~ Peter Hill CBE, Group Chairman, Keller Group — as quoted in the Keller Group Annual Report and Accounts 2023
Keller is the world’s largest geotechnical specialist contractor. The organization, which is part of the FTSE 250 index, helps build schools, hospitals, football stadiums, metro tunnels, and more.
Keller has more than doubled in size in the past decade, with 10,000 employees across 40 countries and 19 business units.
As the group grew and became more complex, so did its board pack. This complexity made it increasingly difficult for board and committee members to understand the drivers of performance and add value.
Our meeting papers weren’t articulating the challenges and opportunities in the best way, or really answering the questions that our directors were asking. We needed help to make things crisper and clearer, so the board could work more effectively.
~ Kerry Porritt, Chief Sustainability Officer and Company Secretary, Keller Group
With the group still growing, this had to be addressed. Board and committee members needed papers that could simplify the complexity, provide a holistic understanding of performance, and promote more strategic discussions.
The governance team also recognized that writing board and management papers was far too time-consuming for managers, and the output was ineffective. There was a significant opportunity to free up valuable time for more efficient work.
When we worked out how many hours we were spending writing and editing papers every year, it was shocking. It was then a no brainer that we needed to do something radically different.
~ Kerry Porritt, Chief Sustainability Officer and Company Secretary, Keller Group
After making several attempts to address the issue internally, the governance team wanted to try a new approach.
Over the years we have tried to improve the quality of our board papers, but there’s only so far you can go with an internal exercise.
~ Kerry Porritt, Chief Sustainability Officer and Company Secretary, Keller Group
Eager to deliver lasting change with a growing and geographically dispersed community of report writers, the group chose to implement Board Intelligence’s management reporting platform, Lucia.
Lucia uses the power of technology and AI to apply the Question-Driven Insight (QDI) Principle to reporting. This methodology upskills management to deliver clear, concise, and compelling papers that are rich in insight and focused on what matters.
Lucia and the QDI Principle have been rolled out to Keller’s senior management team and their direct reports.
Now, when writing a report, they can benefit from Lucia. With its AI-powered nudges and prompts, it helps them describe a holistic and balanced picture of performance that delivers forward-looking insights and answers the questions that are most pertinent to the board and executive committee.
It’s brilliant to have a tool that gives you consistent reminders, that pops out a best practice template and a set of questions based on the kind of paper you want to write.
~ Kerry Porritt, Chief Sustainability Officer and Company Secretary, Keller Group
Lucia has helped report writers produce shorter papers with more impact, enabling the board to have more focused and strategic conversations.
It’s also improving communication throughout the group, enabling a more effective flow of information and guiding quicker, more robust decisions.
Lucia has also helped the board clarify what matters most to them, with a clearer view of the data they need, why they need it, and what questions it’s helping them answer.
When people use Lucia to write their board papers, it impacts the reports they’re writing elsewhere too — for their boss, team, customer, the regulator. It’s an opportunity for everyone to upskill in how they write and communicate.
~ Kerry Porritt, Chief Sustainability Officer and Company Secretary, Keller Group
