Chief Professional Conduct and Culture Contracts

Total of 7 contracts with McKinsey & Company

Overview

Key Facts

Background

Context

• The Chief Professional Conduct and Culture (CPCC), which serves as the single Functional Authority for professional conduct and culture at National Defence, launched in June 2021 with a staff of only 11 members.
• It was clear from the outset that to achieve enduring results, CPCC’s approach needed to be data driven and survivor centric, and that CPCC needed to act swiftly.

Work with McKinsey

• To meet these needs, CPCC required the advice of expert consultants. It leveraged a National Master Standing Offer with McKinsey & Company in seven instances, beginning in September 2021 and with one contract ongoing but set to end on April 17, 2023.
• These seven contracts can be grouped under three broad lines of effort undertaken by CPCC to enhance accountability, listen and learn from affected persons and members of the Defence Team, as well as to transform the complaints system.

Enhancing Accountability

• For instance, in summer 2021, CPCC leveraged McKinsey’s benchmarking solution, known as the Organizational Health Index (OHI), to track, categorize and analyze the over 500 recommendations made to National Defence on culture change by external reviewers, such as former Justice Fish (see External Reviews Recommendations - Benchmarking).
• Of note, McKinsey & Company holds exclusive rights to provide this type of benchmarking as per its proprietary survey-based diagnostics. These data sets are based on information obtained from McKinsey's clients through proprietary surveys. There are no authorized resellers.
• McKinsey has cited its OHI benchmark as a tool to provide leaders with a “detailed picture of their organizations’ health compared to peers”, with over 1 billion data points across geographies and industries, which “offer a global standard to measure and manage organizational health.”
• In an additional call-up, which remains active until April 2023 (see Operating Model Benchmarking), this benchmarking tool was again leveraged by CPCC in January 2023, for a project that is being co-led by CPCC and Assistant Deputy Minister (Human Resources – Civilian).
• CPCC is leveraging McKinsey’s services to help conduct a review of its operating model and organisational health two years after its inception, since it has grown in both size and scope.

Listening and Learning from our People

• The OHI also includes modules for diversity, equity and inclusion, which CPCC utilized in its contract with McKinsey to carry out extensive culture consultations (see Culture Consultations (Includes one contract amendment)).

Transforming the Complaints System

• Finally, CPCC contracted McKinsey four times in its ongoing efforts to transform the complaints system (see Complaints Process Transformation - Benchmarking, Integrated Complaint Management Solution (Initial 4-week contract), Integrated Complaint Management Solution (Follow-on 10-week contract), Complaints Process Transformation 360 Benchmarking).
• It leveraged specific diagnostic assessment solutions from McKinsey’s digital suite to assist with end-to-end digital, analytics and technology transformation, in order to identify gaps and weaknesses in the current system, and to develop follow-on solutions.

Complaints Process Transformation - Benchmarking

Key Facts

Background

• Shortly following its stand-up, CPCC launched an important line of effort to transform the Defence complaints system, which had, and continues to be, an area of focus for Defence leadership, external reviews, and of those most affected.
• This first contract was aimed at helping a nascent CPCC team to:
  • Understand the current-state of National Defence’s complaints process, including key areas for improvement and underlying data and processes;
  • Define a vision for an improved complaints process centered around the affected person;
  • Understand the current level of data integration for complaints, including strengths and gaps; and Develop a roadmap to build the solution, including preliminary data, technology and talent requirements.

External Reviews Recommendations - Benchmarking

Key Facts

Background

• Since 2015, National Defence has received more than 500 recommendations and tasks generated from 19 reviews, including those by external comprehensive reviews (15), international allies (3), and National Defence Internal Directives (3).
• This list includes recommendations from:
  • The Third Independent Review (IR3) of the Military Justice System (Fish Report);
  • The Minister’s Advisory Panel on Systemic Racism and Discrimination Final Report;
  • The External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces (Deschamps Report); and
  • Reports from Parliamentary committees.
• Against this backdrop, in summer 2021, CPCC leveraged McKinsey’s benchmarking solution, known as the Organizational Health Index and Inclusion Assessment (OHI- IA) to track, categorize and analyze over 500 eternal recommendations.
• Of note, McKinsey & Company holds exclusive rights to provide this type of benchmarking through its proprietary survey-based diagnostics. These data sets are based on information obtained from McKinsey's clients using proprietary surveys. There are no authorized resellers.

