Strategy implementation canvas

Focussed, balanced and effective execution

StrategyCAD guide to better strategy - faster

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers

wise quote

In this section

  1. Why the strategy implementation canvas

  2. What are the components of the Strategy implementation canvas

  3. How to create a Strategy implementation canvas

  4. Creating your strategy implementation

  5. Tracking progress in your strategy implementation

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 icon
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.

situation icon

   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.

situation icon

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
policy icon

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

situation icon

  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

situation icon

  Sustain

Activities already being done the team need continues to resolve the challenge(s) in the diagnosis and achieve the proximate vision

situation icon

  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.

situation icon

  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.

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

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
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Creating a Strategy implementation canvas

  1. From below the Strategic choices canvas

    add a strategy implementation canvas by click or tap the add Strategy button

  2. Complete the Strategy Quick Start dialog box

    1. Provide a working title for the strategy. For example, if the strategy is for the business, you might title the strategy: Business strategy 2026. Alternatively, if the strategy is to grow the marketing effectiveness, you might title the Strategy Marketing strategy 2024.

    2. In the Strategy for indicate what the Strategy applies. Does it apply to the whole business, a business unit product development, service development, other

    3. Indicate the dominant intent of the strategy what is it that is to be accomplished - you can review this again later.

    4. Indicate the date you expect to start actioning the strategy

    5. Indicate the date you expect to complete the intent of the strategy. A strategy might run as little as few months or as long as several years.

    6. Submit the information, you can edit these details later. The strategy list will refresh with your new strategy.

    7. You can now click on the view icon to begin working on your Strategy implementation canvas.

    strategy quick start dialog

Components of the Strategy implementation canvas.

The components of the Strategy implementation canvas include:

situational assessment

Situational assessment

Where are you today?

Your strategic choices define your blueprint. Your situational assessment answers the question "Where are we today"? Starting any journey is obviously easier if we know exactly where we are. In the absence of an adequate understanding of the current situation and diagnosis of the main causes, your teams can end up chipping away at a thousand symptoms but not resolve the most substantial issue or opportunity.

In the situational assessment you and your strategy team are the treating physicians of your business. What are the symptoms, issues and opportunities being experienced. The purpose is to create leverage. Leverage is about maximizing benefits for the action and investment made. To create leverage your strategy needs to identify the root cause barriers to success and/or the most substantial opportunities.

The situational assessment should be realistic, but not pessimistic.

Back to canvas
diagnosis simplifies the situational assessment

Diagnosis

Clarify and simplify the challenge

The Diagnosis is a component of Richard Rumelt's Strategy Kernel, which he describes in his book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The difference and why it matters

Here like a master physician, you endeavour to diagnose the one or fewest most significant challenge(s) that when successfully resolved would eradicate or have the biggest enabling benefit for your strategic choices or resolve the multiple discrete issues and constraints holding the business back. Note this can sometimes be difficult, you may have to speculate on the diagnosis and proceed with a preparedness to change it if your objectives and policy do not seem to be effective.

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proximate vision

Proximate vision

What needs to be accomplished

The proximate vision is a hierarchy of objectives as an integrated and balanced scorecard. At the top of the proximate vision is the desired business outcome or outcomes.

A tenet of StrategyCAD is to keep Strategy realistic. During your strategic choices you ensured your Where to Play, How to Succeed and Costs were all supportive of each other.

Now, at the top of your proximate vision you can define or have defined the business objective(s) to be accomplished within the duration of the strategy. But business outcomes, like revenue growth, sales, growth, new product or service launches are dependent upon fulfilling customer aspirations, along with growth or support of organizational capabilities and enabling teams.

To keep your business objectives real. You can define the customer, capability and team enablement objectives necessary to enable those business objectives.

For example, a business objective may be to grow sales by 35% year-on-year for the next 2 years.

Many businesses set these types of objectives. But now you can identify what customer objectives will be necessary to support a that year-on-year sales growth.

What capability or process objectives in product, research and development, and so on need to be accomplished to support this growth.

What objectives need to be accomplished within the team in terms of recruitment, training and so forth to support this growth.

A balanced score ensure you have alignment from business to skilled and enabled people to support a coherent set of objectives.

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proximate vision

Guiding policy

Define a general approach to success

A guiding policy is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the challenges identified in the diagnosis. Like the guardrails on a highway, the guiding policy directs and constrains action in certain directions without defining exactly how the objectives are achieved.

The guiding policy sets a strategy direction guiding people on what needs to be more of, sustained, reduced and eliminated.

The guiding policy also creates the capacity to focus on activities that enable the strategy and divert them from those that do not.

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proximate vision

Objective roadmap

Roadmap to proximate vision

The layered view ensures your business has objectives that link the business objectives to realities by identifying objectives for customer outcomes, capability, process and team enablement outcomes.

In this Objective view you can view a more compact list or gantt chart view of how you will go about achieving your proximate vision.

objective roadmap in gantt chart

track progress

Keeping score

Tracking progress

For each of the objectives in your proximate vision, you can define one or more key results or measures that indicate progress on the achievement of the objective.

You can track progress by recording the scores on the key results. You can then track and trend progress via the key results dashboard in the implementation canvas.

charting your scores

With the Strategy implementation canvas complete, all that is required now is to assign ownership and assign talented people to realize the objectives.

Please click next to read more about defining and managing objectives    Next