What is currently missing from this vitally important dialogue?

Probably, much like yourselves, I have been following with forensic interest the Post Office "drama" which has devastated and blighted so many decent lives, and will sadly continue to do so for many, many years to come.

What does seem to be missing within the dialogue and media frenzy, rightly so, is the whole question of digital transformation and how that was managed from the very, very beginning of the project. What was the input that those on the "shop floor" were able to constructively add to the project?

Yes, there was obviously some form of pilot scheme prior to the full roll-out of the Horizon system by Fujitsu, but was that simply a "tick-box" exercise and what were the pressures being placed on the project team in terms of deadlines, financial constraints or penalties. Were they in fact the right people to be conducting and running the trial?

It certainly reminds me of a recent digital transformation project within policing and the implementation of a new computerised record management system, bringing 14 separate and archaic computer systems under the umbrella of one universal system. This was obviously a far smaller project by comparison but the parallels are frightening with a lack of understanding and monitoring of people and an over reliance on serendipity. 

When you take a step back for a moment and attempt to remove the emotion from the situation we start to see:

• Over promotion and poor selection of project teams - The Peter Principle
• A lack of human factor understanding - Project team, stakeholders, leadership and the recipients of that change
• Narcissism and corperate psychopathy
• The Iceberg of Ignorance - Sidney Yoshida
• Conway's Law
• A total lack of understanding or appreciation of complexity and how that aligns to an individual's innate talent complexity potential
• Burn out and poor mental wellbeing both monitoring and initial condition sensitivity to the complexity
• Slowing down to speed up - how many lives and lost years would have been saved if vital time had been invested preparing people for the demands of change. Would the cost of that investment in time, prior to commencement, far outweighed the cost (human and financial) now being witnessed?

To highlight but a few areas to consider.

How then do we learn the lessons from this utterly terrifying case study? How many more expensive and failed change management projects are currently lying dormant, waiting to surface and make the next newspaper headlines due to that lack of people insight and understanding? Or, are those projects being suppressed by senior leadership teams who are overwhelmed by the complexity that confronts them and cannot face the accountability of failure and the damage to their precious egos, pensions and credibility?

And here is a final and contentious question to ponder. Is Paula Vennells also a victim of this whole tragic scenario? Wow! But here is the thing! How was she allowed to "use the system" to be promoted way beyond her respective level of competence and to then strategically place people around her that did her bidding and protected her incompetence at the cost of those on the "shop floor"? Take a moment. Is this very system of promotion simply a mirror image of those endorsed and used daily by so many organisations around us , both public and private? What will happen if she also were to take her own life and like those sub postmasters leave a wake of sorrow and trauma behind them and within their families for generations to come?

There is a huge amount to consider here, but the conversation is decades overdue. If society is not to see those lives lost in vain, these conversations need exploring and for the subsequent lessons to be learnt.