In most cases, what happens “Next” is “The Plan” is not updated until the team meets next, which could be several months away. Or the plan was aspirational but no clear guidance on the execution. Or the consulting team developing the plan left, and the CIO is left with a 700+ powerpoint deck to execute “The Plan.” Or well, you can put your own favorite story!
“The SEA is everything” – Jules Verne
Strategy, Execution, and Architecture define the What, When, and How of the enterprise blueprint. Most IT plans are episodic in nature because planning for these three pillars is either done in silos or done inconsistently. To achieve successful, durable, sustainable Business IT Plans, CIOs need to develop plans that integrate these three domains and have a level of harmonization, aka convergence across these domains. The foundational elements of the alignment are the operating models that enable the CIO to segment the “SEA” into different layers or lanes. The degree of transformation and disruption drives the segmentation in the strategy domain. In the execution domain, it could be based on the timing horizon and, finally, in the architecture domain by the degree of innovation and differentiation.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it” – Peter Drucker
Often, the long-range strategic planning is not in sync with execution efforts and how are they funded. Frequently the plans represent aspirations but lack clearly defined goals to measure the success of these aspirations. Business outcomes without key results and goals are hard to achieve. Additionally, if there is nothing to action, there is no motivation to update the plan. And if not updated, they get outdated. Outdated strategies imply changes and disruptions are not being accounted for and addressed. What if the execution teams toil away to build the perfect mobile website only to find that voice and RPA launched by their competitors is a new rage? It took Facebook only six months to execute their mobile product. Calibrating your investments with strategy supported by key results or goals that can measure the outcome is vital to a sustainable plan.
“Hey Siri (or Alexa or Cortana or Google Assistant), how do I get there?” – Everyone 🙂
Most plans cater to strategy and execution but often leave the “How” part to instinct or “we will get it done” approach. Devoid of an architecture blueprint, planning stakeholders lack the periscope to identify what is required to support the execution aligned with strategy. Strategy execution is seldom aligned with the underlying technology roadmaps and opportunities. In the pre-digital era, IT work focused on back-office implementations built on monolithic ERP packages. However, in the world of digital products, every company is a technology company with IT focused on delivering digital, business experiences.
Achieving this requires identifying the required business capabilities. However, business capability models not mapped to provisioning views are nothing more than low-value visuals. Business capabilities have to be meticulously tied to underlying apps and technologies to assess the readiness of architecture to execute on the strategy. If overlooked, these will surface during execution when it becomes expensive and prohibitive to address or change course.
When capabilities are segmented based on degrees of innovation, it can be leveraged to influence your work strategy (Agile vs. SDLC), ensuring the best of both worlds (bi-modal IT).
The root cause of strategy execution failure is often NOT the misalignment between strategy and execution but rather the misalignment of work execution with architecture and technical readiness of the underlying platforms.
“Hey EOS, give me a demo” – You! 🙂
The EOS ITPM platform enables alignment of the mental model of Strategy to the mental model of Execution to the mental model of Architecture. It allows CIOs to develop sustainable, durable IT Plans that can accommodate change and disruption. Stated differently, the robust REST-based integration architecture and rich visual metaphors (ranging from Roadmaps to Meshes to Boards to At a glance Views) ensure you have agility not just in the delivery of work but also strategy. Unlike toolsets that promote siloed, disconnected, ad-hoc, devoid of any measurable data type of planning, EOS ITPM ensures your Strategy, Execution, and Architecture are developed, updated, calibrated in alignment with each other without compromising on the simplicity of the user experience.
In EOS ITPM, plans are created and tracked from the same foundation, ensuring sustainable IT Planning. You can see how your plans map to your digital aspirations, what investments will be required to meet those aspirations, and, more importantly, how the underlying capabilities, apps, and technology align with both the digital ambitions and the investments. EOS ITPM achieves this due to the tremendous flexibility of our configuration driven patented platform and the depth and breadth of our underlying data foundation that supports multiple classes of IT assets. Give us a call so we can give you a demo!
Unified Strategic Portfolio Management designed to optimize business objectives for maximum enterprise value.