Keep in mind, strategy execution is not sequential steps, but an iterative continuum.
Information is growing exponentially and technology is changing so rapidly, ignoring emerging trends will put your organization behind the competition.
IT strategy is an integral component of the business strategy. Statistically, strategy execution has a very low success rate, it’s important to streamline “vision-strategy-execution flow,” from vision (where do you want to go) to strategy (what do you want to achieve) to gap analysis (the current state assessment) to the roadmap. (how to get there) Thus, it’s important to take the systematic IT execution approach with the following management disciplines:
Communication Management: The gap between IT and business is the reality, there are complexities, competitions, conflicts, and controversies all over the places, miscommunication or misunderstanding leads to stagnation and malfunction. Communication clarity directly impacts on business effectiveness and speed. The goal of IT communication is to improve transparency and expedite execution, and a widely diverse communications effort needs to be part of the strategic planning.
The highly effective IT leader has to be prepared to constantly realign technology against the enterprise's business communication needs, take different communications approaches or styles such as issuing Newsletters, Broadcasting good and bad about IT. This could be about ROI of IT, Project delays, Benefits Realization, etc, and measure how communication effectiveness enables IT execution success.
Decision Management: Either at an individual or corporate level, people have to make decisions, large or small even on a daily basis. IT decisions are business decisions. Decision Management is an integral part of strategy management. IT strategic decisions or investments directly impact the business’s bottom line to keep the light on or the top-line business growth. The abundance of information flow, click-away knowledge, and advanced digital technologies and tools make it possible to gain real-time insight and business foresight in making effective decisions.
Keep in mind, IT management is the business of the entire company, not just the IT department. Thus, IT-related decision making, especially at the strategic level, is cross-functional teamwork, not based on the business executive’s intuition only, it has to leverage the systematic governance processes, analytics tools, and collective insight to ensure making decisions right and executing it well.
Demand/project Management: To accelerate IT strategy execution, assess IT-enabled business capability and capacity, implement an end to end demand management process which takes care of new project validation, business case approval, project development, design, user training and rollout, user adoption and change management and benefits realization, etc. IT Strategy Execution Flow is a Strategic objective – Strategic goal – Capability – Project – (People, Process, and Technology) continuum.
To improve IT organizational maturity, IT management should make an objective assessment of their organizational strength and weakness. Clarify key factors and considerations in solid strategic planning and execution. IT execution management must ensure that application development does not proceed without a "clear business rationale"; shorten the project management cycle, strike the right balance of operational excellence and innovation fluency, and bring value to the company with continuous deliveries consistently.
People Management: Driven by strategic necessity, digital technologies, and cultural progress, the workforce today is divergent in many ways, hyperdiverse and super-connected with the characteristics of multi-generation, multicultural, and multi-devicing, sharing a natural affinity for new perspectives and innovation. People Management is an important process that underpins the organization’s collective human capability to execute strategy and achieve high performance.
The IT skill gap is a reality. A structural people management approach needs to play an important role in understanding their people in an objective and holistic way. It's important to develop a set of practices of identifying, acquiring, deploying, and retaining well-qualified people throughout an organization and managing & refining business culture. Take a multi-stage of people management for increasing productivity, amplifying creativity, accelerating performance by integrating talent management, performance management, change management, culture management, and knowledge management, etc to accelerate strategy execution.
GRC: Organizations encounter more risks than ever, lack of risk awareness creates more blind spots uncovered, and gaps unfilled. It is important for leveraging an effective IT GRC discipline to identify vulnerability in the control via risk assessment and determine the potential range of consequences ($, business interruption, reputation, etc.) An effective IT GRC framework helps IT management define clear objectives, processes and structures required, resources, the authority of the system, and performance indicators to deliver organizational objectives and implement business strategy steadily.
Further, the effective IT GRC framework and compliance tool monitors change, alerts the organization to risk conditions, and enables accountability and collaboration around changes audits. While no one likes audits, however, sometimes they just help in drawing attention to CXO’s ears. Partner with the Audit team and explore how they can help. GRC can be used to raise visibility and awareness for many things that are captured at the different levels of the organization. GRC effectiveness can ensure IT execution success, sustain change, and business performance with the right order.
IT needs to be considered a line of business, not some back office, geek function, and it has to drive seamless strategy execution with continuous deliveries. Keep in mind, strategy execution is not sequential steps, but an iterative continuum. With “VUCA” digital new normal, you can’t predict every turn or curve that the business will face, you need to enable the desirable emergent business property, enforce the broader scope of collaboration, take a systematic IT execution approach, and create synergy for achieving and sustaining high-performance business results.
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