Conduct and Culture Consultation

Key Facts

Background

• From October 2021 to March 2022, CPCC senior leadership launched the Defence Team Conduct and Culture Consultation to listen and learn from the experiences and expertise of those within our institutional culture.

• CPCC engaged McKinsey to support this effort as an external contract partner with experts in the fields of diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as in organizational transformation initiatives.
• McKinsey’s external expertise helped ensure that National Defence modeled its approach to consultation on best practices, and that it collected information that could be used to conduct a meaningful and insightful analysis.
• McKinsey designed the consultation to capture a broad diversity of perspectives, across all regions, force elements, occupations, ranks, and across key demographics and equity-seeking groups.

Listening and learning from our people

• Over the course of six months, CPCC's leadership team and experts from McKinsey offered hundreds of sessions in a variety of formats—from town halls to small discussion groups.
• These extensive consultations helped foster the credibility of the newly formed CPCC function with the broader Defence Team.
• The culture change evolution process will enable CPCC to provide informed and coordinated guidance and tools directly to L1 organizations and empower them to carry out culture change in their respective areas.

Key statistics: Defence Team Conduct and Culture Consultation:

• Engaged with over 9,000 Defence Team members;
• Conducted over 280 engagements, including listening sessions, small group discussions, and town halls involving over 430 hours of engagement;
• Held 53 cultural dialogues, including with persons with lived experience, veterans, and equity seeking groups across the Defence Team; and
• Conducted 46 targeted interviews with senior leadership, survivors of sexual misconduct, and with representatives from equity-seeking groups.

Integrated Complaint Management Solution (4-week initial contract)

Key Facts

Background

• Shortly following its stand-up, CPCC launched an important line of effort to transform the Defence complaints system which had, and continues to be, an area of focus for Defence leadership, external reviews, and those most affected.
• The National Defence complaints process faces many challenges. This includes the fact that the burden of the complaints process falls on affected members, forcing them to drive their own file through the complainant system. Further, the siloed processes and lack of centralized data results in complaints having to be logged into multiple systems at the expense of the affected member.
• Leveraging the Analytics Quotient benchmarking assessment already completed (see Complaints Process Transformation - Benchmarking), CPCC sought to develop the internal capabilities of its team to develop a best-in-class integrated early prototype for the complaints process.
• Potential scope for this integrated complaints platform (a Minimum Viable Product) was: a single team of civilians to provide support and receive reports of incidents confidentially, separate from the complaints process; supported by a new, single digital channel for any CAF member to report an incident, regardless of complaint type.
• Experts from McKinsey were requested to provide targeted assistance in order to:
  • Assist in defining a best-in-class MVP for the complaints process;
  • Set-up and train a CPCC-led cross-functional team in best practices on how to plan, design, and implement an MVP using an agile operating model; and,
  • Provide replicable playbook.
• At the same time, CPCC was carrying out other important initiatives, including its culture consultation process, the results of which would prove integral to the development of a complaints platform/solution.

• Thus, work under this contract was paused in order to conduct further research and analysis, including based on the feedback garnered by the culture consultation process, as well as to give CPCC time to better align scope and timelines with its team’s capability.

Integrated Complaints Management Solution (10-week follow-on contract)

