Phase III - StrategyCAD methodology and tools guide

Focussed effective strategy implementation.

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The underlying principles of strategy are enduring, regardless of technology or the pace of change.
Michael Porter, Professor, Havard Business School

Phase III - Focussed effective implementation

Recurring and challenging themes in business strategy can be:

Some teams make strategic choices but then struggle to transition from choices to effective implementation of those choices.
Some teams do not make a clear set of strategic choices, often unaware of their necessity and are the left to hack and hope for an effective business strategy. They may have some partial guidance from by other models such as a Business model, SWOT, Product management or the commonly occurring goal setting hierarchy of mission, vision, objectives and actions pyramid.

Strategy implementation canvas

The strategy implementation canvas enables your team to transition from choices to implementation, by understanding where your business is, where it needs to be (proximate vision) and then define an easily understood guiding policy to define the overall approach. See the canvas below and the component details to see how it works.

Situation assessment

summary

Overview

expectations

Record observations - summary of external, industry and current state asessments

belief

Record beliefs based upon observations

expectations

Based upon beliefs - record expectations

Describes the overall situation of - Where are we today - with respect to the Strategic choices and if necessary more specifically from the assessment of current situation related to customers, competitors Ecosystem, and Internal states. The situation assessment provides the opportunity to clarify where the business is. What is going well, what is not going well etc.

customer

Customers

expectations

Record observations - summary of how the business is doing with customers, meeting needs, creating delight

belief

Record beliefs based upon observations

expectations

Based upon beliefs - record expectations

Describes the overall situation of related to succeeding with customers. Including Customer awareness | engagement | meeting needs and desires | satisfaction | retention | trust | evangelism The situation assessment provides the opportunity to clarify where the business is with respect to customers. What is going well, what is not going well etc.

competitors

Competition

expectations

Record observations - summary of level of competitiveness in target market.

belief

Record beliefs based upon observations

expectations

Based upon beliefs - record expectations

Describes the overall situation related to succeeding in the competitive environment. Including differentiators of your business | most significant competitors | emerging competitors | challenges facing competitors and their likely responses | what competitors are doing well | where competitors are doing poorly The situation assessment provides the opportunity to clarify where the business is with respect to competitors. What is going well, what is not going well etc.

competitors

Ecosystem

expectations

Record observations - summary of suppliers, partnerships, distribution and other aspects of the industry segment ecosystem.

belief

Record beliefs based upon observations

expectations

Based upon beliefs - record expectations

Describes the overall situation related to the production and distribution supply chains.

competitors

Internal

expectations

Record observations - summary of internal situation in terms of capability, tools, resources and information to implement that strategic choices

belief

Record beliefs based upon observations

expectations

Based upon beliefs - record expectations

Describes the overall situation within the organization related to understanding of the strategic choices, priorities proximate vision etc. Includes considerations of Capabilities | Resources | Technology | Information and Focus to effectively deliver and implement the Strategic choices.

Diagnosis

Simplifies the most significant challenge(s) or constraint(s) to be overcome.

Given the Intents (Strategic choices) and the understanding of where the business which will implement this strategy is today, what is root cause issue(s), constraint or challenge needs to be overcome. Such that if that challenge is resolved then it is reasonable to expect many of the symptoms or other apparent dependent issues would also be resolved.

Proximate vision

Integrated or balanced scorecard layered objectives to ensure business, customer, process and organizational enablement outcomes are aligned.

balanced score card business aspirations
as proximate objectives

Guiding policy

Intents and guardrails for how to resolve the most significant challenge or challenges and achieve the proximate vision objectives

Do more In order to resolve the challenge(s) in the diagnosis and fulfill the proximate vision objectives - What activities does the team need to start doing or do more of	Sustain Activities already being done the team need continues to resolve the challenge(s) in the diagnosis and achieve the proximate vision
Do less Activities already being done BUT the team can reduce but not eliminate to make some capacity for what needs to be done and sustained.	Stop or Eliminate Activities already being done the team can eliminate as they have no relevance to fufiling the strategic choices or proximate vision. Elimination of these activities makes some capacity for the new activities to be done or increased.

Strategy implementation canvas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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