Unlocking the Power of a Shared Vision: Aligning Strategy and Execution for Success

- Aligning Goals and Actions: The Role of a Shared Vision in Guiding Strategy Execution

The wicked problem:

The main obstacle that senior teams encounter during strategy execution in an organization, is the lack of consistency and alignment among cross-functional teams in terms of methods, models, and terminology. This leads to difficulties in funding and coordinating business strategies effectively.

A common scenario that occurs due to this disconnection among teams is the following:

The Channel development team decide to pause the implementation of the "digital onboarding" module to focus on other priorities. However, this change is not communicated to the teams that depend on this feature because there is no mechanism in place to track inter-dependencies across initiatives.

As a result, the "customer application processing" team is unaware of this change and continues to wait for the feature to be delivered, hindering the overall "customer onboarding" workflow. This leads to further delays and re-prioritization of objectives across the portfolio, resulting in wasted planning and development efforts.

This type of problem, known as a "wicked problem," is a common issue faced by many organizations on a regular basis.

In planning and policy, a wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize...

This is the type of problem that is addressed during the Business Solution Development Lifecycle (think Scaled Agile) to transform business vision and strategy. To effectively address this problem, it is important to consider multiple interrelated dimensions and approach the solution with an integrated and harmonized mindset.

In practice, there are many ways to organize this list of dimensions. The list below is best suited for digital business transformation:

1. Framework and methodology: Establishing a clear framework and methodology to guide the development process can ensure consistency and alignment among teams.
2. Shared vision: Developing a shared vision among teams and stakeholders can ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals and objectives.
3. Governance: Implementing a governance structure can ensure that the solution aligns with overall business objectives and that different teams are working together effectively.
4. Process: Streamlining processes and automating where possible can increase efficiency and reduce errors.
5. Platform: Leveraging the right platform can provide the necessary infrastructure and tools to support the solution.
6. Data: Ensuring that the solution is built on accurate, consistent, and complete data can improve decision-making and customer experience.
7. Measure: Monitoring and measuring progress throughout the development process can help ensure that the solution is delivering the desired results.

By considering these dimensions, organizations can create solutions that are integrated, harmonized, and aligned with their business objectives.

Solution Framework - Enterprise Architecture (EA) Blueprint

According to SAFe’s teaching:

The road to a better future state must be grounded in an architectural runway that enables the portfolio’s technology to evolve. As a result, enterprise architecture is a critical component of strategy and investment funding. Enterprise Architects translate the business vision and strategy into effective technology plans and represent their initiatives on the portfolio roadmap as enabler epics.

Meanwhile, Gartner suggests:

76% of organizations are either starting, restarting or renewing their EA efforts. EA leaders understand business and IT capabilities and can improve communication and collaboration across silos. By 2023, 60% of organizations will depend on EA’s role to lead the business approach to digital innovation.

So why is Enterprise Architecture (EA) considered a crucial component in the business strategy and planning phase?

The reason is that Enterprise Architecture (EA) utilizes a blueprint as a system-thinking tool, a visual representation that captures the initiative's scope and interdependencies, using a common language to facilitate structured conversations among stakeholders.

This allows for the alignment of decisions and ensures that the initiatives are in line with the overall business objectives.

What are the dimensions of the blueprint? Why is it effective for solving the Wicked Problem that we have?

The EA blueprint addresses the deeper causal factors that form gaps during execution toward the desired business capability maturity level. Through EA’s lens, the real issue is the lack of standardization across the entire organization to harmonize cross-departmental/cross-functional collaborations.

One way to see this lack of standardization in action is to look at the "siloed solutions" that exist within the organization, such as departments using different definitions for customers and lacking a consistent, holistic view.

Standardization can only be achieved when teams use a common language to communicate. Similar to the story of the "Tower of Babel," when language is confusing, collaboration becomes difficult. By using EA blueprint as a common language to visualize the organization as an ecosystem, it is possible to quickly identify areas that are working well and areas that need improvement in order to align with and achieve the organization's mission and deliver value to customers.

With this understanding of the underlying causes of inconsistencies, we can use the blueprint as a leading indicator to adjust our approach and course of action using a continuous improvement cycle through Lean-Agile iterations.

Through the blueprint development process, the organization can answer key questions consistently across initiatives: Who are our customers? Why do we want to serve them? How do we discover what they need? And how do we develop and deliver value to them through our products and services?

As statistician George Box said, "All models are wrong, but some are useful." The blueprint development with the Lean-Agile approach is a useful model to guide organizations through their transformation journey.

Key Takeaway

• A "shared vision" is crucial for organizational alignment.
• A common language is necessary for cross-functional teams to collaborate effectively.
• Inconsistencies and disconnects during strategy execution are signs of a lack of a common language.
• Enterprise Architecture (EA) blueprint provides a useful framework as a common language through visualization.
• The blueprint connects various dimensions to integrate silos and harmonize cross-organizational activities as an ecosystem.
• We develop the blueprint using a system-thinking approach to standardize our common language.