Traditional planning methodologies focus on steering an organization in the direction desired by top management, often referred to as management by objective (MBO). Unfortunately, as we know, you can’t achieve the desired results by just dictating individual targets.

Companies must determine ahead of time what the vision and direction will be. A proper strategy must assign clear responsibilities and show what resources are to be committed. Metrics and timelines must be defined. Management must decide what core elements are to be deployed and when.

Strategy deployment is the system for setting management’s compass toward True North. It is a tool to align people, activities, and performance metrics with strategic priorities. It enables members of the organization to work together in the most creative way to achieve the strategic intent.

Strategy is not about doing the important things but rather the process of choosing, the responsibility of leaders to grasp the situation and decide the plan forward. I always tell others that strategy deployment is a focusing mechanism. This is about sharpening your focus by selecting the vital few breakthrough objectives. The job of management is to steer towards those priorities that will bring the organization into alignment with customer demands.

Start With the Company’s Mission and Vision

If your organization has a mission statement, it’s a good place to start. You’re unlikely to identify specific or tactical goals with only this information; however, it should offer a north star in guiding the company.

If your organization does not already have its own mission and vision, creating one is another strong starting place for the strategic planning process. The organization’s mission and vision provide a framework of its ultimate purpose and guide the team’s goals and activities.

Asking intelligent questions is critical for executives who are responsible for making decisions and setting corporate strategy. Below are a series of questions that you can use to evaluate strategy comprehensively.

Breakthrough Objectives Questions

• Can the “Breakthrough Objective” be measured?
• Do “Breakthrough Objectives” clearly tie to your Strategic Plan Objectives?
• Is the advantage unique enough to distinguish ourselves from competition?
• Do the breakthrough objectives clearly indicate how we consider winning three to five years down the line?
• Have you stretched your target past the five year outlook that would be considered breakthrough performance?
• Has the team reached consensus that these are the critical few breakthroughs that will lead to competitive advantage?

Annual Objective Questions

• Can the “Annual Objectives” be measured?
• Do “Annual Objectives” clearly tie to your breakthroughs?
• Is the advantage unique enough to distinguish ourselves from competition?
• Is the “Annual Objective” stretched to carve out a good chunk of the breakthrough objective where it would be considered a healthy challenge for the organization?
• Can actions realistically be taken within a one year time frame in order to achieve the result (assess time to implement plus pull through results)?
• Has the team reached consensus that these are the critical few “Annual Objectives” that will lead to competitive advantage?

Improvement Priorities Questions

• Can the “Improvement Priority” be measured?
• Do “Improvement Priorities” clearly tie to your “Annual Objectives”?
• Is the “Improvement Priority” specific to a business value stream and what action will be taken to deliver a result?
• Is the action to be taken a new approach or the same as current operations? (If it is the latter, you may need to dive deeper into what you will do differently or better)
• Can actions be taken within a one year time frame in order to achieve this Improvement priority (implementation time + results achieved)?
• Does the improvement priority have potential to become a standard part of the business? (i.e. Daily Management)
• Has the team reached consensus that these are the critical few “Improvement Priorities” that will lead to competitive advantage?

Targets to Improve Questions

• Can the “Targets to Improve” realistically impact
  • Improvement Priorities
  • Annual Objective
  • Breakthrough Objective – if achieved with long term sustainment
• Are the “Targets to Improve” SMART?
• Are there both leading and lagging indicators?
• Can the “Targets to Improve” be measured and maintained routinely to meet our monthly cadence review?
• Has the team reached consensus that these are the critical few “Targets to Improve” that will lead to a competitive advantage?

By posing the right questions, you can help assure the best outcomes for your organization.

Create the Strategic Plan

With a broader picture of company priorities in sight, now is the time to design a strategy for the organization’s activities to support success across teams. At the heart of Strategy Deployment is the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. Promoted by W. Edwards Deming, this management cycle (sometimes called the PDCA cycle) is an iterative process. A closed loop system, it emphasizes four repetitive steps:

First, start with an idea and create a PLAN to test it.

