If you’re involved in any aspect of strategic planning and delivery, then you know that it’s difficult. You will have seen any number of statistics that claim that upwards of 90% of strategic plans fail, and you will have read that the problem is resource allocation, leadership disengagement, poor project management, or one of many other reasons that serve to support a particular argument. So how do we go about doing the right things, the right way?
I’m not going to tell you that all of those people and statistics are wrong. But I am going to tell you that they are missing something even more fundamental. What is that? I’m glad you asked. It’s the problem that many organizations have become so focused on improving how they deliver work, they have lost sight of whether they are actually delivering the right work.
The Disconnect Between Strategic Planning and Delivery
There is frequently a disconnect between strategic planning and strategic delivery. Business leaders define the strategic priorities and set the goals and objectives. But then they ask departments to define potential projects that align with those objectives. The process of approving and prioritizing those initiatives often means that they have dubious cost and benefit claims, and the ones given the go-ahead are often the ones that win the popularity contest, not the ones that deliver the most real benefit.
If that’s how your strategic planning and delivery process operates, then your success is a gamble at best. It is essential that your end-to-end strategic processes are integrated and aligned. Business leaders must be accountable for defining the goals and objectives and for directly identifying, prioritizing, and approving the high-level investments designed to deliver those objectives.
Ensuring Consistency in Strategic Alignment
Once leaders set priorities, project and program managers accountable for those work items then execute the work, ensuring that solutions being developed remain aligned with the overall goals and objectives. Finally, the customer group that receives the finished solution leverages it to achieve the expected benefits and validate performance.
The Solution to Doing the Right Things, the Right Way: Strategic Portfolio Management Software
Solutions like Sciforma’s allow your organization to manage the entire strategic lifecycle in one tool. There is a direct connection between the priorities, goals, investments, work, and benefits. So, no matter where someone is working within your strategy delivery environment, they can directly relate their work to the purpose of that effort, ensuring they are not only doing their work the right way but are also working on the right things.
When things change, as they inevitably will, your leaders can assess different options, understand impacts, and make the best decisions for the organization. They can communicate those changes to all stakeholders within the PPM platform, allowing adjustments with minimal disruption.
If you don’t have every department, initiative, and individual work item optimally aligned with your goals and objectives, you are underperforming your potential. It doesn’t have to be that way, and with Sciforma, it won’t be.
