4.2 Target Operating Model (TOM)

4.2 Target Operating Model (TOM)

[!NOTE] Core Architectural Tool: In MSP 5th edition, the Target Operating Model (TOM) replaces the legacy 4th edition concept of the Blueprint. The TOM is a multidimensional model that defines how the organization will operate once the programme's outcomes have been embedded into Business as Usual (BAU).

If the Vision Statement provides the motivating narrative of the "better future," the Target Operating Model (TOM) provides the comprehensive architectural engineering that makes that future achievable. The TOM articulates how the enterprise's various operational components—its people, workflows, organizational structures, technology platforms, data assets, and learning mechanisms—will integrate to deliver business value and realize projected strategic benefits.

Without an explicit operating model, transformational programmes become disjointed collections of independent technical initiatives. Projects deliver disparate software applications, facilities, and organizational charts that fail to interoperate smoothly, creating operational friction and disillusionment across front-line operations.

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The Evolution from 4th Edition Blueprint to Target Operating Model (TOM)

In MSP 4th edition, the core design artifact was known as the Blueprint, which was structured around the POTI model:

• P - Processes
• O - Organization
• T - Technology
• I - Information

While POTI was a valuable diagnostic tool, practical application in modern corporate environments revealed critical limitations. In particular, the traditional Blueprint often neglected corporate culture, behavioral change, workforce reskilling, and tacit knowledge management. Furthermore, the term "blueprint" implied a rigid, immutable architectural drawing, encouraging delivery teams to treat it as an inflexible specification that could not adapt to emergent market dynamics.

To address these limitations, MSP 5th edition formally retired the Blueprint in favor of the Target Operating Model (TOM). The TOM modernizes the framework by expanding from the four POTI categories into seven facets, explicitly separating physical infrastructure from technology and adding culture and knowledge and learning as first-class design dimensions.

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The Seven Facets of the Target Operating Model

The Target Operating Model provides a holistic view of the future organization. On the MSP Foundation examination, candidates must be able to recall all seven facets by name and recognize that a viable operating model requires balanced synchronization across every one of them. Note that MSP treats technology and infrastructure as two distinct facets, and treats culture and organization as two distinct facets — a frequent source of exam distractors that merge them into four or six items:

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|             The Seven Facets of the Target Operating Model              |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  1. Processes            ───> Workflows, customer journeys, SOPs        |
|  2. Culture              ───> Mindsets, values, behaviours, leadership  |
|  3. Organization         ───> Structures, roles, accountabilities       |
|  4. Technology           ───> Applications, platforms, systems, tools   |
|  5. Infrastructure       ───> Buildings, plant, networks, physical estate|
|  6. Information and data ───> Data models, analytics, records, privacy  |
|  7. Knowledge & learning ───> Skills, training, tacit/explicit knowledge|
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

1. Processes

This facet defines the operational workflows, procedures, and service delivery pathways that the organization will execute to deliver products and services to its customers or citizens. It includes:

• End-to-end customer journeys and service interaction points.
• Redesigned standard operating procedures (SOPs) and process taxonomies.
• Business process re-engineering (BPR) to eliminate bottlenecks, waste, and redundant handoffs.
• Operational integration points where automated systems hand off tasks to human operators.

2. Culture

Transformational change fails most frequently due to cultural rejection. This facet addresses the human and behavioral core of the enterprise:

• Cultural mindsets, organizational values, and leadership behaviors required to support the new operating model.
• Workforce competency frameworks, job descriptions, and skills gap analyses.
• Organizational change management strategies, emotional support, and resistance management.
• Employee engagement, motivation, and incentives aligned with desired operational outcomes.

3. Organization

This facet defines how organizational units, teams, and management bodies are structured and held accountable:

• Functional, matrix, or product-based organizational reporting structures.
• Operational governance bodies, management committees, and executive oversight forums.
• Precise roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authorities (often formalized in RACI matrices).
• Delegations of authority, compliance boundaries, and labor union engagement frameworks.

4. Technology

This facet covers the digital systems that execute and enable the redesigned processes:

• Enterprise software platforms, cloud services, microservices, and API integrations.
• Core line-of-business applications (ERP, CRM, case management, clinical systems).
• Automation, robotics software, and machine-learning services embedded in operations.
• System interoperability standards, cyber-security controls, and technical scalability.

5. Infrastructure

MSP keeps infrastructure separate from technology because transformational change routinely fails on physical constraints that no software can solve. This facet covers:

• Buildings, depots, warehouses, laboratories, clinics, and workplace environments.
• Plant, machinery, vehicle fleets, and operational equipment.
• Network connectivity, data-centre estate, power, and telemetry hardware.
• Physical security, resilience, and environmental/sustainability requirements.

