Improving strategy implementation:

(Where to start?)

Strategy implementation is difficult: we know this from research and personal experience! We also know that environmental factors are constantly changing, that business performance goes up and down, regulation hits us, changes are more or less effective than we expect, and people are not 100% predictable.

At our participative event in March, "Your strategic wish is my delivery command", we uncovered a whole range of topics that people were concerned with. Some key concerns included:

Do we have the right strategy? Are we really on top of the opportunities, threats, imperatives and goals our business faces, and are the objectives targets and challenges we are working on still valid?
Can we improve the connection between strategy formulation and making it happen? How can we improve the process?
Are we communicating, and continuing to communicate expectations?
Are we taking into account ability to lead and deliver change in the business context?
Do we have the right balance between business as usual, value generation and change activity?
Do we have the operating model, support and information ecosystem to control and balance workloads? Or are we treating strategy as a short-term programme?

Link to the YouTube content (5 minute chunks) here. We ran another session with the APMG and the Good Governance Academy where our focus was more on Integrated Governance as a means to deliver performance and strategy delivery. The Event report for that one is here.

It seems that in the past strategy delivery has been a one-off task. A burst of excitement means initial successes until the energy level wears off. We may have seen serial build and decommission of transformation programmes – with very little delivery learning or strategic infrastructure build each time.

But isn't it more realistic to have strategy delivery as an ongoing task? We can manage that change and balance it with our business as usual? Or it might be that directors are focused on their own business areas, and Board conversations struggle to consider the challenges of ongoing holistic strategy delivery except for in short bursts?

How do we break this cycle and treat strategy delivery as a part of business as usual?

How do we gain the commitment to improve, and overcome perceptions that focusing on governance hinders driving the business entrepreneurially? How do we overcome the inertia which stops our organisation from embarking on the journey to improve strategy formulation and delivery?

The challenge is making the first step: getting acceptance from the business that there is a need to improve, and the engagement to make this happen.

In this workshop David Dunning and David Booth will lead the discussion of these challenges, and how to make that crucial first step.

The agenda will include:

The challenges of strategy implementation: problems and perspectives
Identifying the issues: developing the framework
Addressing the issues: an approach for improvement
Making a start: engagement and commitment

The workshop is participative, with open discussion (participants are asked to respect the confidentiality of others’ situations). The aim is to help participants develop an approach for how they could help their organisation improve its strategy implementation, and a plan for the first step.

Who will benefit from attending - Senior managers / Executives who:

see an opportunity to improve their organisation’s effective implementation of strategy
are struggling to engage the organisation and get issues recognised and proposals for change on the table
are finding the inertia against change too daunting at present

The session is co-hosted by:

David Dunning and David Booth

DAVID DUNNING

Deepteam

Chairman of the Board and CEO

Lead author on Business Integrated Governance

BSI G1 Governance Committee Member

DAVID BOOTH

Strategy Journeys

Strategist, published author of

"Strategy Journeys – a guide to effective strategic planning"

Fellow of the Strategic Planning Society

In preparing to engage on this workshop we have provided a series of articles and blogs which signpost the topics we cover. These include:

Strategy pains - where are we failing? - A high-level review of key areas from previous webinars

Strategy gains - Part 1 - video discussion between David Dunning and David Booth about the conclusions from our strategy pains. Part 2 - concepts for greater progress. - Explaining some of the concepts and approaches that can help improve strategy delivery.

Strategy formulation - build for manufacture. - It’s not just strategy formulation, then expecting delivery! Strategic management, organisational eco-system and integrated governance need to work together to enable an organisation to develop its strategy for effective delivery

Strategy improvement - dual pathways. Maps out the journey to improve strategy implementation in an organisation, addressing organisational ecosystem, strategic management, integrated governance and information flows/systems

Strategy improvement - setting and getting out of the blocks. The culmination of our previous posts – but a specific discussion of how to get on a change agenda. This is the critical first step which so many potential sponsors struggle to get right

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