Task Set 5: Transition to Implementation

With the completion of Task Set 4, you have chosen a compelling framework alternative. In Task Set 5, you complete the framework and make the remaining choices for your rollout to the organization in the following tasks:

Task 5a Complete plans, policies, and budgets
Task 5b Complete dashboard
Task 5c Integrate framework into company managing process
Task 5d Complete rollout choices
Task 5e Complete working documents

Your last move, Task 5f, is to declare good enough and start living it. As always, you accept that you may need at any time to go back and change what you have designed—a small change or a major overhaul—but this is part of executing.

Task 5a: Complete Plans, Policies, Budgets, and Organizational Changes

You may have drafted these framework components to some extent in Task Set 4. Now you complete them, and for each nested organization. Principles for each were discussed briefly in Chapter 17, EAS:

• Plans/roadmaps
• Policies/policy tables
• Budgets
• Organization structure changes (if needed)

Task 5b: Design Four-station Dashboard

Chapter 18, EAS, presented the four-station dashboard, including descriptions and examples of the stations—foundation, adherence, progress, and bottom-line—and the following design guidelines:

• Minimize the number of metrics, especially process metricswhich are so easy to pile on.
• Derive metrics from bottlenecks, not just aspirations.
• Do not shy away from qualitative metrics.
• Do not let data acquisitiondifficulty influence your choiceof metrics.
• Each nested system gets itsown dashboard.
• Put clarity before style and putflexibility before automation.

Reminder: Metrics are restricted to feedback measurements where you have some reference point (framework discussion in Chapter 1, EAS) and that are used on an ongoing basis to visualize dynamics, not data analytics in general.

Hint: Put a very concise version of the framework on the dashboard.

Hint: Good benchmarking requires comparing apples to apples, which can be hard. It may be more valuable to create ongoing measurements of benchmarks, as opposed to an occasional measurement, because change over time may give the best insight. Consulting firms have strong practices in benchmarking but be sure your own people understand the methods used.

Chapter 18 also described the use of triggers and responses to enable faster action and to be more sensitized to changes as your endeavor unfolds. Triggers and responses need not be detailed or profound. Like considering scenarios, including just some triggers will expand thinking and preparedness. Start simple and evolve as you see value for it. Try to have triggers at all four stations.

Hint: As one of the ways to minimize your metrics, if there’s no need for a trigger, then question whether you need the metric.

To find triggers, imagine what might provoke you to act, for example:

• Results are 3× better than expected ➔ Are we following the framework andour offering is simply better than we expected? Did we get lucky due to eventsthat had nothing to do with our effort (see Chapter 9, EAS, for the discussionof execution wrongly defined as “get good results”). Switch to the acceleratedframework.
• The scenarios we envisioned no longer appear to be coming true ➔ Revisitresearch and modeling; switch to contingency scenario.
• People or leaders not adhering to framework ➔ Need more training? Needencouragement or disciplinary action to get people’s attention? Can the framework be followed, or does it need improvement?
• We achieved only 40 percent of the expected customer signings ➔ Discoverwhy. Did the sales team give the agreed pitch? Was the market research for thepitch bad? Did competitors get in first?
• We achieved the expected number of customer signings, but they were not theones we expected ➔ (Same as previous).
• HR is not adhering to the recently communicated policy changes, eventhough no one is complaining ➔ Did we overestimate the downside of thechange to employees?
• The price of oil is 60 percent lower than we planned ➔ Do we have a framework alternative to take advantage of this? If not, can we create one quicklyenough? What was wrong in our modeling? Is the lower price consideredtemporary?
• Three new competitors have launched decent products ➔ Especially important if they launched them during a bubble, and there’s so much demand thatyou still meet or exceed your commitments to Wall Street. What happens after the bubble bursts?
• Though we have no injuries, the quality (by some measure) and frequency of safety audits are down ➔ Stop reporting “excellent safety performance,” and fix it.

Hint: Task 1a argued against the yearly strategy refresh. But if you are worried that with a yearly “ritual” no one will ever look at the framework and its strategy, set a time trigger. If results are good and there’s no confusion, then after a year you will still be triggered to prove that nothing needs modification.

Task 5c: Integrate into Managing Process

Chapter 19, EAS described that you will either integrate your dashboard, tactical policy, and plans, and the other aspects of your framework into your company’s managing process or create one if one does not exist. Elements of the process will include quarterly or yearly deliverables for individuals and organizations (perhaps written as charters).

Task 5d: Several Rollout Decisions

Make final decisions on:

• Rollout method (including grand or modest)
• Publicizing,
• Naming your endeavor
• Training

Chapter 19 discusses options for a grand or modest rollout to the organization. For naming, once again, use the principles for naming presented in the introduction to the task sets.

Hint: Be careful about encouraging internal marketing and branding of initiatives.

