Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. Japanese proverb.
To prosper in these challenging and turbulent times leaders need more than a great vision. They need a practical strategy for achieving the vision and they need to drive execution of the strategy towards achievement of the vision. Volumes have been written about strategy execution and yet research continues to show the majority of strategies aren’t successfully executed.
Successful strategy execution will be hard work, but by avoiding these seven deadly sins you can increase the likelihood of success:
1. Not having a plan. We’re all familiar with the clique “failure to plan is planning to fail”. Just documenting the plan will significantly increase your probability of success, not planning guarantees you will fail. It doesn’t have to be the perfect plan, almost any plan will do if it defines goals, strategies and the measure of success. Tips: Keep it simple. Make one person responsible for each goal or strategy. Track your progress regularly. Adjust the plan if it’s not working.
2. Ignoring the people side of change. Organisations don’t change, people do and if your people aren’t along for the ride your strategy will fail. Plan for and manage the people side of change proactively from the very beginning. Communicate and over-communicate, people need to understand why change is happening, what the vision of the future looks like, what’s in it for them. Because change is constant you need to be good at managing change. Tips: Don’t hire an Organisation Change Management Consultant to do it for you, instead invest in building OCM capability within your own organisation.
3.Investing in the Wrong Projects. It’s easy to become caught up in the excitement of the latest great idea, but, in a business environment with limited resources you need a way to identify the most valuable projects. Project Portfolio Management (PPM) sounds like just another management buzzword, but in reality it’s a very simple and powerful concept. PPM ensures you are executing the right projects, that projects are strategically aligned and that they will maximise your return on investment. Tips: Keep it simple. Start with a list of all current and proposed projects. Invest in a Project and Portfolio Management Office.
4. Not managing projects. Just as you needed an overall strategic plan you need to plan and manage the individual initiatives that make up your strategy as projects. The advantages of managing initiatives as projects are well documented. Tips: Focus on building PM capability within your organisation based on skilled people, standard but flexible methods and tools that make it easier for PMs to manage.
5. Ignoring collaboration and knowledge management: Achieving the vision requires change and change requires people to learn, to work together in different ways to move beyond their current organisation silos. But all too often the organisation doesn’t know what it knows, people can’t find the information they need quickly and they don’t have the means for working across traditional organisation silos. Developing Collaboration and Knowledge Management capabilities within the organisation helps the organisation change faster, learn faster and become more agile. Tips: Start with a small pilot group. Focus on changing the organisation culture to reward collaborative behaviours. Create simple easy to understand Knowledge management strategies.
6. Not investing in your people: People execute the strategy, people make change happen, people generate business value. If you’re not investing in your people you will fail. A well structured, targeted, Learning and Development (L&D) Program is essential to success. Without it your people can’t develop the new competencies required to make your vision a reality. Tips: Assess what new competencies the organisation will need. Integrate L&D plans throughout the strategy execution. Adopt flexible Learning 2.0 methods to maximise the returns from L&D activities.
7. Not managing value realisation: Your strategies are intended to deliver value, but how do you know if they are? It’s not enough to simply execute the strategy. You need to clearly define how each element of the strategy, each initiative and project, will contribute to value creation and you need to manage execution to ensure this planned value is actually delivered. Without Value Management strategy execution can easily lose focus and fail to follow through to ensure planned value is fully realised by the organisation. Tips: Keep it simple. Document the planned business value for each initiative or project and ensure it clearly links to the overall vision. Define key metrics for each value area. Constantly track progress and adjust plans if value isn’t being realised..
The most successful organisations in the future will be those organisations that can successfully execute strategy, not just once, but time after time in response to rapid changes in their environment. This will require critical capabilities such as strategic planning, value management, organisation change management, project and portfolio management, collaboration, knowledge management and learning. Successful organisations will develop these core capabilities internally and will use external consultants to support capability development rather than strategy execution.
Joan Dobbie is the Owner and Principal Consultant at Beyond Strategy Consulting.
Beyond Strategy Consulting focuses on delivering valuable strategic planning, strategy execution and capability development services that enable small to medium enterprises to achieve their vision.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Ensuring Projects Deliver Business Value
I recently spoke on this topic at the Australian Institute of Project Managers Conference in Queensland in a presentation that highlighted the importance of OCM to projects’ success and the need for Program and Project Managers to understand and apply OCM best practices in their projects.
