Progressive Contexts

WL1 tasks commonly require planning and prioritizing, but this is not based on the needs that the organization is designed to meet. Rather it is based on handling the workload sensibly and performing particular tasks efficiently.

The resources to be managed are the worker's own time and skills, and any allocated materials or equipment. Costs should be controlled, by avoiding any waste or misuse of time, materials or equipment.

(Everyone at higher levels must also focus on the best use of their own time and any allocation of resource.)

Information requirements are only those which are directly relevant to the task in hand. Check-lists are useful. Computer terminals or mobile devices facilitate finding information. There is commonly a responsibility for data entry.

WL2: Assessing Concrete Needs

Case-loads usually need prioritizing, and handling situations or cases often benefits from planning. Planning becomes more useful, the greater the pressures, the longer the time-scale and the higher the complexity of the case. However, there is no planning relevant to the mission of the organization. The methods used to handle cases are always given—by training, by convention, or by a higher manager—and evaluation of these is not expected.

Similar to WL1, but often there are WL1 assistants and effective use of their time and skills is required. There is a greater potential for cost control e.g. by economic choices amongst alternative available materials or equipment—so information on the costs of items may be useful. The job may require care for materials/equipment and stock control. There is a responsibility to sanction minor expenditures (or activities leading to expenditures), and a small cash float is common.

In all the above, the manager must adhere to higher policies and rules regarding choices.

Information must be gathered about individual cases (units of workflow) or concrete situations. Computerized access to protocols and general guidance may be useful. Computers enable graphic representations of case development. Recording format is pre-specified by management and influenced by industry standards or a professional code. Often the history of interactions must be preserved as well. Written records may be kept for personal use: e.g. case notes are typically idiosyncratic.

WL3: Service Management

These services directly implement the mission or support those who do. Here is where quality standards are specified, and actual resources are applied to deliver that quality. Each organized service requires its own internal planning and regular evaluation. The focus is either on introducing a process (activity system) to handle new methods or workload evolution, or implementing changes required by a WL4-program. Values and goals may also require new systems for staff training and development.

There is a body of staff with various kinds and degrees of expertise, together with materials, equipment, premises. So the manager runs a mini-organization that uses tangible resources i.e. actual people, actual space, actual materials—in real time. Systems, procedures and methods must be devised to ensure efficiency while maintaining quality. Training should be arranged to ensure skills are sufficient.

Fluctuations in workload and staff or equipment availability is the norm. Overtime or temporary staff or rented equipment need to be deployed to avoid problems. Although the exact pattern of variation is unknown, the average demand and likely contingencies are usually well-known. Variable costs need to be estimated a year in advance (i.e. in budgets) and then expenditure monitored as the year progresses. Budgets for expenditures over which the manager has no control, typically fixed staffing, should not be provided.

Note that higher levels can enable or inhibit efficient use of existing resources, but those decisions that maximize efficiency in practice are taken at WL3.

Detailed specific statistics are required on a regular and an ad hoc basis in relation to such things as: demand, activity, quality indices, staffing absence, overtime, incidents, stocks &c. Production of detailed reports with tables and charts is usually required, and should be pertinent enough to indicate immediate action without complex interpretation and analysis. Service-specific in-year trends and comparisons with previous years need checking. As well as access to central records, there is often a need for information systems tailored to local needs because some coding categories in centralized databases are not meaningful.

WL4: Developing Multiple Services

The programs developed and implemented at this level are the primary method for implementing the organization's mission. This involves adapting to available resources and an actual environment. So here is where planning demands a deep and detailed appreciation of concrete realities of all sorts. Priorities always need to be set amongst existing departments; and between these and new developments which deal with gaps and imbalances, or which further objectives set at higher work-levels. This is where monitoring and evaluation systems need to be designed.

Aligning Management & Budgeting

The manager must take into account what might be done as well as what is actually being done.

In developing and running programs to alter the organization's outputs, an overview of all the concrete resources of the various existing WL3-services is required. Staff (i.e. the establishment rather than specific people) may run into many hundreds, and there may be a diverse range of premises and facilities. All aspects of all activities need to be converted into financial terms so far as this is possible. This is not possible for intangible benefits, like goodwill or environmental factors, (i.e. you cannot dispose of 10% of goodwill and apply the funds to new equipment).

