The very goal of business initiative management is to set the right priority, align key success factors of the organization, streamline business resources, process, capability, capacity to improve overall organizational effectiveness and maturity.
There are two reasons to pursue change initiatives: Become better at what you do or be able to do something different. The management needs to manage business initiatives, navigate management blocks and improve the success rate by asking deep questions, clarifying the logic, optimizing processes and improving business competencies.
Uncover the big why: Every business initiative is to solve problems large or small. A business case provides the description and reason for starting an initiative to solve certain problems; the user case to justify logical reasons for initiative, sponsorship, pros & cons. Unclear goals or too many variables attached to it make it more confusing. The organization has to continuously understand its customer needs and business requirements, have a clear understanding of how customer-centric approaches enhance the business model and extend profitability. Facilitating requirements negotiations is very beneficial to keep everyone involved.
Uncovering the big why starts with the business requirements definition and requirements. As requirements are gathered and managed and discussed with executives and teams, focusing on those requirements whose improvement has the most benefit to the business. The customers, users and all stakeholders including suppliers, partners, and all internal functions hold a stake in the requirements. The business management needs to clarify the big “why” by pondering: Does the business initiative situates the organization within a growing and highly profitable product market niche? Do the business initiatives build processes/capabilities that differentiate the organization from its major competitors? Etc. Set the right priority to solve the most critical problems for the business’s long term thriving.
Clarify the “what” factor: Behind many critical business initiatives, there are numerous points-of-view and reference points of varying stakeholders. It's important for management to clarify the scope, specification of business initiatives by collecting stakeholders’ requirements, and making insightful inquiries such as: What are the key drivers behind this initiative? What problem or event is driving the need for the project? What immediacy does this problem or event have and why does it need to be addressed now? What is the current state? What are the concerns with the current state (costs, inefficiencies, top line impacts etc.)? What is the proposed state? What is the cost, time; other resources needed to get to the proposed state?
Without customers, an organization cannot survive, and without profitability, an organization cannot grow. Any initiative, even though a very technical one should have a business objective associated with it. Due to rapid changes and dynamic business environment, from a management perspective, high-level user stories are the way to go for planning sessions and introducing detailed functionality at the last possible minute, rather than attempting to decide all of it way too early and too much in depth.
Improve the how: The management needs to scrutinize implementation phases of business initiatives, as well as the business processes & capabilities to realize it. Keeping track of business activities is surely helpful in being proactive. In many organizations, there is a discontinuity or a chasm between desired and delivered performance and corporate processes/capabilities. Management needs to provide coherence between actual capability and the objectives that have been defined for business initiatives management, and addresses in outline how the objectives will be achieved.
Design, cost effectiveness, and customer satisfaction all have a big impact on the implementation success. To improve the management effectiveness, It’s important to focus on proactive planning, process optimization or rule updating for collaboration, accountability, and most importantly, integration. The good managers help to explore the center of business gravity or bridge capability and culture gaps such as, an inability to build momentum and increase the tempo of implementation; a waste of time, emotional energy and other resources invested in work, etc.
Identify the “who”: People are still the weakest link many times in any type of management. Effective leaders should work with the right mindset to recreate an inclusive organization with every dip in the business life cycle, always look for the capabilities and skills that they don't have so that they can build a winning team and complement each other to achieve successful outcomes, whether it's about financial, brand, or double bottom line. Every factor about the large-scale business initiative is rooted in the fact that people need to understand what is changing, what the impacts of those changes are, how they fit in the new world, and how they can participate in the change. Leaders should demonstrate disrupt complacent and conventional thinking, and manage business initiatives systematically.
Lack of the right talent with mixed strength and skills working on the initiatives is the reality. The emergent technologies and practices make it possible to expand the talent pool, to build inclusive teams with coherent diversification from cognitive difference to complementary skill sets. The management needs to do the check up by asking: Who is accountable for a vision for the change? Who leads the execution of change? Who is accountable for achieving the milestones? Who is accountable for the quality and the cost of transformation? Who is accountable for change in capabilities at the core, enabling implementation, etc. The most important thing is to put the right people in the right position to solve the right problems timely.
Predict and figure out when or where: For complex business initiative management, besides goal setting and process clarification, it’s also important to build a practical roadmap which is contextual, informative, with clearly defined key performance indicators. Depending on the nature of the requirement of the stakeholders, the road map will take on different characteristics. If the road map is an overall business justification for funding, then the map will be more inclusive with roads and detours describing the enterprise taking into consideration the technical nuances as well as all the business artifacts that make up the road map by which the business management can predict or figure out when or where to make a difference.
A "roadmap" is simply a plan for moving or transitioning, from one state to another. If the roadmap focuses on a specific "road" within the map, then the map is more tactical and in turn determines the importance of what artifacts are necessary to define the road. Big granularity means progress checking in an iterative way; it is important in overall progress and if the associated objective is not fulfilled, some important analysis and decisions are needed; it is associated with phases and iterations or other important points and it could be related to formal progress tracking.