As individuals we need to adapt to change constantly throughout our lives, from a new barista at our favourite coffee shop, a new tunnel, or a new government, indeed the ability to adapt to change highly regarded trait, demonstrating emotional intelligence. And in today’s fast paced, rapidly changing world so too must organisations develop the capability to successfully change if they are to survive and grow profitably. BUT,
It’s clear from the many studies on this topic that organisations are still struggling to successfully change, in 2008 IBM conducted a study involving 2500 CEOs from organisations worldwide. IBM reported that almost 60% of change management projects fail to achieve their business objectives.
The impact of failed projects is immense, from lost revenue, increased costs, lowered morale and reputational damage. Organisations that fail to change will ultimately fail in the market.
The same IBM study found that organisations that have adopted best practices in Organisational Change Management were up to 10x more successful in implementing change. The top organisations (change masters) had an 80% success rate while the bottom organisations (change novices) 8% success rate. why?
Organisation change is hard because organisations don’t change, people change, and without a compelling reason to change individuals are more likely to resist change than embrace it. Organisation Change Management (OCM), is fundamentally about people. it involves learning new behaviours, influencing people to change their mindset, and encouraging people to give up entrenched ways of working
All successful Project Managers have good people skills and the various PM methods do emphasise the need to manage people change, but they lack real guidance on the methods used to influence and motivate people to change. So, while we’ve become very good at managing the ‘hard’ side of change, using mature PM methodologies and highly skilled project managers, many technically successful projects still do not succeed in delivering the planned business value
We need to become better at managing the people side of change to ensure successful projects deliver of their promised business benefits.
In today’s complex, rapidly changing world simply managing successful programs and projects is no longer enough. The PM profession is at the heart of organisation change and needs to ensure every project is linked to business objectives and delivers the promised benefits. It’s clear that technical PM methods on their own aren’t sufficient to guarantee success and there is a significant body of research that illustrates the vital role of OCM in ensuring business value is realised.
Together OCM and PM are the keys to delivering real, sustainable business value for organisations.
This article is part of a series exploring the essential capabilities all CIOs and IT Organisations need to drive transformation and deliver enduring business value.Joan Dobbie is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Beyond Strategy Consulting. Her company offers a wide range of IT Strategy and Transformation services to IT Organisations of all sizes.
As individuals we need to adapt to change constantly throughout our lives, from a new barista at our favourite coffee shop, a new tunnel, or a new government, indeed the ability to adapt to change highly regarded trait, demonstrating emotional intelligence. And in today’s fast paced, rapidly changing world so too must organisations develop the capability to successfully change if they are to survive and grow profitably. BUT,
It’s clear from the many studies on this topic that organisations are still struggling to successfully change, in 2008 IBM conducted a study involving 2500 CEOs from organisations worldwide. IBM reported that almost 60% of change management projects fail to achieve their business objectives.
The impact of failed projects is immense, from lost revenue, increased costs, lowered morale and reputational damage. Organisations that fail to change will ultimately fail in the market.
The same IBM study found that organisations that have adopted best practices in Organisational Change Management were up to 10x more successful in implementing change. The top organisations (change masters) had an 80% success rate while the bottom organisations (change novices) 8% success rate. why?
Organisation change is hard because organisations don’t change, people change, and without a compelling reason to change individuals are more likely to resist change than embrace it. Organisation Change Management (OCM), is fundamentally about people. it involves learning new behaviours, influencing people to change their mindset, and encouraging people to give up entrenched ways of working
All successful Project Managers have good people skills and the various PM methods do emphasise the need to manage people change, but they lack real guidance on the methods used to influence and motivate people to change. So, while we’ve become very good at managing the ‘hard’ side of change, using mature PM methodologies and highly skilled project managers, many technically successful projects still do not succeed in delivering the planned business value
We need to become better at managing the people side of change to ensure successful projects deliver of their promised business benefits.
In today’s complex, rapidly changing world simply managing successful programs and projects is no longer enough. The PM profession is at the heart of organisation change and needs to ensure every project is linked to business objectives and delivers the promised benefits. It’s clear that technical PM methods on their own aren’t sufficient to guarantee success and there is a significant body of research that illustrates the vital role of OCM in ensuring business value is realised.
