Strategy Execution
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A straight forward and repeatable approach to creating Enterprise Agility by Connecting Strategy to Execution through the use of Facilitated Articulation, A3 Planning, Kanban Project Management, and Agile technology development. The approach results in alignment and drives effective change management.
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Strategy Execution
- 1. Executing Strategy as a Competitive Advantage:Beam Team Case Study Using Lean and Agile to Lead An Organizational Transformation
- 2. Situation $100 million retail service provider Merchandising Remodeling Construction Resets The economy has drastically reduced remodeling and construction Significant shift in the market eliminates merchandising The entire business focus is now resets Not traditionally profitable – and the business processes and technology were not optimized to perform resets
- 3. Situation Several providers left the market The Beam Team was in a good cash position so they acquired another large provider in an attempt to ramp back up to an efficient size The took on the largest reset project they had ever done – without the systems to manage it profitably There was churn in their IT organization and management lacked confidence their developers could deliver what was needed to achieve their business goals
- 4. Initial Findings: Organization Owners: Very successful entrepreneurs with deep understanding of the industry – innovative and strategic thinkers Management: Tactically focused, in transition, stretched very thin Lack clear line of site to their costs or economic drivers in this new business model Out of necessity run the business on intuition and response to crisis Back office: Very hard working knowledgeable people Overall: Not a demonstrated history of getting ideas from concept to implementation
- 5. Initial Findings: Technology Software development was technically competent but not very mature and in churn 40% of technology developed over four years had not been deployed in the business The system had been designed in information silos Spreadsheets and personal recall were used to run the business - the spreadsheets were the glue between the information silos There was a lack of access to any management information in the system – there was no useful reporting
- 6. Approach Time pressure to ramp up for the huge reset project, cash flow challenges, an immature development team, and lack of historical ability to implement processes and technology combined to make this very risky We took the project on a contingency basis to offset their business risk Two prong approach Get development under control Identify and deploy a focused set of changes in the business
- 7. Approach: Technology Established Kanban board for development - visualized their process and all the existing work Established three classes of service based on source of funding Still have not explicitly limited WIP on the development board Major bottleneck was in customer acceptance Next Analysis Development Acceptance “Done-Done” NPD Enhance Core System Enhancexof 40
- 8. Refactoring the Development Board
- 9. Approach: Business We knew we could get development under control – but we had to get business results to earn the contingency We needed to help the business articulate the most important requirements to technology We needed to help the business adopt the technology We needed to create alignment and focus in a time of rapid shift, turmoil, and duress
- 10. Approach: Business Performed information flow analysis against current systems and processes Six systems and over a dozen spreadsheets Swivel Chair Integration
- 11. Approach: Business Analyzed business model to develop a capability map
- 12. Approach: Business Facilitated Strategy Articulation based on Strategic Goals, COGS model and SWOT analysis
- 13. Assess the model Capability Map gave us clarity on what the business did. Assessing the model determined what was most important to the business. The business was aligned with the outcome because they developed it.
- 14. Approach: Business Objective From our assessments we knew precisely what capabilities we needed to change and what processes and technology were employed in each capability Our strategy was clear and there was a shared context within the business How do we connect our strategic understanding to execution?
- 15. Approach: Strategy to Execution Bring together the Business and Technology in A3 efforts focusing on the leverage point capabilities Facilitate discussion to align what we could rapidly deliver with needs of impacted management and performers What is our target? What are the capability gaps relative to the strategy? What is the root cause? Five why’s – not granular 6 Sigma effort. Evaluate Solutions High Level Deliverables on the Implementation Plan Assign Owners and Target Due Dates High level deliverables end up on the A3, with measurable outcomes, in the context of the strategy, and with the impacted capabilities clearly identified.
- 16. An A3 Plan: Strategy to Execution
- 17. Now the big challenge Execute the Strategy How can we get management to maintain focus? Technology is a small component of the solution - how can we rapidly get stable process changes in place across HR, the field, accounting, and operations? How can we get technology deployed so that the business realizes the value?
- 18. Strategy Execution Kanban Board Expand / collapse tasks from the plan in each column WIP Limit is 3 projects Next Analyze Prepare Execute Measure Expedite AcceptanceCriteria AcceptanceCriteria AcceptanceCriteria AcceptanceCriteria Development is fed stories based on active tasks in the prepare column
- 20. Ceremonies Walk the board with management once a week. Blocked items are flagged with a red tab with a note of who needs to unblock it. Management follows up (some actually do) with their line managers from their A3s. There is a lot of focus on getting stories on the technology board through acceptance now. We have an expedite column on the management board. We limit crisis to one at a time. Board ensures current projects maintain (regain) focus.
