How One Company Successfully Moved From Setting a Vision to Implementing that Vision
Read Part I of this article for background information. In this article, Part 2, we’ll cover the conversations and discussions that occurred during the 2 day off-site session.
Many of the 50 attendees were surprised to hear that of the 28 projects launched over the last 3 years, only 10 of those projects were directly aligned to, and launched in support of, strategic initiatives. There were also surprised to hear that the 18 projects, while they appeared successful overall (and, to be fair some did have value to the organization) had minimal ROI to the company. Certainly none of them could be mapped back to a strategic goal nor to even moving forward toward achieving one of the strategic goals. It should be noted that we did not focus in this meeting on who launched and supported the projects. That would have caused significant conflict and our goal was to move forward, not point fingers and rehash the past. The important thing was to prevent such projects from being launched and implemented in the future.
The CEO shared the vision of the executive team – Accomplish strategic goals by selecting the right projects at the right time. We could argue that the vision is actually a mission and we wouldn’t be incorrect. However, for the CEO it was a vision because it directly tied to accomplishing significant strategic objectives that, if achieved, would have significant positive financial impact on the organization. (And, frankly, I wasn’t about to argue with a choice in terminology with the CEO – he was engaged and excited about moving forward and was a big champion for me in getting the other leaders engaged.)
We broke up into 5 groups of 10 leaders per group. We asked each table to assign the following roles:
- A leader to keep everyone on track (this could not be a senior leader within the organization)
- A scribe to capture all information on flip charts provided
- A timekeeper to keep the group within the time allocated
- A spokesperson for the group (again, this could not be a senior leader within the organization)
Each table of 10 was assigned the following question to brainstorm:
- What selection criteria should be used to select and prioritize projects to be launched each year within the organization?
We allocated 45 minutes for brainstorming and another 45 minutes for reducing the list of potential criteria to no more than 10 items at each table.
At the end of this exercise, we asked each group to share the results of their brainstorming exercises and then, as a group, agreed on criteria to use for selecting and prioritizing projects. Here is the criteria settled on by the entire group of 50 (through consensus):
- Must be aligned to, and help achieve in whole or in part, a strategic goal within the organization
- Must return an ROI of at least 20%
- Must support initiatives cross-divisionally/cross-department
At least 2 departments or divisions must see benefit/value in the initiative) - Risk must be within the level of tolerance for the organization
- Must have appropriate resources available to take on the initiative (to avoid over-allocation)
- Enable for a balanced project portfolio (not every project should be high risk or long-term)
A weight of 5 (very important) to 1 (less important) was assigned to each prioritization factor to better help in prioritizing the criteria to enable for selection of the most important projects. It was felt this would enable for some fairness and consistency in the selection process (which responded to the second question asked the group: How do we ensure fairness and consistentency in the selection of projects to be completed each year?)
A project proposal form would be completed for each project proposed that would include the following information:
- How the project aligns to the organization strategy
- Who it impacts significantly within the organization
- The expected cost associated with launching the project and the expected ROI
- Resources needed for implementation
- Expected risks associated with launching and implemention of the project
The form may be submitted by any member of the leadership team, but must have approval by the executive in charge of the division prior to moving to a project selection committee for review and approval.
The project selection committee would be comprised of members from:
- The executive team
- The senior leader/director level
- The department level
Each department would be represented on the project selection committee and the committee membership would rotate every two years. If a member of the committee was involved in developing a project proposal or signing off on it (in the case of an executive), (s)he would not be permitted to participate in reviewing and approving that project to be added to the portfolio.
Also discussed during the session was project resources. Over the last year it had been brought up numerous times that there are insufficient resources to accomplish projects. We wanted to determine if this was true, and if so, put in place a plan to ensure the right resources were available as needed to accomplish strategic initiatives.
After about an hour of discussions and examples, the group came to consensus about the following:
- The resources in place currently were the right resources needed for the organization; however, often they were overcommitted due to the excessive number of projects run at any one point in time. (This meant that no changes had to occur with the current resources.)
- A few additional high level resources would be required moving forward to ensure that the projects selected to be accomplished would be able to be accomplished and not be held up due to resource constraints.
It was also believed – and I have seen this as true at most all organizations – that with a plan in place to select the right projects at the right time it was highly likely that more projects may be done overall that required higher level resources working on fewer projects at any one point in time. In the past, resources were assigned to a fairly significant number of projects. This was because it was believed that since many of the projects launched were considered “simple enough” to accomplish they therefore could have a resource or two assigned to them who were also involved in a number of other initiatives. This caused over-allocation of resources and, frankly, were burning out people.
Next up – Part 3: What the company will do moving forward – the action plan