Together OCM and PM are the keys to delivering real, sustainable business value for organisations.
This article is part of a series exploring the essential capabilities all CIOs and IT Organisations need to drive transformation and deliver enduring business value.Joan Dobbie is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Beyond Strategy Consulting. Her company offers a wide range of IT Strategy and Transformation services to IT Organisations of all sizes.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Why CIOs need a strategy for executing the IT Strategic Plan
You’ve worked hard to collaborate with the Business and develop an IT Strategy that is aligned with the business goals and will deliver innovation and growth. IT’s goals are aligned with Business goals. The “as-is” and “to-be” enterprise architectures are well defined. There are new technologies to be deployed, legacy systems being replaced, new agile, lean, ITIL aligned processes for IT.
Everyone’s looking to IT to execute the strategy, drive change throughout the organisation and deliver on the promised business value. Does your team have the capabilities required to succeed? Do you know what the critical non-technical capabilities are? And how to develop them?
Typical IT Strategic Plans address the technology changes required to meet the business objectives. Most will consider the technical capabilities IT needs to develop, and the organisation change management required to deploy the new technology to the business units. However, few IT Strategic Plans consider the ability of the IT Organisation to execute the IT Strategic Plan. But, if IT is to drive major change and deliver business value it needs both technical and non-technical capabilities.
To be successful CIOs need a strategic plan for IT that ensures IT develops the key capabilities required to drive significant change. In addition to the technical capabilities required by the IT Strategy and Architecture, the organisation needs five key organisational capabilities to succeed:
CIOs should assess their organisation’s capability in these five key areas and build a Strategic Business Plan for the IT Organisation that incorporates development of these key capabilities.
This article is part of a series exploring the essential capabilities all CIOs and IT Organisations need to drive transformation and deliver enduring business value.
Everyone’s looking to IT to execute the strategy, drive change throughout the organisation and deliver on the promised business value. Does your team have the capabilities required to succeed? Do you know what the critical non-technical capabilities are? And how to develop them?
Typical IT Strategic Plans address the technology changes required to meet the business objectives. Most will consider the technical capabilities IT needs to develop, and the organisation change management required to deploy the new technology to the business units. However, few IT Strategic Plans consider the ability of the IT Organisation to execute the IT Strategic Plan. But, if IT is to drive major change and deliver business value it needs both technical and non-technical capabilities.
To be successful CIOs need a strategic plan for IT that ensures IT develops the key capabilities required to drive significant change. In addition to the technical capabilities required by the IT Strategy and Architecture, the organisation needs five key organisational capabilities to succeed:
- Organisation Change Management capability: enables IT to be champions of change throughout the organisation, to integrate OCM best practices with IT projects and to promote the use of OCM best practices for all strategic change initiatives.
- Portfolio, Program and Project Management capability: ensures that the right programs, aligned with the business strategy, are initiated and successful planned, managed and delivered.
- Value Management capability: ensures the business value of the IT Strategy is agreed by all stakeholders, measured, tracked and managed until the full benefit is realised.
- Collaboration & Knowledge Management capability: provides the skills, process and tools to work collaboratively across the organisation, allowing everyone to find the information they need, when they need it.
- A Learning and Development program that is aligned to the strategic goals will ensure IT has the right people, with the right skills, at the right cost, when they are required.
CIOs should assess their organisation’s capability in these five key areas and build a Strategic Business Plan for the IT Organisation that incorporates development of these key capabilities.
Joan Dobbie is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Beyond Strategy Consulting. Her clients achieve significant improvements in business results by turning visions into actionable strategies, creating the capability to successfully execute and focusing execution on the delivery of sustainable business results.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Why CIOs need to be Organisation Change Leaders
As CIO you are a catalyst for change within your company, but if your team thinks change management is a method of controlling software releases you could be missing the most important capability your organisation needs to be successful.
Your company has aggressive goals, more growth, new products, more branches, lower costs and do it quickly. IT’s role in achieving the company’s goals is vital, without the new systems, streamlined processes and new services, the corporate strategy fails. IT is the driver of change across the company and the CIO is expected to be the champion of that change. At the same time the IT Organisation needs to adapt to these changes, there are new technologies, legacy systems being replaced, new processes and increasing pressure from business partners to do more.
