about D4

D4 is a method which has processes, techniques and approaches to enable you to make change happen - on any scale, from large corporation to SME and public or private sector.

.... with gaining consensus about outcomes, benefits realisation, making portfolios deliver, maximising benefits, producing auditable business cases, enabling change management and cutting costs.

... and complementary to traditional project and change management. But it adds a new dimension - right-to-left instead of left-to-right thinking and one in which time and payback are paramount.

... techniques, templates, case studies, credentials, training and support. It can be applied by means of workshops focused around the D4 techniques - 'sessions.' It enables mobilisation of business-as-usual.

The whole point of programmes and projects is to realise benefits. For Directors of organisations, delivering required outcomes is the fundamental purpose of investments of effort and cost in change.   Historical and current experience is, however, one of uncertainty.  Slippage of delivery dates, overrun of spend and underachievement of expectations is uncomfortably common.

D4 was specifically designed to improve certainty of outcome.  It provides means to make the business vision tangible and deliverable; to focus planning on achieving benefits; to connect  outcomes to payback and to enable people to change.

D4 obliges people to make a sound business case, with full substantiated estimates for benefit values as well as costs.  The approach extends, estimates and connects benefits to operational change.  It goes on to connect values to outcomes so that operational changes can be tracked through to returns.  Through the connection between operational change and benefits, risks to non-delivery of returns can be anticipated and firmly dealt with before they materialise.

The techniques enable you to quickly agree the vision and at the same time make it tangible and deliverable.  Moreover the outputs are in the form of specific, binary "show me" outcomes which you can delegate to your direct reports to make happen and subsequently support, monitor and recognise achievement.  A special technique within D4 enables you to explore resistance to change and convert it to valuable action.

This approach starts with the involvement and commitment of top management and creates the tangible outcomes they are looking for in documented and deliverable way which is bedded into the business change management.  By connecting the business outcomes with benefits and driving full cash estimates for benefits as well as costs it helps you to produce a stronger and substantiated business case linked directly to the results of the programme.  Moreover the approach creates the plan from the benefits and helps you to align current commitments with the future.