6. Information and Data

In the digital economy, information is a primary strategic asset. This facet governs the flow, integrity, and analytical exploitation of enterprise data:

• Enterprise data architecture, master data management, and data taxonomies.
• Real-time telemetry, operational reporting dashboards, and predictive analytics capabilities.
• Data governance standards, data lifecycle policies, and metadata schemas.
• Regulatory compliance frameworks for data privacy and security (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS).

7. Knowledge and Learning

Organizations must not only deploy new processes; they must continuously learn, retain institutional capability, and adapt. This facet encompasses:

• Strategies for converting transient project learning and tacit employee knowledge into durable, explicit organizational assets.
• Training academies, simulation labs, onboarding curriculums, and micro-learning platforms.
• Communities of practice and peer-to-peer mentoring networks.
• Operational feedback loops and continuous improvement mechanisms (e.g., Kaizen, post-incident reviews).

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Temporal Evolution: As-Is (Current), Intermediate States, and To-Be (Target)

A critical conceptual strength of the Target Operating Model in MSP is its temporal dimension. An enterprise cannot leap directly from its current operational reality into an ambitious future state in a single overnight transition. Doing so creates severe operational shock, risks catastrophic service failure, and overwhelms the organization's capacity to absorb change.

To mitigate this risk, MSP structures the transformation across three distinct temporal states:

[ Current State (As-Is) ]
           │
           ▼
    (Tranche 1 Delivery)
           │
           ▼
[ Intermediate State 1 ] ───> New digital intake live; legacy back-office retained
           │                  Early benefits realized; operational disruption stabilized
           ▼
    (Tranche 2 Delivery)
           │
           ▼
[ Intermediate State 2 ] ───> Automated workflow engine operational; staff reskilled
           │                  Additional benefits harvested; data pipelines integrated
           ▼
    (Tranche 3 Delivery)
           │
           ▼
[ Target State (To-Be) ]  ───> Full Target Operating Model embedded in BAU
                              End-to-end automation; maximum strategic benefits realized

The Anatomy of the Three Temporal States

1. Current State (As-Is): A comprehensive, objective baseline documenting how the organization operates today across all seven facets. Establishing an accurate current-state baseline is essential; without it, delivery teams cannot quantify operational gaps or measure subsequent performance improvements.
2. Intermediate States (Tranche Stepping Stones): Practical, stable operational models established at the conclusion of each delivery tranche. At an intermediate state, newly delivered capabilities are integrated into BAU, existing processes are partially modified, and staff begin working with interim tools. Intermediate states allow the business to harvest early benefits, stabilize working practices, and validate design assumptions before embarking on the next wave of investment.
3. Target State (To-Be): The ultimate operational configuration envisioned by the programme, fully realizing the commitments articulated in the Vision Statement and optimizing performance across all seven facets.

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Documenting Current State, Future State, and the Gap

MSP requires the target operating model to record three things explicitly, and the exam tests all three together:

1. The current state — how the organization operates today, described across the same seven facets, evidenced rather than assumed.
2. The future state — how it will operate once the programme's outcomes are embedded.
3. The gap — the difference between them, facet by facet.

The gap analysis is the bridge between design and delivery: it is what converts an aspirational future state into a defined set of things that must change. Every project and every other piece of work in the delivery plan should be traceable to a gap; conversely, a gap with no work assigned to it is the reason programmes reach their final tranche and discover that a capability was never commissioned.

Documenting the current state is the step most often skipped, and skipping it has two consequences: the size of the change is underestimated, and there is no baseline against which benefits can later be measured.

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Maintaining and Evolving the TOM During Programme Execution

A common misconception is that the TOM is written once during the Design the Outcomes process and archived in a document repository. In MSP 5th edition, the TOM is an active, evolving governance baseline.

The Dynamics of Progressive Elaboration

Programmes operate over multi-year horizons characterized by high ambiguity, technological obsolescence, competitive maneuvers, and shifting government legislation. Consequently, while the high-level TOM architecture is established early, its detailed specifications are progressively elaborated tranche by tranche:

• Near-term tranches: Modeled with high precision, detailed process flows, specific staffing levels, and fully defined data schemas.
• Far-term tranches: Maintained as high-level architectural concepts that are refined as empirical data and operational feedback emerge from earlier tranches.

