Strategy is about setting targets for the future, choosing the right direction based on insight to market and resources. Strategy leads to strategy execution, but strategy execution is about delivery, minimising risk and getting the organisation to deliver the strategic ambitions – something that requires people, process and technology to be involved.
Morten Stender, Partner, Staun & Stender
Staun & Stender will be sponsoring the Virtual IRM UK Enterprise Architecture & Business Process Management Conference & Co-located Virtual Business Change & Transformation Conference Europe 26-29 October 2020.
This article was previously published here.
Malcolm Gladwell has written “tipping point”, how to make strategy implementations to scale, see short reference here. It pictures the value of how few people can make a significant impact, something that is deeply desirable within digital transformation and strategy execution.
The “tipping point” in context of strategy execution and digital transformation is that magic moment when a strategy-to-execution-portal like our low-code platform as an idea or social behaviour within an enterprise crosses a threshold, and spreads like wildfire.
To succeed a strategy is not so much about the formulation (although that has be sound as well), it is equally about getting to the tipping point where the stickiness and roll-out seems to spread like wildfire.
In the book Gladwell argues that fundamentally three key roles need to be present for any idea to transition into reality, and the same seems to be valid for strategy and architecture solutions, if not more roles. As we advocate to use a low-code platform for providing rapid responses, you also need the supporting team to encapsulate people, process and technology. But which team?
To win a strategy execution and pass the tipping point, you need to construct your digital team to accelerate the journey. We typically advise to look for at least the following four roles:
Practice Manager:
The practice manager is an IT Leader with knowledge of your organisation’s applications and processes and best-practices. The practice manager acts in many cases like the project manager or lead architect to communicate what is in and what is out of the next release, to keep a tight focus between next release and solving the best value steps first. Ideally this role relates closest to the connector-role listed by Gladwell.
Usability Coach:
The usability coach has focus on the detail within a release from an end-user perspective. When things go fast, testing of the front-end starts often ahead of the back-end. It is imperative that the changes and development done is provided with sufficient validation to ensure functionality and a strong end-users experience. This improves quality of delivery and aligns with the pretotyping manifesto. The goal of pretotyping is to help you make sure that you are configuring the right stuff, before you complete it right.
Salesperson:
The salesperson is typically a senior profile on the border of the team. He fosters ideas for new development injecting stakeholder wishes into the future roadmap. With the low-code engine as the digital platform, see next-insight, he is aware he can produce new functionality faster and better than traditional tools, and in his/her daily dialog he communicates the roadmap and gets in return more value requests to the team.
The Maven:
The maker of low-code configuration to meet maximum re-usage and business outcomes. The maven is the cross-stack expert driving the development along-side the other roles. The alignment between practice manager and maven is critical to support what is easy and fast to accomplish as proactive responses to business challenges.
The coherency of the roles is key for a strong delivery of a low-code setup implementing strategy. Unlike tool-vendors who push conversions of data, conversion of processes proposing stiff tools to soft people – this team can put customer-centric solutions in place where the platform adapts to the use-case. A tool without a team is lost, team without a low-code digital platform is slow.
We advise a safe and fast implementation of your strategy with a low-code digital platform and joint digital team to accomplish the strategic objectives. The right thing to do now and in the future is to provide the stickiness and success of a team with a scalable platform, #next-insight.
Staun & Stender is a leading specialist provider in architecture and strategy management. We focus on planning and collaboration to help customers execute their strategy safer and faster.
Morten is Partner of Staun & Stender, a leading advisory and solution provider of solutions to business change and transformation. Morten brings professional background of strategy management and how to succeed with strategy implementations across the large cap segment. He has researched and practiced consulting in strategy, Planning and IT Management since 90’s. Morten holds a PhD, M.Sc. and B.Com from the Technical University of Denmark and Copenhagen Business School. He is an IEEE reviewer and appointed examiner at Danish Universities.
Copyright Morten Stender, Partner, Staun & Stender