The Challenge

Lightbulb Moment: Both are experiencing the exact same set of problems with their Workday implementation and reached out to Lightwork for some independent Workday Advice and Guidance.

What problems are they both experiencing?

Food for thought:  ‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but foresight is better’ – William Blake.
 ‘10,000 hours to be a genius at anything’ – Anders Ericsson.
 ‘You don’t know, what you don’t know’ – Socrates.

The Lightwork Hybrid Model, ‘Entry/Exit’ checkpoints for success and learning from experience (the hard way!)

For many Workday customers, they can only work with the information that has been shared, and therefore, the information they don’t have, they don’t know about.

>>>Knowledge is Power; Power provides Information; Information leads to Education; Education breeds Wisdom; Wisdom is >>>Liberation. People are not liberated because of lack of knowledge.” -Francis Bacon.

It’s tempting for HR and Finance teams to fixate on the standard Workday Delivery Model (WDM) and lose sight of the end-to-end business requirements. Look at the diagram below and see the different parties that form the Hybrid Model. Lightwork has additional ‘candles’ we bring to the table for our customers to strengthen the overall success of Workday to the business.

What additional benefits does a Hybrid Delivery Model offer?

1. Engaging on the ‘customer side’, an experienced Independent Workday Advisor, will pay dividends by sharing their experience and knowledge that will be vital to the overall success of the programme. With the best will in the world, your SI partner is following a pre-defined script (WDM), they rarely have the time or the inclination to focus on success checkpoints for the business as well as your specific industry requirements.
2. How do you know you have a good design before you begin the build stage? The LightWork Hybrid Model makes sure ‘timeouts’ are provided to ‘engage’ with the business on the end-to-end design. The WDM does not include end-to-end business design. This is the first checkpoint for early business adoption with Workday.
3. Using a customer driven hybrid model, supported by the SI Partner, allows the customer to pause, breathe and take on knowledge about Workday and ‘how’ the design and functionality with be fit for purpose for the business.
4. One size rarely ‘fits’ completely, some alterations are always required. You should challenge back in your design play backs and ask how other Workday customers in a similar industry have completed their end-to-end build. All you need to do is ask!
5. Ambition is the last refuge of failure.” – Oscar Wilde. Lightwork believes in ambitious change, however what we frequently see is a gap between ambition and reality. Too often the change being driven is too much or too quick for the business to absorb. This leads to de-scooping and additional cost and timelines. Your Independent Workday Advisor is your best friend when it comes to understanding the art of the possible, including what ‘Plan B’ looks like, in order to get Workday into the business on time, and within budget.
6. Governance is the rhythm of any major transformational change. During my first Workday implementation for a global health insurance company, a key business stakeholder was the head of HR operations globally. With 30+ years of working in the health insurance business and responsible for 100+ staff worldwide, I still remember a key piece of advice she gave me. She always asked people, “What is your role and what do you do?” To this day, I think about that question, because too often people’s roles, responsibilities and accountabilityies are not defined in programme governance.
7. At Lightwork we speak three languages – Customer, SI Partner and Workday. It’s taken us 10 years and 40+ projects and more than 10,000 hours.