Transformation & PMO
Why transformation programmes stall between strategy and execution
In our experience, transformation programmes rarely go wrong because of the strategy itself. The problems usually start in the months after approval.
By Iyad Assad · October 2026 · 4 min read
A strategy is approved, the launch event is held, and six months later the steering committee is reviewing a dashboard of amber indicators. The pattern is common across the region, across sectors. In our experience it has little to do with the quality of the strategy. We usually find one or more of five gaps between approval and execution.
1. Initiatives without owners
A strategy lists initiatives; an executable plan names who is accountable for each, with a budget, milestones and the benefit it must deliver. Without an initiative charter, an initiative belongs to everyone and moves at the speed of the slowest stakeholder.
2. A PMO that reports but does not decide
Many PMOs become reporting offices that collect status updates. An effective PMO prepares decisions: it brings the steering committee the two or three issues that need a choice this month, with options and a recommendation.
3. Too many priorities
When forty initiatives start at once, the same few managers carry all of them. It is usually better to start fewer initiatives, finish them, and then move on to the next group.
4. Benefits that nobody tracks
Each initiative was justified by a benefit in the business case. If that benefit is not tracked after go-live, the programme measures activity instead of results, and confidence erodes.
5. Policies and procedures that lag the new structure
A new organisation chart without updated delegations of authority, policies and procedures leaves people doing the new job with the old rules. Plan the document updates as part of the restructuring itself.
What to do
Before launch, test the plan against these five gaps. Write initiative charters, give the PMO a decision agenda, cut the first wave to what the organisation can carry, set up a benefits register and schedule the manuals work alongside the restructuring.