Strategic business planning needs social business software
19 April 2010
For many, business and IT strategy is something to simply “get through”. So why is this the case? Our research points to a number of common reasons:
1/ Exclusive to a chosen few – Strategy roadmaps are developed by small groups of people (sometimes external consultants), and the knowledge, ideas and discussions of employees throughout the organization are rarely taken into account. It is claimed that executive management can also be guilty of paying lip-service to an’ inclusive strategy process’ instead taking a more top-down approach to strategic planning.
2/ Visible alignment of strategic value – Alignment of quantifiable business value between strategic programmes can be missing or unavailable, creating doubt as to the true value of strategic programmes and indeed, in some cases, a complete lack of perceived credibility for proposed strategic programmes. E.g. The lack of visibility between IT programmes and their alignment to business programmes and their value.
3/ Strategy discussions are static and infrequent – For most of the staff involved, strategy discussions are an occasional event supported by static information in spreadsheets and presentations. At best these discussions are interesting for those concerned, but do all staff really feel ownership over the strategy and commitment to its outcomes?
There’s an old but great Ted talk by Clay Shirky on institutions versus collaboration, here. It sums up much of what we think and what is wrong with strategy discussions today.
sharpcloud can help you, we’re passionate about creating social roadmaps to present your strategy, including to your partner and your supply chain community. Once you’re collaborating in sharpcloud you can set value and outcomes for strategic events and our theatre presentation view provides a way for you to wow your executive and stakeholder audience.
Try it for free to prepare and support your strategy meetings, we’re in an open beta at present and welcome your thoughts!
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