Mobilising success: behind the scenes with our Mobilisation Lead, John Ashworth
Most mobilisation plans cover governance, risk, and reporting — but culture is often left in the margins. John Ashworth, our Mobilisation Lead, explores how defining, developing, and sustaining the right culture can turn a mobilisation plan from a checklist into a living framework for long-term success. As 50 Degrees’ Mobilisation Lead, I have written numerous mobilisation responses and plans. These often address traditionally ‘black and white’ topics like governance, risk management, reporting, and interdependencies. In short, how will we make sure the solution will be implemented on time, within budget and without disrupting services for the customer.
As 50 Degrees’ Mobilisation Lead, I have written numerous mobilisation responses and plans. These often address traditionally ‘black and white’ topics like governance, risk management, reporting, and interdependencies. In short, how will we make sure the solution will be implemented on time, within budget and without disrupting services for the customer.
Increasingly, government agencies and corporate organisations (typically referred to as the ‘Authority’) ask about culture, for example, “Describe the culture the Operator will create, and the actions taken to support its development”. It’s a sensible question. If mobilisation responses must show how solutions work in practice, then describing how culture will be created and maintained to support delivery is essential. A poor culture negatively impacts staff and service users, undermining even the best solutions.
The Challenge
Writing about culture in mobilisation definitely presents a different challenge. Unlike reporting schedules or ISO 44001 frameworks, culture feels subjective and harder to define. Practical strategies, however, can help to effectively describe culture development:
- Keep it focused on mobilisation: Responses must clarify accountability for culture development through milestones with achievable actions underpinning them
- Engage people effectively: Culture development relies on collaboration – with the Authority, stakeholders, and staff. Detail practical approaches for engaging people and groups, ensuring two-way communication
- Integrate culture into your people strategy: Show how recruitment ensures cultural fit and, where applicable, how TUPE programmes support staff
- Onboarding and training: Demonstrate how staff will engage with your culture through comprehensive onboarding timelines and pre-deployment training plans.
And finally, it’s important to make sure that your response doesn’t feel like a tick box exercise that just ends when the mobilisation phase finishes. Culture development cannot be seen to take a back seat, as people are increasingly busy with the ‘day to day’. Our final recommendation:
- Continuity is critical: It’s paramount to set out a set of actions that clearly describe how culture will continue to be monitored, developed and nurtured when the hand over to business as usual happens. Who, how, when? All questions that mobilisation responses really should be answering!
It’s clear that we’ve only just begun exploring the potential of cultural transformation within organisations. The key message here is that creating a strong organisational culture isn’t a vague or abstract concept; it is entirely possible to outline specific, actionable steps to achieve it. Developing a detailed Mobilisation Plan for culture is a tangible task, even if it doesn’t lend itself to the more formal framework of many mobilisation topics.
And finally, it’s important to make sure that your response doesn’t feel like a tick box exercise that just ends when the mobilisation phase finishes. Culture development cannot be seen to take a back seat, as people are increasingly busy with the ‘day to day’. Our final recommendation:
- Continuity is critical: It’s paramount to set out a set of actions that clearly describe how culture will continue to be monitored, developed and nurtured when the hand over to business as usual happens. Who, how, when? All questions that mobilisation responses really should be answering!
