Key takeaways:
- HR and IT program, product, and policy owners use the PRFAQ Framework to think critically about their initiatives, articulate the story clearly, and inspire action.
- HR and IT managers and leads write their PRFAQ to create a better alignment and as the strategic basis for their new program, product, or policy.
- The PRFAQ is the best tool to develop a better vision and strategy for their initiatives, leading to fewer meetings, setbacks, and misalignment.
The PRFAQ Framework is an incredible tool for IT and HR Leaders considering new or revised programs, products, and policies. It works remarkably well to consider the facets of an initiative. The framework involves the stakeholders in the definition and decision making. It avoids a committee-driven mindset and corporate politics.
Serving employees is hard. IT, HR, and other internal teams must operate on behalf of the business, controlling for risk, and managing pressure to cut down cost. Internal teams have a mandate to provide employees with the right tools and environment for them to build and sell products and services to the company’s customer.
HR teams live in a world of constant change and they have to be on top of changing regulation across countries, states, and cities. They are constantly adapting to market dynamics and the demands of executives and employees. HR teams don’t have a tech team resorting to a bench of vendors to help them in their operations. Proposing new policies, programs, or products goes through countless rounds of “what-ifs” and executive overrides. It leaves the team feeling disempowered, disengaged, and burned out.
IT teams have to deal with a full stack of trade-offs between making things easier for employees and creating more vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit. They have to consider the hardware and software needs of the company, where they are measured by the expense line, with the productivity of the organization, where the IT team rarely receives credit for. When IT leaders announce new policies and programs, they encounter contempt from employees, or “arbitrary” overrides from executives. It becomes an organization being pulled and pushed by all sides, feeling like they are taking orders and not doing what they were hired to do.
PRFAQs is a perfect tool for IT and HR leaders. It provides the right setting to discover, discuss, and decide on new policies, programs, and products. The framework allows internal teams to capture regulatory, compliance, and risk in a structured way, so decision makers fully understand the cost of not doing or postponing the initiative. It creates the space to discover the concerns and needs of multiple stakeholders. By treating employees as customers, it enforces a mindset of customer discovery often missing on these teams. Even when new policies, programs, or products are rejected by executives, the team will feel they did a fair job at presenting their case, instead of thinking they could’ve done better in their “pitch” or presentation.
Using the PRFAQ framework causes HR, IT, and other internal teams to be more aligned with the organization strategy and with the needs of their customers (employees). It reduces the time to decide on new initiatives or to change existing ones.
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Who’s this for?
Anyone leading or managing initiatives and teams in IT, HR, Facilities, Legal, Finance or other internal teams. These include Chief Information Officer, Chief People Officer, Chief HR Officer, Chief Operation Officer, VP of Information Technology, VP of HR, Directors/Managers of IT or HR, IT Leads, HR Business Manager, Director/Lead of Recruiting, Global Travel Leaders, Facilities Manager, Operations Manager, General Counsel, Finance Managers, etc.
What makes a PRFAQ great for HR and IT?
Leaders in HR and IT spend less time persuading executives about the importance and impact of the new programs, policies, or products or changes to existing ones. More people will be involved in designing the initiatives, yet less time and effort will be needed to discover, discuss, and decide.
Who are the collaborators for the PRFAQ?
The leader who’s responsible and accountable for the program, policy, or product, their team, peers, manager, and other domain experts within the company. In some cases, vendors or consultants will be involved as well. Given this is an internal project for employees, it’s also possible to create an employee panel to contribute to the PRFAQ.
Who do they share the PRFAQ?
With the team responsible for building and launching the program, policy, or product; the teams who will be supporting the launch/announcement, the executives of the organization (C-level and VP-level).
When is it not appropriate to use a PRFAQ?
PRFAQs don't capture the full scope of a program, policy, or product, only the North Star vision, the mission, and the strategy behind it. PRFAQs are also not great as a reaction to an emergency, such as an IT secure breach, an emergency personnel situation, or anything that requires decisions or actions to go from zero to done in days.