Key Facts

Background

• The National Defence complaints process faces many challenges. This includes the fact that the burden of the complaints process falls on affected members, forcing them to drive their own file through the complainant system. Further, the siloed processes and lack of centralized data results in complaints having to be logged into multiple systems at the expense of the affected member.
• Leveraging the Analytics Quotient benchmarking assessment already completed (see Complaints Process Transformation - Benchmarking), CPCC sought to develop the internal capabilities of its team to develop a best-in-class early prototype related to the complaints process.
• Work between CPCC and McKinsey on this initiative began in November 2021 but was paused in order to conduct further research and analysis, including based on the feedback garnered by the culture consultation process as well as to give CPCC time to better align scope and timelines with its team’s capability.
• Once the new call-up was in place, the CPCC team undertook a number of research and engagement initiatives, including with 19 affected persons (civilian and military) through 16 trauma-informed discussions led by McKinsey.
• They further learned from five best-in-class contact centre organizations which helped to inform the designing of the complaints process (i.e. importance of making available multiple formats such as call/text applications, as well as the need to quickly connect with counsellors).
• Ultimately, CPCC decided not to pursue the pilot platform CPCC on the basis that piloting a prototype dealing with the disclosure of any misconduct in a single digital platform supported by a single team was too early and too complex; and that instead the requirements would be adjusted and folded in the integrated complaints system.
• However, the outputs and learning outcomes generated from this contract enabled CPCC to better understand data sharing challenges and allowed them to adjust the overall mandate of the Complaints Process Transformation towards CPCC-centric data assets, complaints processes and service delivery modalities.
• Indeed, the CPCC team was trained in such a way that it could translate all the deep research from this task into high-level mandatory requirements for a new complaints system.

Complaints Process Transformation Technology 360 Benchmarking

Key Facts

Background

• This contract was the last in a series of work between CPCC and McKinsey to support the ongoing transformation of the complaints process across National Defence.
• The first three contracts with McKinsey in this series focused on initial analysis of the problem-set (see Complaints Process Transformation - Benchmarking) and on developing early prototypes (see Integrated Complaint Management Solution (Initial 4-week contract), Integrated Complaint Management Solution (Follow-on 10-week contract)).
• This last contract was geared towards further developing internal CPCC capabilities so that it could draft business requirements for Assistant Deputy Minister (Information Management). [Note: ADM(IM) is charged with developing an updated integrated complaints platform, which is expected to roll out in the next 12 – 18 months].
• Under this call-up, McKinsey experts worked with CPCC to ensure that the proposed business requirements reflected coherency of effort across all CPCC business lines, which included:
  • Ensuring that a future integrated complaints platform aligned with CPCC’s core objectives to proactively reduce / prevent harm, provide a better complaints experience for individuals, increased visibility and ease of reporting for decision-makers.
  • Creating an integrated map and architecture diagram of 20+ existing systems and data assets used currently across all complaints processes, identifying key gaps in data architecture.
  • Developing a ~18 months integrated transformation roadmap with core lines of effort, key activities, and milestones to deliver a re-imagined complaints experience.
  • Defining six distinct functions to support the future-state complaints process with the aim to clarify the interactions between people and functions within the same organization: support, process guidance, conflict management, investigation, complaints administration, and continuous improvement.
  • Integrating, immediately, an anti-racist approach into Complaints Process Transformation and developing specific design components as execution launches.
  • Grouping approximately 200 high-level business requirements into 19 technology products prioritized by value and feasibility to be implemented by the Information Group on an opportunity basis using an agile methodology.

Operating Model Benchmarking

Key Facts

Background

• Given that CPCC is unique and a first of its kind organization among like-minded allies, there are no current military models or blueprints to which it can compare its structure and processes in order to measure institutional progress.
• As such, two years after its establishment, the CPCC leveraged McKinsey’s private sector expertise to conduct an Operating Model review and Organizational Health benchmark with a view to improving CPCC’s performance and effectiveness.

Progress

• To date, McKinsey & Company has completed a robust set of consultations to understand the strength of as well as areas for improvement within CPCC’s operating model.
• More specifically, experts from McKinsey undertook the following activities to build their recommendations:
  • CPCC leadership interviews: completed 25 structured leadership interviews reaching over 40 leaders across the organization in order to understand the perspectives from leaders across the group;
  • CPCC member focus groups: completed 11 two-way focus group dialogues reaching over 75 CPCC members who shared perspectives in order to engage a meaningful sample of members across levels (e.g., Military, Civilian)
  • Documents review: reviewed approximately 150 internal background documents in order to understand CPCC’s organizational context and establish baseline operating model parameters.
• Stemming from these engagements, McKinsey has provided CPCC a baseline of its operating model, including identifying the organization’s strengths and areas that require further refinement, as well as a “top 10” of the most important practices for leadership to focus on in the near-term.