I love strategy. I love the idea. But it's only recently that I've come to realise where I've been going wrong all these years.
I've yet to see a company who has a non-IT core business define and execute a successful IT strategy.
By 'define' I mean clearly describe the vision, the goals/objectives,
By 'execute', I mean delivery of the strategic platforms and the solutions that sit on them; effective communication; mass adoption; proven benefit; everything defined delivered.
I've yet to see a company who has a non-IT core business define and execute a successful IT strategy.
By 'define' I mean clearly describe the vision, the goals/objectives,
By 'execute', I mean delivery of the strategic platforms and the solutions that sit on them; effective communication; mass adoption; proven benefit; everything defined delivered.
Sure, we see organisations deliver components of a successful strategy but never the whole hog.
Why?
Well, I don't think strategies are sufficiently agile. Certainly small, modern, agile enterprises seem to express themselves in terms that make big, mature, static organisations wince. Which is a bit strange seeing as they're both reliant on the same species to function.
Often, strategies don't actually mean anything. As soon as someone says the word, 'strategy', it seems to be the green light for academic techniques that don't actually resolve in anything a user would recognise. It's like even the communication of the strategy is FUD driven and scared of someone deconstructing the buzzwords.
Because they don't mean anything, they don't engage users. The guys on the ground floor don't care. The guys in the middle are busy being squeezed by the guys at the top and the guys on the ground floor. Vague, long range planning is your enemy. It doesn't translate into the real world.
Often, an the people within an organisation doesn't know what it cares about; what it stands for; what it's principles are. Think this is outlandish? Check out John Oliver, Grow Your Own Heroes.
So, strategists:
1. Make your strategy agile.
2. Eliminate buzzwords, be simple.
3. Engage users with tangible objectives.
4. Know what you care about.
As I said at the start, I love strategic thinking and know what a well chosen strategy can do. It's only now I'm at Sabisu that the importance of it - and the way to make it really work - is becoming a little clearer to me. Here at Sabisu we're working up a bit of a guide on how we think strategy should be done and over the next few weeks we'll get round to putting up some ideas.
Why?
Well, I don't think strategies are sufficiently agile. Certainly small, modern, agile enterprises seem to express themselves in terms that make big, mature, static organisations wince. Which is a bit strange seeing as they're both reliant on the same species to function.
Often, strategies don't actually mean anything. As soon as someone says the word, 'strategy', it seems to be the green light for academic techniques that don't actually resolve in anything a user would recognise. It's like even the communication of the strategy is FUD driven and scared of someone deconstructing the buzzwords.
Because they don't mean anything, they don't engage users. The guys on the ground floor don't care. The guys in the middle are busy being squeezed by the guys at the top and the guys on the ground floor. Vague, long range planning is your enemy. It doesn't translate into the real world.
Often, an the people within an organisation doesn't know what it cares about; what it stands for; what it's principles are. Think this is outlandish? Check out John Oliver, Grow Your Own Heroes.
So, strategists:
1. Make your strategy agile.
2. Eliminate buzzwords, be simple.
3. Engage users with tangible objectives.
4. Know what you care about.
As I said at the start, I love strategic thinking and know what a well chosen strategy can do. It's only now I'm at Sabisu that the importance of it - and the way to make it really work - is becoming a little clearer to me. Here at Sabisu we're working up a bit of a guide on how we think strategy should be done and over the next few weeks we'll get round to putting up some ideas.
2 comments:
I think strategy is long term "big picture" stuff and the agile part is tactics.
The two when done well go hand in hand. They both come from the military world and to be sucessful, you need an overarching strategy, but, also to react the the changing battlefield and achieve results that build to your goal. In other words tactical thinking.
I think there's a danger in assuming that agility can only be applied to tactical operations rather than at a strategic level.
For example, an agile strategy might involve an evaluative process to adapt the strategy in response to events. This is different to a static strategy which I think is closer to a high level waterfall approach.
Post a Comment