So this is the principal level for costing and detailed budgeting, and a WL4-post is commonly defined as a cost-centre.

Management budgeting is the focus here—not accounting to satisfy finance staff or tax authorities, or program budgeting to satisfy HQ planners. Management budgets are not delegated to the WL4-General Managers—they belong here. Budgets needs to be structured to ensure a sensible management control of operations. WL4-GMs need the power to move money between operating budgets to deal with over-spending. General Managers do delegate budgets to WL3-Operational Managers, who do not have the right to over-spend or alter their delegated budgets.

A more analytic approach to the same issues of concern at WL3 is possible by reducing details and increasing comprehensiveness. Categories for the complex statistical and comparative analyses have to be compatible across the organization and possibly other organizations in the enterprise. With the aid of specialist IT staff (at WL3), new information systems are developed. Attention is given to analyses of expenditure heads, income streams, costings in various dimensions, and priorities implied by expenditure. Lengthy complex reports are often required.

Argument develops about what counts as information, which information is really important, and how information should be presented and analysed.

WL5: Shaping Overall Operations

The main local priorities must set in the light of given HQ policies and goals. Strategies for specific implementation must be designed to accord with the actual conditions. Time-scales of the most significant plans are likely to be 5 to 10 years. The work entails structuring and shaping the operating entity. So WL5-plans are more like a planning framework within which costed budgeted programs are developed at WL4.

The CEO controls a complete organization (or a «business unit» if within a larger entity) and so has to manage both capital and revenue while allowing for contingencies. The operation is viewed now as a range of diverse expenditure and revenue streams. The external focus is on market conditions, income possibilities and capital management. The expenditure focus is on aggregates of budgets, or total allocations according to needs or programs. Cash limits, profit targets, and resource policies set at higher levels must be pursued by translating them into locally applicable strategies and policies.

Both financial accounting (for legal compliance) and program budgeting (to deliver the mission) become primary concerns.

There must be further selection, analysis and summarising of information from lower levels under the usual headings. This enables keeping track of progress in the organization overall, mainly via its WL4 divisions. Specific ad hoc or qualitative information on any matter is still possible by zooming in anywhere. The political and boundary-setting aspect of the work points to the need for market and industry analyses as well as information on allies, competitors, public sentiment, and government policies.

Organizational strategies for information management and information technology are required.

WL6: Framing Operational Fields

New values, however much desired and demanded at WL7, cannot be implemented: they need to be structurally and culturally installed (as explained in relation to culture). Here is where such work occurs. WL6 staff must take the given values, new ideas and identified needs, and develop policies and strategic objectives for the various WL5 leaders to realize within their fields of operation. The work involves aiding and checking installation, coordinating and reviewing WL5 progress, and evaluating as required.

The resources controlled are entire operating entities, and everything is now viewed in financial terms. WL6 staff sit on the Boards (governing bodies) of business units to exert control. In HQ, the performance of different operating entities is compared, and markets are analysed. Options for accessing capital and other resources are developed for presentation to WL7 and formal decision.

Operations are not controlled directly anymore. Information is therefore highly generalized, heavily financial, and lacking in concrete specifics. Comparisons amongst the WL5 entities are typically required. Narrative reviews backed by complex statistical analyses are common. Troubleshooting-cum-evaluation may be used if there is evidence of a serious problem. Research is conducted into markets and competitors to inform WL7 choices and guide policy-making.

WL7: Defining Basic Parameters

Goal-setting is the supreme tool. Here is where definition and articulation of the vision and mission occur. They are what is «given» to roles at lower levels, and should be used to guide all of the enterprise's strategies and activities. To ensure this occurs, the new conceptions must be institutionalized and main priorities for the whole enterprise set. Criteria for evaluation and for annual or ad hoc reviews are set.

Everything is viewed in financial terms. Ideas with general guidelines are set so as to be developed as policies at WL6. Capital-raising and total debt levels are determined.