Strategy Deployment

Nadja Macht 12-2019 // @elbmacht

» Strategy is a framework for
decision making, a guide to
thoughtful, purposive action «
— Stephen Bungay

➔ People can’t repeat what the
current strategy of their
company is.
➔ People ask the same questions
over and over.
➔ Leaders do tell different stories
about what’s important and why.
➔ Lack of reliable representation
of direction that is accessible by
everyone in the organization.
➔ People tend to add different
meaning to the same things and
miss to clarify terms.
➔ People identify strategy with a
plan.

➔ A lack of alignment and confusion
about what really matters.
➔ A lack of resources on the things
that actually matter.
➔ A lack of meaningful progress on a
reasonable cadence.
➔ A lack of trust between teams and
management.
➔ A lack of autonomy for teams and
individual contributors.
➔ A lack of drive and commitment.

Knowledge Gap
The difference
between what we
would like to know
and what we
actually know.
Effects Gap
The difference
between what we
expect our actions
to achieve and
what they actually
achieve.
Alignment Gap
The difference
between what we
want people to do
and what they
actually do.

A strategy framework can help us deploying strategy effectively
into the organization and help units, teams and individual
contributors to actually execute on it.
Others will be empowered to verify the coherence of what the
organization says it is doing and what the organization is
actually doing and can stay focused on what really matters.

➔ A rigor logic to one’s thinking, that describes
a context or connection.
➔ Often mixed up with consistency that describes the
state in which there’s no contradiction in one’s statement.
➔ Coherence requires consistency. But, it also requires
a visible relation between explanation and justification
of one’s sentences.

The written form of underlying beliefs, assumptions or
hypotheses that nurture our (the leader’s) intention and
decision making processes.
By sharing our beliefs, others can comprehend and
anticipate what informs the quality of our choices and we
empower others to make tactical decisions in line with
our beliefs.

The Company Vision is an articulated, aspirational,
desired future situation that an organization aims
to achieve. Vision is what success would look like for
your company.
The Company Vision should inform all strategic and
operational choices and help allocating our company’s
resources effectively in line with the company’s direction.

VISION
MISSION
GOAL
ACTIVITIES

The model allows us to balance our priorities
and to allocate resources to execute and sustain
an existing business while simultaneously
creating new capabilities for future growth.

Horizon 1 Ideas
provide continuous innovation
to a company’s existing
business model and core
capabilities in the short-term.
Horizon 2 Ideas
extend a company’s existing
business model and core
capabilities to new customers,
markets, or targets.
Horizon 3 Ideas
express the creation of new
capabilities and new business
to take advantage of or respond
to disruptive opportunities or
to counter disruption.

Key performance indicators (KPI) are a set of quantifiable
measures. They evaluate the success of an organization or
a particular activity such as projects, programs, products,
and other initiatives.
Monitoring them regularly help determine the current
health/growth of our organization.

The attempt of unpacking strategy for everyone in the
company in a written form by laying out the essential
hypotheses and beliefs and the reasoning why we
should do X over Y.

➔ A portfolio board visualizes
high-level direction and
helps making explicit
choices about what is worth
going after and what isn’t.
➔ The Board is owned by the
leadership group and
should represent all
product/business relevant
items. (initiatives/bets)
➔ Items on the board should
describe discrete units of work
that enable the organization
to achieve a specific goal.
They don’t describe tasks or
small features.
➔ A portfolio board doesn’t
operate with a WIP-limit and
items do not necessarily
move across it in a linear
fashion.
➔ It should be examined on a
regular cadence (i.e.
quarterly). If it changes
too quickly, smth wrong.
➔ The board does not have the
purpose to allocate
resources on a team or
individual level.

IDEAS
Displays items that bubble up as ideas from the organization or
are injected by the leadership. For every item to move forward
the coherence with our vision and beliefs must be provided.
MAYBE LIKELY AGREED UNDERWAY MEASURE

LIKELY
We tag the items with H1, H2, H3
to inform the fellow viewers in what
type of innovation category the
item lives.
IDEAS
Displays items that bubble up as ideas from the organization or
are injected by the leadership. For every item to move forward
the coherence with our vision and beliefs must be provided.
MAYBE
Items are coherent
with the vision,
beliefs and what’s to
be achieve but we’re
not sure yet if we
want to invest into
further exploring the
item.
LIKELY
We’re willing to
invest in exploring
the item in order to
make a better-
informed decision
about if it’s worth
further investment.
AGREED
We’ve good enough
information to
decide if we further
invest or refrain from
the item in order to
spend our time more
beneficially and get
closer to what we
want to achieve.
UNDERWAY
Items that are
underway. If not
earlier, at least items
in this state must
become a visible
workstream on more
detailed tactical
board.
MEASURE
Item was built and
delivered. Now we
want to know if the
impact we’ve hoped
for actually kicks in
or not, what we can
learn from it and
how it will affect our
future decision
making.

Nadja Macht
VP of Engineering at Jimdo
Agile Coach Trainer at BJA
@elbmacht at Twitter

The framework was largely influenced by the following people, ideas or concepts:
➔ Stephen Bungay’s book “The Art of Action” - especially the idea of reducing friction and achieving intended outcomes
effectively by increasing alignment between plans and actions, closing knowledge gaps, and providing autonomy
around actions.
➔ Spotify’s DIBBs Framework. The argument framework that Spotify uses to define their “Bets” and to make the chain
of reasoning explicit by showing the relationships between Data, Insights, Beliefs, and Bets.
➔ Portfolio Kanban, which was first introduced by Markus Andrezak, with the idea to enable better business decisions.
It’s about decisions and not operations, rules for Portfolio Board differ from usual Kanban Boards.
➔ Business Motivation Model, which developed by The Business Rules Group (BRG) and first published, in November
2000.
➔ The 3 Horizons Model, which was first articulated by Baghai, Coley, and White in 2000, in The Alchemy of Growth -
for most known as McKinsey’s 3 Horizons Model.

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