Page 266 - Successful Onboarding

Driving Implementation—From Blueprint to Impact • 247

feedback. Team members were enthusiastic about presenting the overall
work product, and leadership embraced their approach as an important
investment that would benefit the firm, which was now going to address
longstanding challenges and create an even more effective engine to drive
future growth and attain business objectives.
When designing blueprints, it’s critical to approach the exercise as if
you were designing a set of architectural drawings for a building renova-
tion. The initial pages paint the picture at a high level, while subsequent
pages cover specific areas in greater detail. With these architectural plans
in hand, key stakeholders can efficiently review and refine the structure
while team members building the program can ensure that the building’s
integrity is maintained even as reconstruction takes place.
Since redesign efforts often require an iterative process of consensus
building, it’s important for the blueprint to capture the high-level con-
sensus around objectives that the diagnostic phase produced. As a designer,
you can do this by including the matrix described in the last chapter that
maps organizational goals against current program shortcomings. You can
also create a document that describes the conditions and constraints, the
program opportunities, and target outcomes.
Booz Allen used this document to illustrate the core objectives that sur-
faced during the diagnostic:

• A consistent program experience
• Increased affiliation with Booz Allen
• Increased employee engagement
• Reduced time to productivity
• Reduced attrition

Realizing that new hires were having different onboarding experiences,
the redesign team decided that Booz Allen should implement more con-
sistency across onboarding efforts. The team also learned that participation
in existing onboarding program elements was lacking in certain areas of
the firm, so the onboarding program blueprint needed to address the under-
lying deficiencies, include measures to help hiring managers recognize the
value of onboarding, and outline a plan for producing high-quality content
that manifestly added value. Finally, the program needed to improve
productivity by giving hiring managers the resources and guidance they