A significant percentage of all IT projects are considered failures by the business post implementation, not because of any technical failures but because of change management issues such as inadequate training, poor processes, poor fit to business needs. Bearing Point, for example, report that up to 70% of change management projects fail due to internal politics and personnel. So, even when you’ve got mature requirements and project management disciplines and can deliver on time on budget, projects will still fail to deliver the expected business value.
Organisation Change Management best practices such as creating a compelling vision of the change, communicating, empowering action, and above all else having the key stakeholders involved in planning for change and owning the outcomes, significantly increase the success of change projects.
If IT is central to the company’s strategy then CIOs need to be champions of change. If IT projects are to become business projects and deliver business value, they need to encompass the business change required to deliver value and must adopt Organisation Change Management best practices.
CIOs need to develop Organisation Change Management capability within their organisation. How ready is your team for the changes to come? How ready is your team to sponsor good change management throughout the organisation? How well do you score on this quick and easy Organisation Change Management Capability Assessment.
This article is part of a series exploring the essential capabilities all CIOs and IT Organisations need to drive transformation and deliver enduring business value.
Joan Dobbie is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Beyond Strategy Consulting. Her company offers a wide range of IT Strategy and Transformation services to IT Organisations of all sizes.
Your company has aggressive goals, more growth, new products, more branches, lower costs and do it quickly. IT’s role in achieving the company’s goals is vital, without the new systems, streamlined processes and new services, the corporate strategy fails. IT is the driver of change across the company and the CIO is expected to be the champion of that change. At the same time the IT Organisation needs to adapt to these changes, there are new technologies, legacy systems being replaced, new processes and increasing pressure from business partners to do more.
A significant percentage of all IT projects are considered failures by the business post implementation, not because of any technical failures but because of change management issues such as inadequate training, poor processes, poor fit to business needs. Bearing Point, for example, report that up to 70% of change management projects fail due to internal politics and personnel. So, even when you’ve got mature requirements and project management disciplines and can deliver on time on budget, projects will still fail to deliver the expected business value.
Organisation Change Management best practices such as creating a compelling vision of the change, communicating, empowering action, and above all else having the key stakeholders involved in planning for change and owning the outcomes, significantly increase the success of change projects.
If IT is central to the company’s strategy then CIOs need to be champions of change. If IT projects are to become business projects and deliver business value, they need to encompass the business change required to deliver value and must adopt Organisation Change Management best practices.
CIOs need to develop Organisation Change Management capability within their organisation. How ready is your team for the changes to come? How ready is your team to sponsor good change management throughout the organisation? How well do you score on this quick and easy Organisation Change Management Capability Assessment.
This article is part of a series exploring the essential capabilities all CIOs and IT Organisations need to drive transformation and deliver enduring business value.
Joan Dobbie is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Beyond Strategy Consulting. Her company offers a wide range of IT Strategy and Transformation services to IT Organisations of all sizes.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Succeeding in a turbulent, uncertain world
Six key capabilities every CIO should develop
“Change is the New Normal” - it’s a cliché, but it also reflects the reality for CIOs today. Globalisation, cloud computing, the GFC, skills shortages, compliance, social networking; climate change, green IT, “everything as a service” – it’s a turbulent, endlessly changing and increasingly complex world, and CIOs are at the heart of it. No longer is IT the provider of support services, a cost centre, a follower rather than a leader. Today IT is the driver of innovation, strategic change and value generation.
To meet the demands of the new normal, CIOs and IT Organisations need to develop new capabilities, that enable IT to become successful drivers of strategic change across the organisation.
Value Management: Delivering the expected business value from a program requires far more than the successful delivery of the program. Early stakeholder buy-in to the planned benefits, how they will be measured and how they will be realised is required. Program and project benefits need to be clearly linked to planned business benefits and tracked through the completion of the program. Finally, since benefit realisation usually extends well past the end of the program, ongoing tracking and reporting of benefits is required. Above all else IT must develop the necessary business skills to clearly articulate the value IT delivers.
Portfolio Management: If Program and Project management are about doing things right, then Portfolio Management is about doing the right things. Portfolio Management ensures that programs and projects are aligned to the strategic objectives and have clearly defined benefits.
