The challenges of strategy delivery

(...and how to improve it)

Deepteam and our partners and associates invite you to participate in our spring and summer event programme around the subject of Strategy Delivery.

The goal of the programme is to help organisations improve strategy delivery, strengthening capabilities for the longer term.

We want to help organisations realise that strategy delivery is not something that can be improved from just one busienss area, through one particular perspective, or in one simple step.

At several previous events with organisations like the IASP, PMI, APM, APMG, Core P3M Data Club and Good Governance Academy, we have we uncovered many topics that people were concerned with. Some key concerns included:

Do we have the right strategy?
Can we improve the connection between strategy formulation and delivery?
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?

What became apparent was that in many cases, that people perceive strategy as about change, and that a "strategic programme" was the answer - even though much of strategic attainment comes out of busienss as usual performance. The containment of strategy in such a box means it has to be 'fitted in' as opposed to being a natural part of busienss.

It also became apparent that each stakeholder group involved in strategy would often focus on improving how it perceived the problems to be. Each would focus on its own conclusion of 'solutions'. We would see engineering management solutions for product developers, KPI platforms for Sales, PPM systems for "project delivery", finance solutions to enable accounting / purchases / invoicing etc. Nothing for strategy delivery.

It is easy to understand therefore, why organisations see strategy delivery as difficult!

It is hard to develop and manage strategic planning and management processes across such a mish-mash
With no common communication or planning processes, implementation of strategy with roadmaps, priorities, busienss performance, programmes and projects can become a disconnected squabble
Without clarity of responsibilities and accountabilities, risks and their management means governance would become not much more than a periodic attempt at compliance management
Information would become an industry based on Excel and PowerPoint, "Strategic alignment" had become metadata

We have therefore started the "Challenges of Strategy Delivery" programme to help organisations:

1. Engage in the process of strategy delivery improvement - using principles as a constant key reference

2. Understand how their own ecosystems currently support strategy delivery, to track down and align strategic information

3. See how to address the situation rather than continue to ignore it

4. Position ourselves, Partners and Associates as agitators and assistants for stand-alone and integrated solutions

5. Have the bravery / confidence to start the improvement journey

What does the programme consist of?

Launch with ‘White Paper’ - "The challenges of strategy delivery – and how to improve it"

what organisations have told us about their problems with strategy delivery
the different aspects involved (e.g. strategic management, implementation, governance, information) – illustrating with examples that relate to the specific areas of expertise within the collaboration
BIG Principles
each organisation is different, and has its own context and areas to improve
how to make a start (develop a shared understanding of this, and get the collective commitment to tackle it

Initial event: the challenges of strategy delivery - "Strategy delivery – where does it all go wrong?"

key messages: there are many aspects to the effective delivery of strategy, each organisation is different and will have its own context and areas to focus on first. Getting a clear shared understanding of this, and the commitment to tackle it, are how you start
essential to communicate: BIG Principles statement; Events programme
panel discussion; participant (booked/live) invited to state their strategy delivery problems / areas for improvement (simple questionnaire)

Then events covering the various aspects of strategy delivery:

Strategic management
Implementation
Governance
Information

A programme is being created - There are initial ideas for events, with a backlog of events to take shape. All will be problems-led topics.

#2 - "Strategy Delivery – who really cares?"

We all talk a good game on strategy delivery – we sit up straight when it gets discussed. But if strategy delivery success rates are as low as reputed to be – does anyone actually really care about strategy delivery? Or - are we each just focused on our specific areas and our operational targets?

#3 - "Accountability - Impossible without prioritisation?"

Our view is that without accountability - it is impossible to deliver strategic outcomes - as strategic outcomes don't always align perfectly with departmental or personal targets. No accountability / poor management of accountability = things not done. It is that simple. We can't expect to achieve accountability of we don't empower people. Key to empowerment = realistic prioritisation.

#4 - "The Backbone for Strategy Delivery"

Organisations often explain their strategy to shareholders through documents, PowerPoint and beautifully designed materials shared on their websites. However - can you show how your strategic intent has been turned into actions that directors, managers and colleagues can track? Can you see your objectives mixed with expected key results to be tracked by enabling workstreams and projects? Many can't....

#5 - "Improving Strategy Delivery – you have to think BIG"

Many of us are serious about the development of strategy - but less are quite so serious about making it happen. It is almost as if some of us expect outcomes to happen just by magic. Well the reality is it won't happen by magic - and - evidentially it isn't happening by magic - so we need some Honest Engineering - specifically around getting our accountabilities managed.

The Spring programme will be finished off with a recorded interview with lovely people from the Good Governance Academy - to make the connection between the challenges of strategy delivery and good corporate governance.

Many people see strategy delivery as what is handed to general managers and project managers to crack on and do. But the reality is - it can't sit in a vacuum, and success / failure depends on the tone from the top (to set attitudes correctly) and organisation culture (the real way we do things around here). Good corporate governance is integral!

...more to follow - please see our events page for background and placeholder ideas and to suggest events.

Conference

Our intent is to finish the programme with an in person conference. This would:

present the programme sessions in a more discursive forum
enable attendees to network with people having the same issues
allow attendees to access the programme partners and associates

Who will benefit from engaging in the programme?

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

Programme Leadership