Having invested time and materials in developing a business strategy you need to deliver it. The first step, of course, is to make the procedural and process changes along with those to roles and responsibilities within your organisation. This, along with communications and training that may be required, embeds the strategy so that it can begin to deliver benefits.
Who is the strategy for - who expects the benefits?
For most strategies, access to the business owner constituency will not be possible. It will be more likely that a senior business manager, such as a Chief Operating Officer, Chief Executive Officer, or Chief Financial Officer, who is responsible to this constituency, will request and approve the strategy, and that the owners’ aspirations and goals will be represented in theirs. The senior business manager may delegate responsibilities further to “heads of change” who will have objectives and goals set in accordance. Whatever the case, it is imperative to clearly describe the domain and scope of the strategy. In the case set out here, the senior manager and their “heads of change” will act as the owner constituency and they will own the strategy.
What specifically is delivered?
A subset of stakeholders drawn from each relevant constituency group will be assigned sign-off approval of the strategy. Others will be informed or consulted during the composition and delivery of the strategy. They, or their delegated authority, will also be involved in the same capacity when changes are made and when governance decisions are escalated, e.g. via the exception process.
Following approval, the strategy must be embedded in the business so that the whole workforce has an understanding of how it affects them and what they contribute to it. Needless to say, a communication strategy is required. Strategy artefacts should include:
- Stakeholder communication plan (conforming to the communication strategy).
- Workforce communication plan (conforming to the communication strategy). Although the workforce may also be stakeholders, they will usually also have a role in the changes.
- The documented strategy:
- Stakeholder list including Responsible/Accountable/Consulted/Informed (RACI) matrix used in authorisation and engagement;
- Communication packs for each business function affected;
- Communication packs for each governance team affected, including new or changed Terms of Reference (ToR) as necessary and guidance for amending change governance (specialists for governing and maintaining the strategy will be required but the actual day to day governance may be deployed in several models discussed later);
- The strategy document, including evidence of stakeholder approval and a schedule of future review dates;
- A plan for implementing the strategy roll-out - the changes required to facilitate delivery;
- A very high level plan showing delivery of the benefits, i.e. which deliverables have a funded project vehicle for delivery and which do not - milestones, resources assigned, delivery dates, and delivery owners;
- A business proposal showing how the deliverables will be funded (this will include funded projects as well as proposals for funding gaps in the delivery plan). Proposals must be approved in order to obtain these deliverables.