Governance and Change Control of the TOM

Whenever external events (e.g., a new data privacy statute) or internal learnings (e.g., higher-than-expected user resistance to self-service portals) necessitate a change to the operating model, that modification must be managed under formal configuration control:

1. The Lead Enterprise Architect and Business Change Managers perform a cross-facet impact assessment.
2. The Programme Manager evaluates the schedule, cost, and inter-project dependency impacts.
3. The Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) approves the updated TOM baseline, ensuring it remains faithful to the Vision Statement and Business Case.

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Escaping the 'IT Architecture Trap'

Perhaps the single most dangerous failure mode in modern programme management is the "IT Architecture Trap"—mistaking a technical systems blueprint for an organizational Target Operating Model.

How the Trap Occurs

When executive leadership sponsors a transformation, they often delegate operating model design to external technology consultants, systems integrators, or IT enterprise architects. Unsurprisingly, these technical specialists produce deliverables focused primarily on what they know: server sizing, cloud infrastructure, database entity relationship diagrams, and software microservices.

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                        The IT Architecture Trap                         |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION (IT Only)  ≠  TARGET OPERATING MODEL (MSP)     |
|  • Cloud microservices topology        • Redesigned customer journeys    |
|  • Enterprise service bus interfaces    • Shifted cultural mindset        |
|  • Database relational schemas         • New organizational governance   |
|  • Cyber-security firewalls            • Competency training & upskilling|
|                                        • Data ownership & ethics         |
|                                        • Continuous learning mechanisms  |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

The Fatal Consequences of the Trap

Deploying advanced technology into an organization that has not transformed its people, culture, processes, and governance yields zero sustainable benefits:

• Staff do not understand how to use the new system and create unofficial manual shadow processes (e.g., maintaining offline Excel spreadsheets).
• Organizational reporting lines remain siloed, preventing cross-functional collaboration.
• Managers lack the governance mechanisms or data insights required to make informed decisions.
• The programme declares technical "success" upon software rollout, but operational performance declines and customer satisfaction collapses.

In MSP 5th edition, technology and infrastructure are only two of the seven facets. A true Target Operating Model is inherently a socio-technical model, balancing technical capability with human, procedural, and cultural transformation.

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Real-World Scenario: National Court and Justice System Modernization

To see the multidimensional power of the TOM in practice, examine the HM Modern Justice Programme, a £380M government transformation replacing paper-based criminal casework with an integrated digital courts system:

• Processes Facet: Re-engineered 140 fragmented court filing workflows into an automated end-to-end digital casework flow, eliminating physical paper dossier courier runs between police stations, prosecutors, and magistrates.
• People and Culture Facet: Addressed deep-seated cultural skepticism among senior judges and court clerks. Deployed judicial change champions, ran courtroom simulation days, and introduced trauma-informed digital interface training for victim support personnel.
• Organization and Governance Facet: Restructured 8 regional court administrations into a centralized Courts Service Operations Command with standardized RACI decision rights for bail scheduling.
• Technology and Infrastructure Facet: Deployed cloud-based digital evidence presentation screens in 450 courtrooms, secure magistrate tablet hardware, and high-bandwidth fiber optic links between prisons and trial centers.
• Information and Data Facet: Standardized criminal record metadata across police databases, prosecutors, and court registries, ensuring real-time digital sentencing transmission.
• Knowledge and Learning Facet: Established an online Judicial Learning Hub, standard operating practice wikis, and weekly peer retrospectives to capture courtroom operational feedback.
• Intermediate States Across Tranches: Tranche 1 established an intermediate state where digital filings were tested exclusively in civil bail hearings while criminal courts operated under a hybrid model. This allowed court administrators to resolve digital evidence upload errors before rolling the model out to complex criminal jury trials in Tranche 2.

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Exam Tips & Common Traps

[!TIP] Seven Facets of the TOM: Memorize all seven facets in MSP 5th edition: processes, culture, organization, technology, infrastructure, information and data, and knowledge and learning. Two classic distractors are (a) the four POTI headings from the 4th edition Blueprint, and (b) a six-item list that merges technology with infrastructure or culture with organization.

[!CAUTION] Common Exam Trap — Blueprint vs. TOM: The term "Blueprint" is legacy terminology from MSP 4th edition (which used the POTI model). On the MSP 5th edition exam, the correct term is Target Operating Model (TOM).

[!WARNING] Common Exam Trap — The Static Specification Fallacy: Exam distractors often suggest that the TOM is finalized during programme identification and locked down without modification. In MSP, the TOM is an evolving, adaptive model that undergoes progressive elaboration and is formally reviewed at each tranche boundary.