Then, DO adhere to the plan, and take corrective action when necessary.

Next, analyze and STUDY discrepancies to identify the root causes of obstacles.

Finally, take appropriate ACTion. If the outcome matches expectations, then standardize the process to maintain the gains. If the results were disappointing, then modify the process to eliminate the root cause of remaining problems. In either case, repeat the process starting again with PLAN.

While these steps appear in a linear sequence, when implemented the phases are best thought of as concurrent processes that can continually be improved.

Align Employees to Strategy

Now that you’ve created your strategic plan, it’s time to share it. Bridging the gap between strategy development and execution is one of the biggest challenges. Regardless of the quality of their strategies, many companies find it difficult to successfully implement them. Probably the most important driver is “strategic alignment,” the systematic process of bringing the actions of each business unit and employee in line with the objectives. The challenge is to make them all work together towards a common goal.

To reduce ambiguity during the planning phase of Strategy Deployment management uses a fact-based inter-level negotiation process known as “Catchball”. The word “catchball” denotes a simple social game in Japan in which a circle of young children throw a baseball back and forth. It metaphorically describes a participative process that uses iterative planning sessions to field questions, clarify priorities, build consensus, and ensure that strategies, objectives, and measures are well understood, realistic and sufficient to achieve the objectives.

The catchball is an important part of any planning process, but it is something that is all too often just glossed over. When done properly the catchball encourages leadership and team members to dialogue about a particular topic in an efficient and productive manner. It can help to break down the walls which are all too often placed between management and the team members, and it can also help meetings progress much more smoothly.

Here are six steps that can help you in aligning your staff with the strategy:

1. Establish a Strategic Vision. At a leadership level, the organization needs a strategic vision. This may be considered the organization’s “True North.” Along with the vision, establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that will be used to track progress toward the vision, with specific targets in a limited number of areas. These overarching metrics are often reported on the organization’s balanced scorecard, which is generally monitored and addressed on a monthly basis.
2. Communicate. As with all continuous improvement efforts, Strategy Deployment implementation starts with communication within the team of the vision and intent along with training as needed on concepts and tools. The idea of catchball communications is pretty simple but may be quite novel in typical hierarchical organizations that utilize primarily top-down directions. Catchball starts by ensuring the strategic vision is understood and deemed achievable throughout the organization.
3. Understand the Current State. Another important element of Strategy Deployment is having a clear understanding of the current state. Comparing this to the strategic vision helps to identify various gaps. Using the catchball process, the team identifies tactical plans aligned with the strategy and executes actions to close the gaps.
4. Prioritize. Typically, organizations find they want to achieve more than is possible with the people, resources, and money they have available. Rather than setting unrealistic top-down expectations, the catchball process is ideal for deciding upon and communicating priorities in a way that considers both the organization’s needs and capabilities.
5. Get Engagement. Make sure that everyone who participates in, contributes ideas to, and leads continuous improvement has the opportunity to engage in the catchball process. In other words, help the entire workforce to become engaged. While shopfloor input might not be elevated in a typical organization, catchball collects valuable ideas from anywhere and everywhere.
6. Utilize Evidence. The catchball process uses fact-based communications. Real-time process performance monitoring is made visible, identifying needs for attention or reinforcement. At the overarching level, key performance indicators show how the gap closure activities are adding up to make progress toward the strategic objectives

Stay Flexible, and Realign as Needed

In your regular reporting to key stakeholders, include an opportunity to check in on any change in priorities across the organization. Don’t become inflexibly attached to the annual plan; keep an agile approach and adjust goals and activities to maintain alignment with company success.

If I had to take one lesson from my business experience it is without focus you are lost. Infinity is not available to us in this life. Time and money are limited and as such we must utilize these limited resources effectively. I can see no way to achieve our objectives other than to utilize discretion, prioritization and selection. For after all, some things are simply more critical and more important. The strategy deployment process identifies and concentrates resources on the vital few stretch achievements that support the vision to achieve excellence.