I’ve been writing about Strategy Deployment a lot recently but realised that I haven’t properly defined what I mean by the term. Actually, I sort of did in my last post, so I’m going to repeat, expand and build on that here.
In a nutshell, Strategy Deployment is any form of organisational improvement in which solutions emerge from the people closest to the problem.
The name comes from the Japanese term, Hoshin Kanri, the literal translation of which is “Direction Management”, which suggests both setting direction and steering towards it. A more metaphorical translation is “Ship in a storm going in the right direction”. This brings to my mind the image of everyone using all their skills and experience to pull together, with a common goal of escaping turbulence and reaching safety.
Lets look at the two elements, strategy and deployment, separately.
Strategy
Wikipedia defines strategy as
“a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty”.
The emphasis is mine as these are the two key elements which indicate that a strategy is not a detailed plan with a known and predictable outcome.
Strategy to me is about improving and making significant breakthroughs in certain key competitive capabilities. I like Geoffrey Moore’s Hierarchy of Powers from Escape Velocity as a guide for exploring what those capabilities might be. This hierarchy is nicely summarised as
“Category Power (managing the portfolio of market categories in which a company is involved), Company Power (your status relative to competitors), Market Power (market share in your target segments), Offer Power (differentiation of your offering), and Execution Power (your ability to drive strategic transformation within your enterprise).”
As an aside, in this context, Agility as a Strategy can be thought of as primarily (although not exclusively) focussed on improving Execution and Offer Powers.
Determining Strategy as “a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty”, therefore, involves setting enabling rather than governing constraints. Strategy should guide the creation of new solutions, and not control the implementation of existing solutions. It defines the how and not the what, the approach and not the tools.
Deployment
Mirriam-Webster defines deploy as
“to spread out, utilize, or arrange for a deliberate purpose”.
In this context it is the strategy that is being utilised for the deliberate purpose of improving organisational improvement. Given that the strategy is “a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty”, this means that the deployment is not the orchestration and implementation of a detailed plan.
Instead it requires a shift in the way organisations operate, from a mindset where management knows best, and tells employees what to do without thinking or asking questions, to one where they propose direction and ask for feedback and enquiry. Instead of assuming that managers know the right answers as a facts, the deployment of strategy assumes that any suggestions are simply opinions to be explored and challenged. Employees are allowed, and encouraged, to think for themselves, allowing for the possibility that they may turn out to be wrong, and making it acceptable for people to change their mind.
As another aside, this brings to mind a great Doctor Who quote from the latest season:
"Do you know what thinking is? It's just a fancy word for changing your mind." #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/Qf8AONNuVw
— Doctor Who BBCA (@DoctorWho_BBCA) November 8, 2015
Strategy Deployment
Back to my original definition of “any form of organisational improvement in which solutions emerge from the people closest to the problem.”
Strategy Deployment is the creation of a high level plan for organisational improvement under conditions of uncertainty (the strategy), and the utilisation of that strategy by employees for a deliberate purpose (to achieve one or more goals). Clear communication of both the goals and the strategy, and constant collaboration across the whole organisation to use all the skills, knowledge and experience available, allows the appropriate tactics emerge. In this way Strategy Deployment enables autonomy of teams and departments while maintaining alignment to the overall strategy and goals.
Note that I say any form. I don’t see Strategy Deployment as a specific method, or framework, but more as general approach or style. My preferred approach at the moment uses the X-Matrix, but I would also describe David Snowden’s Cynefin, David Anderson’s Kanban Method, Mike Burrows’ Agendashift and Jeff Anderson’s Lean Change Method as forms of Strategy Deployment. I’m hoping to explore the synergies more at Lean Kanban North America and the Kanban Leadership Retreat.