For your training approach, the principles for training for design phase capability (Task 1e) apply equally to the implementation phase. In particular:

• How much training is needed depends on the organization’s familiarity withthe concepts and the degree of change you are striving for.
• Do not rely on a few big classes at the start. There will be the illusion thatpeople fully get it, which is worse than no training at all. (This kind of “sheepdipping” sometimes comes along with the grand rollout approach.)
• Ramp training up over time! Not down. The more they do the more they canbe trained. Prove to the organization that leadership is dead serious about thenew framework and its strategy.
• Don’t forget leadership training (if they will do it).

Hint: You also need to pick the trainers. Teaching is a great way to learn, and a way to test if someone knows the new framework. Use this to advantage but be sure trainers really learn the framework and how you arrived at it. The more people from the organization that were involved in the design phase, the more ready-to-go teachers you have.

Decide What to Publicize Externally

Another rollout option to consider is what to publicize externally. In any competitive situation, why give information to the “bad guys”? Even conveying an achievement is information (this is called the existence proof).¹ Half of the uncertainty when trying to create something new is wondering if it can even be done at all. There’s no point in making competitors confident that they should keep trying. If, like the CEO from the Introduction, EAS, who claims execution eats strategy for lunch, and whose “strategy” is a list of themes that could apply to any business, then there’s nothing to worry about. But, even if you have a real framework and strategy, there are reasons to publicize all or parts of it.

First, if you believe the information is going to get out anyway, you might as well communicate it properly. The US military makes information like field manuals available online,² presumably because there is no way to keep them from the enemy. Second, announcements are needed if you are expected to explain how you will succeed. Your investors and Wall Street usually need to hear how you are going to reach aspirations. A time-honored way to satisfy this need, yet avoid giving information to adversaries, is to supply buzz speak, clichés, and obvious goals. In sports, such talk doesn’t make for good television (think Bill Belichick): “we need to excel in all three phases of the game” or “we have to execute better.” Fascinating. Yet is there a correlation between not yacking and winning? If you can get away with it, smokescreens like this are effective.

Publicity can also be used to mislead. All’s fair in love and war, if you can legally and morally get away with it. And if there will be no long-term repercussions, misleading information may give advantage. Be sure, however, it does not confuse your own people in a negative way.

Finally, you may wish to educate the other players in the ecosystem to better understand your intentions and therefore encourage them to work in positive ways. For instance, if you have a new product strategy, major corporate announcements may carry more weight than counting on salespeople and buyers. You can explain your product road map, however, without necessarily explaining the strategy behind it.

Task 5e: Complete Working Documents

Your working documents and design package are those materials that are needed for guiding people’s work in implementation. It’s what they need to know about the new framework to do their job. A typical package is shown in Figure 5e.1.

If you are making only a small change, perhaps a different framework and dashboard will suffice — but show what has changed.

Documents should be in a form that can be modified as you are triggered to adapt and make changes. That means being able to disseminate updated versions as needed. You may benefit from using a Version 1, Version, 1.1, Version 2.0, and so on, numbering system so long as it doesn’t look too cute. Too many versions is also a problem. Like updating a product, you have to be sure the benefit to the customer outweighs the added complication.

You may also consider adding graphics to the rollout package to explain how you arrived at the new framework. This can include a simplified SAM, the StrategyBottleneckAspiration, and the results of research and models. Add this detail if you believe seeing some of the struggle — especially rejected alternatives and fitness criteria — will help the organization internalize the framework. How much you show also depends on whether you are implementing a grand or modest kickoff. You can draw on these materials to construct your rollout communication presentations and training materials. This may be standard PowerPoint presenta- tions, Q&A, video (a purpose-made video with interviews, or a simple voiceover on the PowerPoint). For training, the most useful visuals for conveying the essence of the framework may be the triad, a simple SAM, and a simple summary framework. For conveying the work and responsibilities going forward, the plans and policies are most important.

Hint: Be sure to archive the working design materials—interviews, models, data analysis, research, detailed SAM—so you can pick up again where you left off when you are triggered to modify the framework. This is contrasted to smaller changes that can be made on the working documents above that you will always have available.

A few other considerations:

• Be sure each nested system is targeted with a package.
• It may occasionally be a good idea to give a “travelogue”/history of how youarrived at your framework. Ask yourself whether understanding the path youtook will help people buy in or turn them off.
• When designing presentations for your various audiences, consider the consequences of any leaks, and how much detail you will publicize, as discussed inChapter 19, EAS.
• Do not have multiple versions of documents that are almost the same.

Hint: If you allow people in the organization to put their “spin” on the package and materials, be sure they are aware of which are “bible” graphics. These are the graphics and documents that should not be modified.

Task 5f: Declare Good Enough, Start Living It, and Be Ready to Go Back

You have arrived at the end of your design phase. You can create a checklist like that shown in Table 19.1 in Chapter 19, EAS, to audit that you have everything ready to go. As it says there, what you have will not be perfect, and the key to success is that execution means adhering to your framework but going back and fixing it when you find a flaw that is sufficiently large.