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How do you deal with an initiative (project) that is a forceful executive\u2019s favorite idea, or, even worse, is something that your organization has spent years to develop BUT is not aligned to your strategy?\u00a0 Yikes!<\/p>\n
I was teaching a class in Atlanta\u00a0last week and one of the student teams approached me with a question.\u00a0 They were looking for actions which they could implement to move the needle on a \u201cproduct variety\u201d objective on a grocer case study.\u00a0 One of the ideas was an R&D product to produce \u201cblue apples\u201d which led to a discussion of \u201cSpecial Projects\u201d at their own organizations.<\/p>\n
This reminded me of a REAL client who had invested heavily in a special R&D project.<\/p>\n
The client, a Fortune 500, had spent several years investing in this super-secret project which they would not reveal even to us, their trusted consultants.\u00a0 They simply referred to it as \u201cProject X.\u201d<\/p>\n
We had been working with this client to develop their Tier 1 scorecard and were onsite for the final executive team session to prioritize strategic initiatives.\u00a0 Of course, \u201cProject X\u201d was on the list.\u00a0 We used a 2×2 matrix as our prioritization schema (in which initiatives are placed into one of four quadrants depending on how strategic and how resource consuming they are).\u00a0 When we finished the calculations, \u201cProject X\u201d was dangling by its fingernails off of the chart – from the furthest corner of the least desirable quadrant.<\/p>\n
It was clear that\u00a0 \u201cProject X\u201d was an expensive and resource-intensive effort yet it was going to provide little to no strategic impact.<\/p>\n
As I nervously shared the bad news about \u201cProject X\u201d, the VP in charge of this initiative nodded her head and said, \u201cI saw this coming as we were developing this strategic balanced scorecard.\u00a0 We have actually already started on a sunset plan.\u201d\u00a0 I had feared uproar and this quiet affirmation blew me away.<\/p>\n
This speaks to the power of inclusion in developing a strategic balanced scorecard.\u00a0 This team, which had invested millions in \u201cProject X\u201d, had already realized via their participation in strategy formulation that the investment needed to be redirected.\u00a0 There were no tears, cursing, or arguing.<\/p>\n