Recruitment
“I am thrilled to nominate the Systems Thinking team at Network Rail for this prestigious award. They have played an instrumental role in improving many of our processes, which were once plagued by inefficiencies and resource challenges. Their innovative approach has broken down seemingly insurmountable challenges into manageable, bite-sized chunks.
One of the most remarkable achievements of the Systems Thinking team has been the development of the "End of Shift" platform, a robust tool that helps us identify the root causes of lost work. This platform has transformed our ability to capture information, analyse trends, and make informed decisions, replacing the reliance on anecdotal information like emails, texts, and phone calls.
What sets this team apart is their collaborative approach. They didn't work 'to' us; they worked 'with' us, building trust and a strong working relationship. They immersed themselves in the world of maintenance, gaining a deep understanding of our challenges and helping us evaluate and implement effective solutions. This genuine partnership has led to a significant reduction in lost work, improved processes across departments, resulting in cost savings and increased efficiency.
Furthermore, the Systems Thinking team's commitment to knowledge transfer ensures that we can now independently resolve issues as they arise. They have ushered in a genuine step change in how we approach problems, emphasising the importance of understanding root causes before attempting fixes.
In conclusion, the Systems Thinking team's dedication, innovative methodology, and collaborative spirit have been transformative for our organisation. Their work has not only addressed long-standing challenges but has also paved the way for a more efficient and cost-effective future. I wholeheartedly support their nomination for this award.“
“I have worked with the Systems Thinking team for the last two years focusing on Modernising Maintenance. They have provided great value by embedding themselves in the Delivery Units and working closely with the teams to work through really fundamental challenges such as improving planning. Their assistance with the introduction of the end of shift report will be of particular benefit allowing the teams to understand the root causes of why work is missed or cancelled.
In particular in Southern they have supported the development of the Model DU and maturity model aligned to KPIs. This will be critical as we move further to implementing and measuring Maintenance Modernisation. They have always worked collaboratively at a regional and route level building trusted relationships with the teams they have supported“
“The Systems Thinking team have helped support the Kent maintenance teams across all 3 of our DUs to begin to systematically identify and target some of our biggest challenges such as planning and lost work and support the teams in developing structured ways to establish root causes and create plans to address issues in a sustainable way.
I’m really pleased with the way the Systems Thinking team have engaged with not just the DU leadership team and Engineers but with our front line Section Managers and helped provide frameworks to deliver improvements without creating additional work for very busy roles. The rollout of standardised End of Shift reports for all disciplines has been particularly successful
The Systems Thinking team have integrated seamlessly with the modernising maintenance programme and helped support a number of the underpinning elements of this within the workstreams and I’m really enthusiastic about the delivery of the ‘model DU’ concept.“
“I’d like to nominate the Systems Thinking Partnership for the 'Rail Team of the Year' award. Embedded within the leadership schemes, this team has left an indelible mark on the rail industry by providing invaluable systems thinking coaching to over 100 industry leaders across the last 2 years, with further cohorts planned for 2024.
Key Achievements:
1. Mentoring the Mindset: The Systems Thinking Partnership's exceptional coaching has transformed the mindset of industry leaders. By fostering a systemic approach to thinking and decision-making, they have played a pivotal role in shaping the way these leaders run their businesses, make objective decisions and drive improvement. This practical approach has not only improved business efficiency but has also fostered a culture of continuous improvement.
2. Year-on-Year Impact: Their commitment goes beyond coaching; they guide delegates through the practical application of systems thinking to real business challenges. This ongoing support has led to delivery of scores of improvement projects in the ALP scheme. These leaders now tackle complex challenges with a holistic perspective, setting them up for future success in the industry.
Their work has not only impacted the leaders they have coached but has also rippled through the industry, redefining the way challenges are approached and decisions are made.
I nominate the Systems Thinking Partnership for the 'Rail Team of the Year' award, recognising their remarkable contribution to the industry's growth and transformation.“
“The HR Improvement Team and the Systems Thinking Partnership have worked closely with my Shared Services and local end users within the wider business, to improve the ways we support our colleagues every day. The approach they used brings amazing data-led insights into what our customers need from us and how we ensure our services are set up to deliver against that. This collaboration with my team has meant that we have improved and have active plans to improve services such as staff changes, long service awards, terms and conditions matrixes, location allowance processes, planned daily travel allowances, salary approval processes, and secondment notifications. The approach has been collaborative, supportive, customer-focused, and systemic. I believe, these teams deserve to win Rail Team of the Year, for their relentless efforts and mission to support the entire business and operational colleagues, to deliver the best for our customers every single day.“
“The systems thinking team have helped us to understand our challenges in more depth and helped us to understand how we could overcome these complexities.
The team have supported us with our development of knowledge around Modernising Maintenance and gave us the tools and techniques to manage the data and analysis of the changes and benefits of MM“
“Nothing has ever been too much for the Systems Thinking team. They have gone above and beyond to support my Maintenance team, from how we plan our work to how we understand through end of shift reporting how we improve delivery the first time. The team have gone outside of their remit time and time again, e.g. to produce a fatigue tracking tool for managers to support compliance with the fatigue standard.
They’ve helped us to create genuine solutions to our challenges which provide real benefit to the Delivery Unit!
They’d be worthy winners!“
“We are thrilled to nominate the Systems Thinking Partnership for the 'Rail Team of the Year' award. The team have partnered with us in Anglia route to help drive a transformation journey in line with Anglia's strategic priorities – working across all of our 4 key change programmes.
Key Achievements:
1. Data-Driven Excellence: The Systems Thinking Partnership has delivered tangible improvements in maintenance by adopting an objective, data-led approach to identifying areas for improvement which drive inefficiency or impact upon service delivery. This marks a significant departure from traditional methods, resulting in rapid and sustainable enhancements.
This includes enabling the benefits of modernising maintenance through improving our ‘daily planning’ approach, supporting on reviewing our maintenance KPIs and working on building a model DU to further leverage MM outcomes.
2. Strategic Collaboration: The partnership has embraced a business-centric approach to support Anglia in defining and achieving its strategic priorities. Despite being relatively new, this method has already yielded concrete insights and improvements such as through providing insight into causes of possession overruns, operations competence, level crossing manager organisation and across maintenance. This has given us the right information to work with the STP to build credible improvement plans and start to deliver change as a result – for example improving operations competence compliance from 50% to 77% with a forecast 96% by end of the cycle, establishing the case for a reporting app to trend root cause of possession overruns and building a continuous improvement culture with leaders as a result of having the right insights.
3. Promoting Systemic Thinking: An essential facet of their work is building Anglia's capacity to use systems thinking through training a specialist to work with us permanently.
4. Working with us: A key difference with how the systems thinking team work is that they partner with our leaders and local teams to really understand the root causes of our challenges and therefore help sustainably build and deploy solutions which really make a difference and are readily adopted by our route because we’ve been involved from the outset.
The Systems Thinking Partnership in Anglia is poised for continued success. Their unwavering commitment to building a better railway is evidenced through their dedication to supporting Anglia's business priorities. Their tangible results to date highlight their significant impact, making them a strong contender for 'Rail Team of the Year.'
Thank you for considering our nomination
Signed - Katie Frost and Laurence Chatwin“
“Great night at the RailStaff Awards last night at the NEC Birmingham. Great night had by all!”
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