Is your strategy implementation failing?
Posted by Grant Brewer on 04 May 2007
The strategy is defined. You're a leader - your job is to develop the strategy for your team. Wrong! Your job is to deliver results. Coming up with strategies is often the easy part since it is frequently an intellectual activity. Choosing between alternative ideas and then managing their implementation is the hard part. Quite often, managers are not as well prepared for managing projects that cut across functions and business processes, where most of the project team are not under their direct management.
The strategy is defined. You’re a leader – your job is to develop the strategy for your team. Wrong! Your job is to deliver results. Coming up with strategies is often the easy part since it is frequently an intellectual activity. Choosing between alternative ideas and then managing their implementation is the hard part.
So is the implementation of the strategy in your area of the business proving to be effective, or is it stalling? If you’re falling behind on implementation, don’t feel alone. It is common for strategy implementations to fail to live up to the ambition of a grand vision. It is probably not your team’s fault. It is far more likely that you or other managers are not managing the implementation effectively because this sort of implementation management isn’t the high-level-hands-off kind of management that works when leading functional teams or departments. What is required is project management. Managers are often well schooled in classical management of functional departments which comprise a consistent group of people who share a common focus, and who all fall under the direct authority of the manager. Quite often, managers are not as well prepared for managing projects that cut across functions and business processes, where most of the project team are not under their direct management.
Watch out for the symptoms of a failing implementation project
If you recognise any of these symptoms, you can be pretty sure your strategy implementation is not as effective as it could be:
- Are stake holders or sponsors not getting involved? Do they miss meetings or not give enough time to the team?
Alternatively, are unexpected senior managers getting themselves involved?
- Is there a general sense of a crisis, or a feeling of there being too much to do and too little time?
- Does no-one seem to know the status of activities or have an overall view of what is going on in the project?
- Are you struggling to make team members accountable – are task frequently assigned to teams of people?
- Are you struggling to anticipate or keep pace with changing in the business? Does every meeting seem to change the goal posts?
- Are team members quick to report that they are almost complete – 90% done – on tasks, yet the final 10% seems to be taking forever to complete?
These are some sure signs that you need to tackle your strategy implementation with better project management.
Brush up on your project management
Project management requires a different approach. The project manager is more of an enabler or a facilitator. You can’t just delegate or instruct and wait for results. You will need to inspire, guide, coach and cajole.
As is often the case, communication is a good place to start because it is frequently the root cause of project failure. Frequent and regular communication that is both casual and formal is a must. Draw up a communication that guides the team in customising the message for each audience and that defines who gets what information when. Don’t rely only on email – use your verbal skills to tell a compelling story.
Improving communication in a project often leads you to clarify your strategic objectives, revisiting the strategy if necessary to refine or focus your efforts. It is also important to make sure the strategic objectives translate into clear project milestones and that both the project team and the various stake holders understand how the milestones relate to the strategy.
Take a look at how you are scheduling the project and make sure that you’re preparing the project schedule at a low enough level of detail. If you’re working at too high a level, you’ll find it more difficult to manage accountability and to ensure that activities are actually done. You’ll only know that you’re behind schedule toward the end of each project activities because you couldn’t see the warning indicators in the high level view. Make sure you’re not over promising – keep the balance between costs, quality, scope (or features) and time (deadlines). Usually, squeezing one or two of those dimensions will mean compromising the others: “we can finish that activity sooner and bring the deadline close, if we do the work at a lower level of quality…” See how your boss responds to that idea!
Keep your schedules focused in relatively short blocks that build on each other. No-one really understands a project schedule that stretches for months or years into the future, but most people can focus on three months phases.
Also make sure you’re making decisions. Don’t let conversations or meetings drift endlessly when they are crying out for a decision. Be a finisher – don’t let your projects get close to completion and then drift in a nearly finished state. Get the job finished and move on. In particular, don’t be afraid to stop projects that are not working. It is common to see projects should should be stopped, float around for ages whilst tying up valuable resources.
Leading strategic change is hard work, but inspiring leadership blended with effective project management will help make sure you turn great strategic ideas into projects that deliver results to the business.
Is your strategy implementation failing? was published in Intelligence Magazine as Strategym #48 in May 2007.
Categories
Essays | Strategy | Intelligence Strategym
Tags
implementation (10) | strategy (8) | leadership (7) | project management (1) | portfolio management (1)
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