In my last post I said strategy mapping is “seemingly simple” because environments have different requirements depending on the industry, size, growth patterns, and degree of change. For example, an implantable medical device manufacturer I worked with was more concerned with having scalable business processes and systems because they expected extremely high growth once the FDA approved their new design. Typically companies have high level goals related to revenue and costs that drive all strategies. But the medical device company really wasn’t concerned with X% revenue growth- they were more concerned with business processes and systems that could handle being a both a small company and then a large company very fast.

Another complication in strategy mapping is goals feeding goals and strategies feeding strategies. The map can get quite complex and heavy before it is streamlined and clarified. Then of course there must be agreement on which strategies are more important- AND who owns them. The good news is that if executives from different areas of the business are working on this, they will better understand their relative challenges and priorities. A PMO-like organization within the company can help prioritize projects to fit the strategy prioritization provided by the executives.

The process is fantastic because it tends to clear the air as to which projects are important. It can also reveal mistakes or misses in the strategy area. Strategy mapping is NOT a substitute for strategy creation. The assumption is that you already have a good process that has developed the goals and strategies. Typically the missing piece is linking the tactics and projects to the strategy map in a way that shows clear alignment with individual strategies and then goals.

What centralizing business process gets your executives to work together? Is it strategy mapping? Is there a central governance board that works on prioritizing strategies and projects? If so who does the work of gathering information and working up priority criteria for the governance board? Share your experiences! We can learn from you.

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Post from: EveryJoe

Strategy Mapping Aligns (and Eliminates) Projects

Aligning projects with strategies, assuming that the company has strategies, is one of the simplest ways to quickly see which projects are worth doing. Conversely, projects that don’t align with strategies should quickly be assessed and probably stopped. One of the ways to get a read on alignment is to simply put together a strategy map. The concept is seemingly simple:

1. Id goals of company- increase shareholder value, increase revenue by X%, decrease costs by X% are examples.

2. Id strategies to fulfill the goals- for the revenue goal it might be a customer response program or a web based presence program.

3. Id tactics to fulfill individual strategies- for the customer response program you might have a software/business process implementation project.

The result is a map or a “tree” that reflects how projects fit in with tactics, strategies and goals . Each level, and item within a level, is owned by an executive, director, manager or project manager. Strategies drive key requirements and point out pain in some areas. The projects that result from the tactics that are agreed to must align with a strategy. More on why I said “seemingly simple” in the next post.

Do you have a strategy map process in your company? If you don’t, how do you know that projects are aligned with strategies? When strategies change do you reassess projects for alignment? Why or why not?

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Post from: EveryJoe

Aligning Projects with Strategies Leads to Strategy Execution