models – staffing levels, resource allocation processes, standardization approaches, efficiency measurement. These models leverage Best Practices from performance standards, leadership practices, change programs and resource allocation models to advance Governmental ability to staff at proper levels.
Implementing improved Metrics & Measurements, usually aimed at ensuring that new initiatives or process changes result in the intended productivity gains. Common applications include CALEA, SOP implementation, staffing L&D plans, change management programs. Goals and changes are measured and improvements implemented.

A Human Resources Department of a progressive Governmental Agency wanted to transform operations, while simultaneously meeting demanding stakeholder requirements. Pinnacle designed a practical but ambitious reengineering plan and orchestrated implementation of assessments and improvements in core processes, staff structures and service model standards.