- 21. Results Achieved focus across the business Reduction in the crisis management tendency Technology deployed on time – continued to refine and deploy enhancements in flight Delivered the performance based incentive model Provide field management with real time status against their plan Trust has been established between us (effectively the technology group and PMO) and the business Strategy deployment model in place in the business
- 22. Success Attributed To Visual control of the Kanban board Focus Momentum Shared Alignment Visual nature of the strategy articulation Decisions by developers and management are made in a shared strategic context Collaborative nature of the capability map, A3, and the Kanban board Shared understanding Participative design Accountability Rapid maturing of the organization regarding strategy execution Courage and commitment of the Beam Team leadership
- 23. Improvements Replace less effective legacy weekly management meetings – right now these are duplicate efforts Track commitment dates of tasks on the board. Prioritize defects against the capability model. Not every fix is equally important – this is a hole in the process that permits gaming. More sustained discipline around use of A3’s and the Kanban board. Gather metrics and use them to improve the processes
- 24. Time as a Strategic DifferentiatorThe new Bargain of Agility The primary concept of the new Bargain of Agile is to expend the least resource possible to exploit the next most valuable opportunity. Observe Orient Decide Act Unfolding circumstances Implicit guidance and control Implicit guidance and control Understand Culture Tradition New Information Previous Experience Synthesis Action (Test) Observations Feed Forward Feed Forward Decision Feed Forward Outside information Feedback Unfolding interaction with the environment
- 25. Questions Reach out to Dennis Stevens http://www.synaptus.com dennis.stevens@synaptus.com We offer Agile Capability and Business Analysis Strategic Project Execution Kanban / Agile Project Management Affiliations Associate in David J Anderson and Associates http://www.djandersonassociates.com/ Pillar Technologies for Agile Software Development http://www.pillartechnologies.com Matt-5:13
Editor's Notes
- IntroductionSituationInitial AssessmentIntroducing Kanban to the development organizationApproach to Achieving the Business ObjectiveIntroducing Kanban at the strategy execution levelCeremonies for the Strategy Execution KanbanResults of our effortApplication of Boyd’s O-O-D-A
- merchandising offering went back in-house due to customer margin pressure and conflict of interest concerns; Remodeling and Construction were significantly down due to lack of investment by customers; leaving resets as the core business
- NPD has since moved to an online board – not visible on our board anymore.Switched payment for Defects from hours committed to hours moved to Done-DoneCore system WIP is limited from the strategy board – that’s nextBy the time the developers delivered anything – the business had moved on. Either solving it with a spreadsheet or deciding it wasn’t actually that important to fix. The problems would then reemerge later – repeating the same crisis over and over.
- Notice the result of the A3 shows three key standards to get work done.Outcome – Deliverables in the context of the problem & prioritized (isn’t this what we want from the business?)Sequence – what order do they need to be doneTiming – When will it be done (can be assigned at the last responsible moment)Owner - Coordination
- Today, the line managers are more interested because they need to move their card to execution – defects often still linger in acceptance.
- Development and deployment was iterative. Basics in place at kick off. Continued to refine and deploy enhancements in flight. Despite lack solid engineering practices. Aggressively followed up daily on use of the system.The engagement has been extended and the contingency will be paid
- We use social pressure to move work – and this is an improvement – but explicit commitments would be better.One department snuck in an enhancement as a bug fix that impaired our ability to get management information. We still have to reel in the business owners from time to time – old habits die hard.
- OODAMilitary strategist Colonel John Boyd described the OODA loop for fighter pilots. It has since been applied to define the Marine Corps Doctrine in Maneuver warfare. Chet Richards applies it business strategy in Certain To Win. The primary concept is to expend the least resource to accomplish the next objective and to operate at a decision cycle faster than your competition can achieve. This allows you to go farther and faster than your competition.Unfortunately, it can not as simple as “observe, then orient, then decide, then act.” In fact such a sequential model would be very ponderous and would not well describe how successful competitors operate.The key to quickness turns out to be the two “implicit guidance and control” arrows at the top. In other words, most of the time people and groups do not employ the explicit, sequential O-to-O-to-D-to-A mechanism. Most of the time, they simply observe, orient, and act. There is data coming out to support this (see Gary Klein’s book, Sources of Power.)The question, of course, is, “What action?” A thinking opponent doesn’t provide us with a laundry list of his tactics so we can work out responses in advance. The mechanism which handles this uncertainty and makes the loop function in a real world situation is “Orientation.”As we suck in information via the “Observe” gateway, it may happen that we notice mismatches between our orientation and what we’re observing in the real world. If we don’t spot these mismatches and correct our orientation, the actions that flow from it may not be as effective as we intend. This can open up opportunities for our opponents. Boyd’s concept of strategy places heavy emphasis on attacking the other side’s orientation to open up just these kinds of opportunities, and he suggests many ways to do this.Note that “OODA” speed is quite different from the speed of our actions. Doing something dumb or irrelevant, but doing it at high speed, may not provide much of a competitive advantage.The “Decision/hypothesis” block is the learning part of the loop, where we experiment and in the process add new actions to the Implicit Guidance and Control link. You can also think of it as programming orientation for future intuitive actions.