Strategy Execution
7 likes2,160 views
The document describes a case study of the Beam Team, a $100 million retail service provider, leveraging lean and agile strategies to navigate a challenging market shift towards merchandising resets. It outlines the organization's initial issues, such as poor system integration and management's lack of clarity on costs, and details a dual approach to improve development processes and align business objectives with technology. The implementation of a kanban board and a structured strategy execution model led to improved focus, performance-based incentives, and established trust between the technology group and the business.
Strategy Execution
- 1. Executing Strategy as a Competitive Advantage:Beam Team Case StudyUsing Lean and Agile to LeadAn Organizational Transformation
- 2. Situation$100 million retail service providerMerchandisingRemodelingConstructionResetsThe economy has drastically reduced remodeling and constructionSignificant shift in the market eliminates merchandisingThe entire business focus is now resets Not traditionally profitable – and the business processes and technology were not optimized to perform resets
- 3. SituationSeveral providers left the marketThe Beam Team was in a good cash position so they acquired another large provider in an attempt to ramp back up to an efficient sizeThe took on the largest reset project they had ever done – without the systems to manage it profitablyThere was churn in their IT organization and management lacked confidence their developers could deliver what was needed to achieve their business goals
- 4. Initial Findings: OrganizationOwners: Very successful entrepreneurs with deep understanding of the industry – innovative and strategic thinkersManagement: Tactically focused, in transition, stretched very thinLack clear line of site to their costs or economic drivers in this new business modelOut of necessity run the business on intuition and response to crisis Back office: Very hard working knowledgeable peopleOverall: Not a demonstrated history of getting ideas from concept to implementation
- 5. Initial Findings: TechnologySoftware development was technically competent but not very mature and in churn40% of technology developed over four years had not been deployed in the businessThe system had been designed in information silosSpreadsheets and personal recall were used to run the business - the spreadsheets were the glue between the information silosThere was a lack of access to any management information in the system – there was no useful reporting
- 6. ApproachTime pressure to ramp up for the huge reset project, cash flow challenges, an immature development team, and lack of historical ability to implement processes and technology combined to make this very riskyWe took the project on a contingency basis to offset their business riskTwo prong approachGet development under control Identify and deploy a focused set of changes in the business
- 7. Approach: TechnologyEstablished Kanban board for development - visualized their process and all the existing workEstablished three classes of service based on source of fundingStill have not explicitly limited WIP on the development boardMajor bottleneck was in customer acceptance Next Analysis Development Acceptance “Done-Done”NPDEnhanceCore SystemEnhancexof 40
- 8. Refactoring the Development Board
- 9. Approach: BusinessWe knew we could get development under control – but we had to get business results to earn the contingencyWe needed to help the business articulate the most important requirements to technologyWe needed to help the business adopt the technologyWe needed to create alignment and focus in a time of rapid shift, turmoil, and duress
- 10. Approach: BusinessPerformed information flow analysis against current systems and processesSix systems and over a dozen spreadsheetsSwivel Chair Integration
- 11. Approach: BusinessAnalyzed business model to develop a capability map
- 12. Approach: BusinessFacilitated Strategy Articulation based on Strategic Goals, COGS model and SWOT analysis
- 13. Assess the modelCapability Map gave us clarity on what the business did.Assessing the model determined what was most important to the business.The business was aligned with the outcome because they developed it.
- 14. Approach: Business ObjectiveFrom our assessments we knew precisely what capabilities we needed to change and what processes and technology were employed in each capabilityOur strategy was clear and there was a shared context within the businessHow do we connect our strategic understanding to execution?
- 15. Approach: Strategy to ExecutionBring together the Business and Technology in A3 efforts focusing on the leverage point capabilitiesFacilitate discussion to align what we could rapidly deliver with needs of impacted management and performersWhat is our target? What are the capability gaps relative to the strategy?What is the root cause? Five why’s – not granular 6 Sigma effort.Evaluate SolutionsHigh Level Deliverables on the Implementation PlanAssign Owners and Target Due DatesHigh level deliverables end up on the A3, with measurable outcomes, in the context of the strategy, and with the impacted capabilities clearly identified.
- 16. An A3 Plan: Strategy to Execution
- 17. Now the big challengeExecute the StrategyHow can we get management to maintain focus?Technology is a small component of the solution - how can we rapidly get stable process changes in place across HR, the field, accounting, and operations?How can we get technology deployed so that the business realizes the value?
- 18. Strategy Execution Kanban BoardExpand / collapse tasks from the plan in each columnWIP Limit is 3 projects Next Analyze Prepare Execute MeasureExpediteAcceptanceCriteriaAcceptanceCriteriaAcceptanceCriteriaAcceptanceCriteriaDevelopment is fed stories based on active tasks in the prepare column
- 20. CeremoniesWalk the board with management once a week. Blocked items are flagged with a red tab with a note of who needs to unblock it.Management follows up (some actually do) with their line managers from their A3s.There is a lot of focus on getting stories on the technology board through acceptance now. We have an expedite column on the management board. We limit crisis to one at a time. Board ensures current projects maintain (regain) focus.
