Executing the strategic initiatives effectively
This is the sixth installment in a blog series that discusses potential pitfalls that could hold you back from being fully successful in your strategic planning efforts. The first was ensuring that you have full leadership support before you begin the strategic planning initiative, the second was generating needed buy-in across the organization, the third was making sure you build that strategy in a way that it can be executed effectively, the fourth was prioritizing to narrow your focus and the fifth was integrating the strategy into how you do business. As I started the first blog of the series, most things that I have been successful at in my life have been because I did it the right way and using the right tools. At the Balanced Scorecard Institute, we have the “Nine-Step Process” to building a strategic management system. We believe in this approach and we have helped hundreds of clients develop comprehensive strategic plans with a management system that enables them to effectively execute strategy. I myself have worked with over 80 organizations and have seen very successful strategic planning efforts and also those that were less so! I wanted to share some observations as to where those that were not as successful went wrong along the way.
The sixth pitfall is in not executing the strategic initiatives effectively. When you boil strategy down, it really ends up being a tool to help you understand what things you need to start doing today to build the organization of the future so it can be successful, given how you assume the world will be different. That said, it is only the accomplishment of these “things” or key initiatives that really makes an organization successful. As such, the successful execution of these initiatives becomes fundamentally important for achieving the vision of the organization. By having a sound project management office (PMO) system with skilled project managers driving the initiatives to execution, you will be setting the course for successful strategy execution. Given that leadership attention to objective measures and their link to key initiatives provides focus and attention needed to implement the plan, the management system must ensure an effective process for measuring and monitoring results and tracking the progress of initiative execution is in place. With an effective system for managing and driving initiatives, the leadership team will have the information it needs to effectively direct the organization’s strategy.
If this pitfall sounds familiar, contact us. We specialize in helping organizations prioritize projects & initiatives. Or check out our Strategic Initiative Management Course. This program focuses on the project management skills needed to effectively manage strategic initiatives end-to-end.
There is one more blog that will complete this series of potential pitfalls that could hold organizations back from realizing the many benefits to developing a strategy and a supporting strategic management system.
Missed Part 5 of the blog series? You can read it here. You can read Part 7 here.
Tim has over 32 years of experience in management and professional services management consulting. Areas of expertise include strategic planning, portfolio management, performance measurement/management, project management and business process improvement.