Introduction To Enterprise Strategic Planning Using Strategy Software

 

Hello everyone and welcome to the new StrategyBlocks website – I hope you find it informative and useful. The Blog section is a new addition and to kickoff I want to discuss some of the issues I see surrounding strategy management generally.

I believe communication is the key.  It is of fundamental importance that the individuals tasked with the execution of strategy, understand what the objectives are and stay aligned with the strategic vision of the organization.

This is not new, organizations have been aware of this for many a year, but achieving better communication of strategic goals is a challenge few handle well.

We have seen a huge investment of time to develop extremely detailed strategic plans and I have no doubt that this has been a worthwhile investment.  However, it is unlikely that anybody within the organization is going to attempt this monumental read.  Perhaps it is no coincidence that it is widely considered that 95% of staff have no idea of their organization’s strategic goals.

So what exactly is the problem with the “Strategic Plan On Top Shelf Collecting Dust” (SPOTSCD)? It is horrendously long, unpictorial, and completely dull.  It is far from engaging and does not drive people into action.  Therefore there is a reduced awareness of the individual’s place in the organization’s grand vision and as a result people go about their day-to-day business, whether it is strategically relevant or not.

I read an excellent article recently by author, Nenshad Bardoliwalla . (December 1, 2009). The Top 10 Trends for 2010 in Analytics, Business Intelligence, and Performance Management . Retrieved from (http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com) which shares some interesting insights related to strategy and its relationship to the Performance Management technology market.  The following are excerpts from that article:

“1 – We will witness the emergence of packaged strategy-driven execution applications.”  “We called this “Strategy-Driven Execution”, the complete fusion of goals, initiatives, plans, forecasts, risks, controls, performance monitoring, and optimization with transactional processes.”

“7 – Advanced Visualization will continue to increase in depth and relevance to broader audiences.”  “The latest advances in state-of-the-art UI technologies such as Microsoft’s SilverLight, Adobe Flex, and AJAX via frameworks like Google’s Web Toolkit augur the era of a revolution in state-of-the art visualization capabilities.” “these capabilities will find their way into enterprise offerings at a rapid speed”.

We at StrategyBlocks believe what is rapidly emerging is the need for a highly visual form of dynamic strategy mapping, to act as a platform for enterprise collaboration and communication.

This will provide an umbrella framework for strategic thinking, bringing together a variety of information and measures of success, both structured and unstructured.  Whether that is the rollup of effort/progress, financial value contributing to the overall goal, and/or the relevant pieces of business intelligence reporting and key performance indicators integrated in to the strategic plan at the appropriate points.

The aim is simple – let those involved with the execution of strategy clearly see the result of their efforts and for management, finally be able to monitor the overall success of those strategic objectives.