Leading Strategic Initiatives

by Oleg Mizov

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Legend

Leadership - is a courage to see a reality clearly and help others to do the same

Program Management is a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually.

Strategic Initiatives = Programs

Programs != always Strategic Initiatives

Strategy - a tool to resolve an issue within the organization

Watch more Strategy Definition

Project vs Program Management

Benefits vs Deliverables

More Reading : Manage Benefits not Deliverables

• A project deliverable is any unique and verifiable product, result or capability to perform a service that is required to be produced to complete a process, phase or project.

• A project benefit, though, is an outcome of an action or decision that contributes toward meeting one or more business objectives.
• Tangible (Money saved, vacancies created) or intangible (reputational, risk tolerance)
• Cash Quantifiable (cost optimization) and Not Quantifiable (Customer satisfaction)

Insight: Customers buy benefits, not features. A feature causes a benefit to happen

Introduction

Watch a video - Domino's® Pizza Turnaround - YouTube

What Things are in Common with Team in IT?

• Problem Identification and Analysis
• Solution Definition
• Team Work
• Many Iterations (FailSafe)
• Innovative Promotion (Brand)
• Delivery

Strategies Initiatives

Strategic Initiative always = Program Management

Strategy Formulation

Strategy Execution

BREAD model

BREAD

LIDS Model

Watch more at Youtube - LIDS

Story Teller!

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Chief Decision Maker

Chief Learning Officer

Chief Integrator Officer

Strategic Initiative

• Strategic initiatives are tools for closing performance gaps.
• As a leader, you need to help your organization “map the gap” and close the gap.

Three Kinds of Strategy

Read More

How to Enable Strategic Initiative?

Strategic Initiative is a brand.

• Brands are assets that provide measurable value
• Brand enhance trust
• Good images and headers make your brand memorable

ABCDE Model

Strategy Canvas

• Diagnosis - what kind of problem are we solving here?
• Policy - what is the primary focus to solve it?
• Coherent Actions - how exactly we are solving the problem?
• Goals - how do we measure the success? When do we know we are good enough?

Reality Check as a Framing Tool

“Our senior management team can neither develop a competent strategy for our organization nor execute it.”

50% of N executives agreed with this statement. N>1000

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“Most executives cannot articulate the objectives, scope and advantages of their business in a simple statement. If they can’t can anyone else.”

See http://wp.me/p37Hgl-1p

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Good Strategy, Bad Strategy

Good Strategy

• Diagnosys the problem
• Defines guiding policy
• Calls to Action

Bad Strategy

• Fluff - tasks leading to redundancy
• Too many objectives or none
• Failed to identify the problem

Building Your Strategy Initiative

Wait a sec!

Make sure that your organization needs a strategic initiative?

• Define & Validate Assumptions
• Build Action Plan
• Prioritize
• Present
• Plan and Schedule
• Control and Validate

Group Work. 5 min

What were Best Buy issues ?

What were best Buy Strategies?

Organization Analysis. McKensey 7S

Define a Strategy. Validation

Define a Strategy. Prioritization

Present a Strategy

• Elevator Speech
• Strategy as a Conversation

• The Vision Statement (e.g. better tasting pizza)
• Strategic Pillars (e.g.support of franchisees, new product introduction, innovation in promotion)

• Seek for CEO BuyIn

Schedule a Strategy. Program Roadmap

Success Criteria for a Strategy

• Strategy Initiative Closed the Performance Gap
• Use Qualitative and Quantitative Metrics

Applying Philosophy

Every Strategic Initiative needs fault tolerance and credibility inside its organization

Implement a Strategy

Ballance is a Key thing

Short-term Vision & Planning

See Yourself and help others to see a Big Picture

Rolling Wave Planning

• Is Great for Product Development, R&D, High-Tech, StartUps
• Is Good for Projects with Changing Scope
• Encourages Your Team for Adaptability
• Encourages You for Planning

Questions?