One major risk in Strategy or Policy Deployment is drifting away from the main objectives and/or getting behind schedule. Any delaying during rollout may simply mean giving away a free gift to competition. Distraction on the way can add to the delay and costs, without adding value for customers nor profit for the company.
Have a roadmap with waypoints
In order to keep the rollout on track, a roadmap is mandatory. Yet without specific waypoints on the map, alternate routes may be considered during rollout, for instance for avoiding an unforeseen difficulty, choosing a seemingly easier path or for grasping an opportunity.
Specific waypoints on a roadmap are Intermediate Objectives, or milestones if you will. These Intermediate Objectives better be prerequisites (must-haves) to achieving the upper goals, otherwise they are likely to unfold as nice-to-haves, distractions and budget drainers.
Keep focussed
In order to prevent getting distracted by nice-to-haves, ‘opportunities’ and chasing butterflies, it is mandatory to keep focussed. With a roadmap built on all sequential Prerequisites to achieve the Goal, and those Prerequisites being Intermediate Objectives or milestones, all aligned toward achieving the Goal, the risk of going astray is largely mitigated. Provided periodic reviews check the progress, and those reviews are frequent enough to detect early any drifting.
Speed. Fast implementation.
Speed is not only about time-to-market, outrunning competition and avoiding delay, it is also a way to force the focus onto the planned actions. The more available time to implement something, and the more opportunity for gold-plating it appears. Gold plating is meant here to fine-tune, turn something into a masterpiece when a plain item would have done the job just as fine, cheaper and quicker. Slack time in implementation leaves also time to consider working on additional nice-to-haves and other budget draining distractions.
Therefore aggressive planning and timely reviews are advised.
One tool can help
The Goal Tree provides, once built after rational analysis, the roadmap to achieve the Goal and all the Necessary Conditions or Prerequisites on the way, the waypoints. Once the Goal Tree is built and scrutinized for logical soundness, a quick assessment will show the actual situation – I recommend using the Red-Amber-Green color coding – actions required with their priorities.
Therefore, the Goal Tree is not only a roadmap, a benchmark and a situation assessment tool, but a tool to mitigate the risk of going astray, distracted and lured by nice-to-haves.
For reviews and keeping cadence however, there is no substitute for management.
A project manager with strong support from the senior management team will still be necessary.
Chris HOHMANN 