- 21. ResultsAchieved focus across the businessReduction in the crisis management tendencyTechnology deployed on time – continued to refine and deploy enhancements in flightDelivered the performance based incentive modelProvide field management with real time status against their planTrust has been established between us (effectively the technology group and PMO) and the businessStrategy deployment model in place in the business
- 22. Success Attributed ToVisual control of the Kanban boardFocusMomentumShared AlignmentVisual nature of the strategy articulationDecisions by developers and management are made in a shared strategic contextCollaborative nature of the capability map, A3, and the Kanban boardShared understandingParticipative designAccountabilityRapid maturing of the organization regarding strategy executionCourage and commitment of the Beam Team leadership
- 23. ImprovementsReplace less effective legacy weekly management meetings – right now these are duplicate effortsTrack commitment dates of tasks on the board. Prioritize defects against the capability model. Not every fix is equally important – this is a hole in the process that permits gaming. More sustained discipline around use of A3’s and the Kanban board.Gather metrics and use them to improve the processes
- 24. Time as a Strategic DifferentiatorThe new Bargain of AgilityThe primary concept of the new Bargain of Agile is to expend the least resource possible to exploit the next most valuable opportunity.ObserveOrientDecideActUnfolding circumstancesImplicit guidance and controlImplicit guidance and controlUnderstandCultureTraditionNew InformationPrevious ExperienceSynthesisAction(Test)ObservationsFeedForwardFeedForwardDecisionFeedForwardOutside informationFeedbackUnfolding interaction with the environment
- 25. QuestionsReach out to Dennis Stevenshttp://www.synaptus.comdennis.stevens@synaptus.comWe offerAgile Capability and Business AnalysisStrategic Project ExecutionKanban / Agile Project ManagementAffiliationsAssociate in David J Anderson and Associateshttp://www.djandersonassociates.com/Pillar Technologies for Agile Software Developmenthttp://www.pillartechnologies.comMatt-5:13
Editor's Notes
- #2: IntroductionSituationInitial AssessmentIntroducing Kanban to the development organizationApproach to Achieving the Business ObjectiveIntroducing Kanban at the strategy execution levelCeremonies for the Strategy Execution KanbanResults of our effortApplication of Boyd’s O-O-D-A
- #3: merchandising offering went back in-house due to customer margin pressure and conflict of interest concerns; Remodeling and Construction were significantly down due to lack of investment by customers; leaving resets as the core business
- #8: NPD has since moved to an online board – not visible on our board anymore.Switched payment for Defects from hours committed to hours moved to Done-DoneCore system WIP is limited from the strategy board – that’s nextBy the time the developers delivered anything – the business had moved on. Either solving it with a spreadsheet or deciding it wasn’t actually that important to fix. The problems would then reemerge later – repeating the same crisis over and over.
- #17: Notice the result of the A3 shows three key standards to get work done.Outcome – Deliverables in the context of the problem & prioritized (isn’t this what we want from the business?)Sequence – what order do they need to be doneTiming – When will it be done (can be assigned at the last responsible moment)Owner - Coordination
- #21: Today, the line managers are more interested because they need to move their card to execution – defects often still linger in acceptance.
- #22: Development and deployment was iterative. Basics in place at kick off. Continued to refine and deploy enhancements in flight. Despite lack solid engineering practices. Aggressively followed up daily on use of the system.The engagement has been extended and the contingency will be paid
- #24: We use social pressure to move work – and this is an improvement – but explicit commitments would be better.One department snuck in an enhancement as a bug fix that impaired our ability to get management information. We still have to reel in the business owners from time to time – old habits die hard.
- #25: OODAMilitary strategist Colonel John Boyd described the OODA loop for fighter pilots. It has since been applied to define the Marine Corps Doctrine in Maneuver warfare. Chet Richards applies it business strategy in Certain To Win. The primary concept is to expend the least resource to accomplish the next objective and to operate at a decision cycle faster than your competition can achieve. This allows you to go farther and faster than your competition.Unfortunately, it can not as simple as “observe, then orient, then decide, then act.” In fact such a sequential model would be very ponderous and would not well describe how successful competitors operate.The key to quickness turns out to be the two “implicit guidance and control” arrows at the top. In other words, most of the time people and groups do not employ the explicit, sequential O-to-O-to-D-to-A mechanism. Most of the time, they simply observe, orient, and act. There is data coming out to support this (see Gary Klein’s book, Sources of Power.)The question, of course, is, “What action?” A thinking opponent doesn’t provide us with a laundry list of his tactics so we can work out responses in advance. The mechanism which handles this uncertainty and makes the loop function in a real world situation is “Orientation.”As we suck in information via the “Observe” gateway, it may happen that we notice mismatches between our orientation and what we’re observing in the real world. If we don’t spot these mismatches and correct our orientation, the actions that flow from it may not be as effective as we intend. This can open up opportunities for our opponents. Boyd’s concept of strategy places heavy emphasis on attacking the other side’s orientation to open up just these kinds of opportunities, and he suggests many ways to do this.Note that “OODA” speed is quite different from the speed of our actions. Doing something dumb or irrelevant, but doing it at high speed, may not provide much of a competitive advantage.The “Decision/hypothesis” block is the learning part of the loop, where we experiment and in the process add new actions to the Implicit Guidance and Control link. You can also think of it as programming orientation for future intuitive actions.