On Sunday, the weather was great, which was good because I was in Latimer Square at 9 am, lining up for the start of the Christchurch City 2 Surf. I’d done little training but had been doing parkuns. I figured this run would be 2 of those, so I thought it was doable.

As we all moved along, heading to the finish in New Brighton and checking off each 1 km marker, I thought about how this compared to the work I do. I’ve worked on finance transformations with a finish line. A post-merger integration is
a good example. You know what needs to be achieved, and it’s a shared goal for everyone. That helps make the difficult decisions about scope, priorities and risks.

Contrast this with a finance transformation that works on “what needs doing”. There’s no fixed finish; it’s a list of projects, and each needs to stand on its own.

This makes the whole transformation vulnerable.

• Maybe the sponsor leaves, or

• Individual projects don’t get approved, or

• Key project people get pulled into BAU, or

• The program simply runs out of steam.

I’ve seen each of these.

Does it matter? You’ve already got some benefits and learned some things. And maybe stopping is the right thing to do, because there’s been a shift in priorities. I could argue that finance has lost some credibility, and it might be hard to restart the
projects later.

But maybe the bigger issue is that, without the clarity at the beginning about what you’re trying to achieve, it’s not clear what you’ve “left on the table” – if you’d finished what could finance have become?

So, my preference would be to have the finish line. Put the work in to understand what you’re setting out to do and give yourself the best chance of success.

And I did finish the 12kms – not pretty, but enjoyable. And a thank you to all the volunteers.