Organizations today are inundated with the sea of information, overwhelmed with too many initiatives, and overloaded with operation and short term business concerns. The very goal of business initiative management is to set the right priority, align key success factors of the organization, streamline business resources, process, capability, capacity to improve overall organizational effectiveness and maturity.
Uncover the big why: Every business initiative is to solve problems large or small. A business case provides the description and reason for starting an initiative to solve certain problems; the user case to justify logical reasons for initiative, sponsorship, pros & cons. Unclear goals or too many variables attached to it make it more confusing. The organization has to continuously understand its customer needs and business requirements, have a clear understanding of how customer-centric approaches enhance the business model and extend profitability. Facilitating requirements negotiations is very beneficial to keep everyone involved.
Uncovering the big why starts with the business requirements definition and requirements. As requirements are gathered and managed and discussed with executives and teams, focusing on those requirements whose improvement has the most benefit to the business. The customers, users and all stakeholders including suppliers, partners, and all internal functions hold a stake in the requirements. The business management needs to clarify the big “why” by pondering: Does the business initiative situates the organization within a growing and highly profitable product market niche? Do the business initiatives build processes/capabilities that differentiate the organization from its major competitors? Etc. Set the right priority to solve the most critical problems for the business’s long term thriving.
Clarify the “what” factor: Behind many critical business initiatives, there are numerous points-of-view and reference points of varying stakeholders. It's important for management to clarify the scope, specification of business initiatives by collecting stakeholders’ requirements, and making insightful inquiries such as: What are the key drivers behind this initiative? What problem or event is driving the need for the project? What immediacy does this problem or event have and why does it need to be addressed now? What is the current state? What are the concerns with the current state (costs, inefficiencies, top line impacts etc.)? What is the proposed state? What is the cost, time; other resources needed to get to the proposed state?
Without customers, an organization cannot survive, and without profitability, an organization cannot grow. Any initiative, even though a very technical one should have a business objective associated with it. Due to rapid changes and dynamic business environment, from a management perspective, high-level user stories are the way to go for planning sessions and introducing detailed functionality at the last possible minute, rather than attempting to decide all of it way too early and too much in depth.
Improve the how: The management needs to scrutinize implementation phases of business initiatives, as well as the business processes & capabilities to realize it. Keeping track of business activities is surely helpful in being proactive. In many organizations, there is a discontinuity or a chasm between desired and delivered performance and corporate processes/capabilities. Management needs to provide coherence between actual capability and the objectives that have been defined for business initiatives management, and addresses in outline how the objectives will be achieved.
Design, cost effectiveness, and customer satisfaction all have a big impact on the implementation success. To improve the management effectiveness, It’s important to focus on proactive planning, process optimization or rule updating for collaboration, accountability, and most importantly, integration. The good managers help to explore the center of business gravity or bridge capability and culture gaps such as, an inability to build momentum and increase the tempo of implementation; a waste of time, emotional energy and other resources invested in work, etc.
Identify the “who”: People are still the weakest link many times in any type of management. Effective leaders should work with the right mindset to recreate an inclusive organization with every dip in the business life cycle, always look for the capabilities and skills that they don't have so that they can build a winning team and complement each other to achieve successful outcomes, whether it's about financial, brand, or double bottom line. Every factor about the large-scale business initiative is rooted in the fact that people need to understand what is changing, what the impacts of those changes are, how they fit in the new world, and how they can participate in the change. Leaders should demonstrate disrupt complacent and conventional thinking, and manage business initiatives systematically.
Lack of the right talent with mixed strength and skills working on the initiatives is the reality. The emergent technologies and practices make it possible to expand the talent pool, to build inclusive teams with coherent diversification from cognitive difference to complementary skill sets. The management needs to do the check up by asking: Who is accountable for a vision for the change? Who leads the execution of change? Who is accountable for achieving the milestones? Who is accountable for the quality and the cost of transformation? Who is accountable for change in capabilities at the core, enabling implementation, etc. The most important thing is to put the right people in the right position to solve the right problems timely.
A "roadmap" is simply a plan for moving or transitioning, from one state to another. If the roadmap focuses on a specific "road" within the map, then the map is more tactical and in turn determines the importance of what artifacts are necessary to define the road. Big granularity means progress checking in an iterative way; it is important in overall progress and if the associated objective is not fulfilled, some important analysis and decisions are needed; it is associated with phases and iterations or other important points and it could be related to formal progress tracking.
Organizations today are inundated with the sea of information, overwhelmed with too many initiatives, and overloaded with operation and short term business concerns. The very goal of business initiative management is to set the right priority, align key success factors of the organization, streamline business resources, process, capability, capacity to improve overall organizational effectiveness and maturity.
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