Organisation Change Management: Upwards of 70% of change management projects fail to achieve stated business objectives due to “internal politics” and “people” issues according to Bearing Point. It is no longer acceptable to deliver successful technology projects, instead business change projects, using organisation change management best practices, should incorporate the required technology change.
Learning & Development: Research shows that high performing organisations, globally, take a strategic approach to talent management and build a learning culture. Establishing a strategic Learning and Development program, that is aligned with the organisations vision, strategies and goals, will ensure the right people with the right skills are available at the right time. Managing Learning & Development strategically is proven to deliver increased value to the business more efficiently.
Collaboration & Knowledge Management: Information overload and rapid constant change make it difficult for today’s knowledge workers to find the information they need. Knowledge Management and Collaboration strategies provide users with the tools they need to work collaboratively across the organisation, and to find the information they need, when they need it.
Strategic Business Planning: IT Strategic Plans generally address the technology changes required to meet the business objectives. Some, will also address the organisation change management required to deploy the new technology to the business. Very rarely does the IT Strategic Plan address the significant change the IT Organisation must also undergo.
To be successful drivers of strategic change, CIOs should assess their organisation’s capability in these six key areas and build a Strategic Business Plan for the IT Organisation that incorporates development of these key capabilities.
This article is part of a series exploring the essential capabilities all CIOs and IT Organisations need to drive transformation and deliver enduring business value.
Joan Dobbie is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Beyond Strategy Consulting. Her company offers a wide range of IT Strategy and Transformation services to IT Organisations of all sizes.
“Change is the New Normal” - it’s a cliché, but it also reflects the reality for CIOs today. Globalisation, cloud computing, the GFC, skills shortages, compliance, social networking; climate change, green IT, “everything as a service” – it’s a turbulent, endlessly changing and increasingly complex world, and CIOs are at the heart of it. No longer is IT the provider of support services, a cost centre, a follower rather than a leader. Today IT is the driver of innovation, strategic change and value generation.
To meet the demands of the new normal, CIOs and IT Organisations need to develop new capabilities, that enable IT to become successful drivers of strategic change across the organisation.
Value Management: Delivering the expected business value from a program requires far more than the successful delivery of the program. Early stakeholder buy-in to the planned benefits, how they will be measured and how they will be realised is required. Program and project benefits need to be clearly linked to planned business benefits and tracked through the completion of the program. Finally, since benefit realisation usually extends well past the end of the program, ongoing tracking and reporting of benefits is required. Above all else IT must develop the necessary business skills to clearly articulate the value IT delivers.
Portfolio Management: If Program and Project management are about doing things right, then Portfolio Management is about doing the right things. Portfolio Management ensures that programs and projects are aligned to the strategic objectives and have clearly defined benefits.
Organisation Change Management: Upwards of 70% of change management projects fail to achieve stated business objectives due to “internal politics” and “people” issues according to Bearing Point. It is no longer acceptable to deliver successful technology projects, instead business change projects, using organisation change management best practices, should incorporate the required technology change.
Learning & Development: Research shows that high performing organisations, globally, take a strategic approach to talent management and build a learning culture. Establishing a strategic Learning and Development program, that is aligned with the organisations vision, strategies and goals, will ensure the right people with the right skills are available at the right time. Managing Learning & Development strategically is proven to deliver increased value to the business more efficiently.
Collaboration & Knowledge Management: Information overload and rapid constant change make it difficult for today’s knowledge workers to find the information they need. Knowledge Management and Collaboration strategies provide users with the tools they need to work collaboratively across the organisation, and to find the information they need, when they need it.
Strategic Business Planning: IT Strategic Plans generally address the technology changes required to meet the business objectives. Some, will also address the organisation change management required to deploy the new technology to the business. Very rarely does the IT Strategic Plan address the significant change the IT Organisation must also undergo.
To be successful drivers of strategic change, CIOs should assess their organisation’s capability in these six key areas and build a Strategic Business Plan for the IT Organisation that incorporates development of these key capabilities.
This article is part of a series exploring the essential capabilities all CIOs and IT Organisations need to drive transformation and deliver enduring business value.
Joan Dobbie is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Beyond Strategy Consulting. Her company offers a wide range of IT Strategy and Transformation services to IT Organisations of all sizes.
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