Crossing the Chasm – The Divine Comedy – Moving from Strategy to Delivery March 31, 2006
Posted by FluxBlogger in : Uncategorized , add a commentLets get back to the source here, this business change thing causes a lot of headaches and planning is better than cure right…
So where do the big headaches come from? Without doubt the largest kick for launching business change initiatives is the round of strategic planning undertaken in most organisations
Our best shots at creativity and innovation are gathered and documented to present a compelling set of benefits and outcomes to pursue. Our best thoughts all bound up in a polished leather tome; our CEO delivers well deserved thanks to the group and collectively we are running barefoot through the elysium fields of our envisioned future of competitive excellence.
The fields abruptly end at the brink of a chasm across which lies the world of orderly delivery of well structured achievable programmes; peering down the chasm we see the writhing toil of poorly structured change whose victims and perpetrators soldier on through death march programmes… can we make the ‘jump‘?
At this juncture sure if the strategy is completely unachievable its like attempting the jump with lead boots on. Thought this is not usually the cause of the trip into the bottom of the chasm for at least 2 years of your career.
More typical is that we simply struggle with shaping the chunk of the strategy we have been given to deliver. Wide eyed in the headlights we accept the CEO’s suggestion of what would be ‘good for us‘ to go take a swing at.
Rather than unusual ignorance its more a case of trying to open the beer can with boxing gloves. Our organisations generally lack the tools to perform the job. We rely on looking at historic programmes and projects, a few pretty methodology charts and then get a sickening surprise when we realise we are on the ‘death march’ programme.
Well is their a panacea waiting to be delivered to the needy by a well heeled consulting army… not quite.
There is no ‘paint by numbers‘ approach to doing this but a few key factors are worth bearing in mind when the CEO puts his hand on your knee in the back of the cross town cab and starts spinning your path to glory.
- Losers Take on Vanilla Scope – There are many paths to those benefits the organisation wants, its time for some more of that business school creativity you are famous for. Take a risk and benefits view to hone a path to the best outcome with the least likelyhood for a permanent migraine.
- If At First You Don’t Succeed – Delivering strategy is an experimentation game, if you can buy it off the shelf its yesterday. Going off into the unknown is a learning game at heart, make sure you don’t hold or be held rigidly to predictions and build your intiative with the capability to restructure as you ‘learn’ what is important in your new arena.
- There is no number 3, everyone knows poor consultants hold to some die hard fantasy that there are always 3 of everything, this blog is about experience not fluff.
Good Luck…