“A vision and strategy aren’t enough. The long-term key to success is execution. Each day. Every day.” – Richard M Kovacevich
After developing a VUCA Strategic Plan for their organization, many leaders and their teams think the hard work is over.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. This is when the real work begins!
It is now time to transition the focus from planning to execution. This is when the work of accomplishing the objectives defined in the plan happens. This is where winning organizations demonstrate a bias to action and MFGSD, and begin to execute their plans.
The Management Cycle is the final, and arguably most important, element in the VUCA Strategic Planning framework. For leaders, this is the vital process whereby they effectively manage the execution of the VUCA Strategic Plan for their organization. For individuals and teams, this is when they execute strategy and tactics all the way through to the achievement of defined objectives.
The VUCA Strategic Planning Management Cycle
A comprehensive VUCA Strategic Plan will have clearly articulated details on three important elements:
- Long-term goals for the organization.
- The strategy for reaching them.
- Tactical objectives to achieve along the way.
Furthermore, these objectives (hopefully designed using the SMARTER framework!) will specify assigned resources (people and financial), timelines, and metrics.
The tactical objectives are the work outcomes which are delegated to individuals and teams, and help to define the success or failure of their roles in the organization.
Leaders of the organizations (who are the fiduciary “owners” of the strategic plan) must now do what they do best: lead their teams and manage the plan to successful completion! This element, called the Management Cycle in the VUCA Strategic Planning framework, is where the work of the organization happens.
The Management Cycle is not a static step in the planning process, but actually an on-going management activity. Rather than a linear path from beginning to end, it is better to think of it as a circular loop structured very much like the traditional PDCA total quality productivity loop (plan-do-check-act), as follows:
- Start/Continue – Think of this as a stage-gate at the top of the loop. It is where the work effort towards achieving the objective begins. It is also where leaders make the decision to continue the effort during a regular progress update…
- Action/Execution – This is the stage where the actual work or activity happens. At some pre-defined, or ad hoc, point in time the activity is reviewed…
- Evaluation – In this stage, individuals or teams review their progress with leadership. Specific metrics (defined in the VUCA Plan) are evaluated, which leads to…
- React/Pivot/Stop – Following evaluation, leaders must guide the individual or team in making any necessary course corrections. This can include reacting to things like market feedback, experiment results, sales success, etc. The decision could be to continue for another execution cycle, pivoting to a different approach, or stopping the activity.
This iterative pattern of activity continues until the objective is either successfully achieved, or the objective is modified, or the objective is removed from the plan.
The cadence of the Management Cycle is heavily dependent on the nature of the actual activity. Singular events, or short-duration tactical activities, might not allow time for anything other than a completion/failure evaluation at the end. Whereas, longer-term or more complex activities might have a series of regularly scheduled reviews on some calendar basis (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.)
Many leading organizations (including Intel, Google, and LinkedIn) have enjoyed great success using a methodology called Objectives and Key Results (sometimes referred to as OKR) to manage the execution of their strategic plans. Future blog articles will go into greater depth on the OKR framework for managing the achievement of objectives.
Where Does the Management Cycle Fit into the VUCA Strategic Planning Framework?
In the VUCA Strategic Planning framework, Core Ideology and Envisioned Future, combined with robust Situational Awareness detailing the current state of the organization and its operating environment, create the springboard for strategy development:
- Core Ideology – Defining the mission, values, and purpose of the organization. These elements describe why the organization exists and what it stands for today. They form the “true North” guideposts for making strategic decisions and are the foundation for any VUCA plan.
- Envisioned Future – Defining a clear vision of what the organization aspires to become or achieve and its long-term goals. These elements explain the desired “future state” and the long-term goals you and your team are working towards achieving in order to get there.
- Situational Awareness – A thorough analysis of the environment in which the organization operates. Situational awareness involves knowing where you are (“current state”) and being aware of what is happening in your environment (internal and external perspective) to better understand how information, events, and one’s own actions might affect both immediate and future outcomes.
With this planning foundation in place, leaders should consider strategic options that will enable the organization to bridge the gap between the current state and the desired future state while factoring in the operating environment as revealed by the situational analysis. Strategy is the mechanism to do this:
- Strategy – Defining the approach that will guide individuals and teams on “how” to achieve the short-term objectives that move the organization from its starting point towards achieving its long-term goals. Strategy plays a vital role in VUCA strategic planning. It bridges the “gap” between where the organization is today and where it wants to be in the future.
- Strategy Decision – Once formulated, leaders must then decide if the strategy is the best one to help the organization achieve its long-term goals. If the decision is to move ahead with executing a chosen strategy then it is time to commit, and proceed with creating a complete Strategic Plan around that strategy designed to ensure successful execution.
The strategic planning process culminates in the creation of a VUCA Strategic Plan:
- VUCA Strategic Plan – A clear time and resource based plan, that details the strategy and actions by which the organization intends to reach its Envisioned Future.
In addition to their primary VUCA Strategic Plan, leadership teams should also take several additional steps to help mitigate the potential risk of disruption or failure:
- Scenario Planning – Identify the potential VUCA impacts that could derail your primary strategy or impede your ability to achieve the defined objectives, and action plan your response to them. Because almost no plan goes as expected, by answering “what if” across a comprehensive set of possible future scenarios your team will be better prepared to quickly react and make decisions when a disruption happens.
- Strategy Portfolio – A list of viable alternative, complementary, or even competing strategies that your organization will resource and your team will execute in addition to the primary strategy. Your Strategy Portfolio will develop from the strategy formulation phase, additional insights gained from situational awareness, and scenario planning that went into creating your VUCA Plan. This element mitigates risk and maximizes future opportunity for the organization.
In the final stage of the VUCA strategic planning process the focus shifts from planning to execution. It is now time for leaders to delegate the responsibility for taking action and manage the outcomes.
- Management Cycle – A circular workflow, where individuals or teams do the work of executing the strategic plan, review progress, and make course-correction decisions. The leaders of the organization manage this on a regular cadence until the objectives are either achieved, changed, or deleted.
Conclusion – Time to Execute
“Without strategy, execution is aimless. Without execution, strategy is useless.” – Morris Chang
In the world of business, having great ideas is much like having a strategic plan – many leaders and organizations have them, yet very few successfully get them done.
This failure to execute is what the Management Cycle element of the VUCA Strategic Planning framework prevents. By clearly defining expectations and ownership, and actively managing the work, leaders can make sure good outcomes happen.
Moving the organization from vision to results…
-Onward