Your strategy is a living document. A work of continuous progress. Leave it alone for too long and it will rot. Nurture it and you’ll be rewarded.
How? By applying this simple process improvement methodology to your strategic processes.
Here is the truth.
The old way of doing strategy with static tools and poor habits did wonders in the past when the world wasn’t moving as fast. But just because something worked in the past doesn’t mean it will work in the future.
In today’s world of Netflixes and Airbnbs, the old way of doing strategy comes up short.
But, don’t be confused. The enemy of large organizations today is not some hidden, unnoticed rival. The enemy is complacency.
Blockbuster didn’t wake up one day and find itself dethroned. It knew about the new player but gravely underestimated its rivalry. It got complacent. Until it locked up its stores.
Complacency manifests itself in strategy as stagnation. And stagnation can’t be fought using the old tools and tactics. It needs new tools and improved habits and processes.
In this article, we’ll discuss the following topics:
- What is process Improvement in strategy?
- The process improvement methodology for your business strategy
- Workplace culture: The secret to process improvement for strategy
- The 3 benefits of the process improvement methodology for strategy
What is process improvement in strategy?
Process improvement in strategy is the set of organizational habits that enables the development, review, adjustment, and execution of the organization’s strategic plan.
Continual process improvement is the nonstop iteration and evolution of those organizational habits.
The main objective of a continual process improvement in strategy is the proactive adaptation to environmental changes by aligning the workforce with the strategic plan for a lean, focused execution.
In layman’s terms, it’s how the organization is improving and adjusting its strategy to stay relevant in today’s changing world.
It’s the modern way of doing strategy to address the modern needs of companies.
The 4 parts of the process improvement methodology you need in your strategy
The methodology to improve your organization’s strategic process involves building habits in four key stages of your strategy management process:
- Planning
- Executing
- Reviewing
- Refining
These are where your process improvement efforts should focus on.
Planning
In most businesses, senior leadership meets once per year to develop the company’s strategy using resources like a strategic planning template. That’s when they structure their plan and determine where they’ll concentrate their focus.
However, that’s rarely effective today. When the world changes so fast, you can’t hope to lead the market if you visit your strategy yearly.
So, to improve the process of planning, you need to develop flexibility. To be able to detect the waves of change early, so you can evolve to ride them. You need to install a new habit to visit your strategy more frequently.
Commit to a quarterly strategy planning meeting.
Don’t review every part of your plan every single quarter, but focus on what’s relevant, challenge your assumptions every time. Make sure that your business’s trajectory makes sense.
Here’s a tip to be successful in improving your planning process:
Get out of excel.
Discussing your strategy’s performance so frequently is a demanding process. Static tools just won’t cut it. You need a dynamic platform that can support every stage of the strategy development process.
However, if you’re not ready to move out of excel yet, use this gap analysis template to make an honest internal assessment and figure out exactly where you should focus your efforts.
Executing
One of your business’s toughest challenges is to have your teams focused on executing your strategic plan. Especially the updated version. Because, what’s the point of having a flexible planning process if your workforce doesn’t execute the new initiatives?
Your enemy to executing your strategy is business-as-usual. The daily actions of your people. That’s what you’ll have to continuously improve and eventually change, your people’s current behavior.
And the most effective way to do that is by changing the metrics you use. People won’t change their activities because you instructed them to unless you change how you measure their performance.
So, align your metrics to your current goals. Every time you require a significant change in your people’s activities, make sure you measure the things that matter.
Then empower your people by assigning each metric to a clear owner. Make it a habit never to leave a metric or a project without an owner. The clarity that comes out of it drives accountability and improves the execution process of your strategy.
