| | Strategy Mapping |  Conventional strategic planning often consists of a S.W.O.T. (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) analysis and then a list of initiatives that need to be done to accomplish the goals of the organization. This conventional approach usually manifests in a book that must be read from start to finish to be understood. It can't be permanently displayed in any useful way and most people in the organization couldn't understand it if they read it, although mostly they don't get an opportunity to read it anyway.
This is an over-simplification, but not so much of one as to contradict the essential point here.
If nothing else happened in the course of business other than working on those initiatives, that might be a reasonable approach. Since lots of things happen to interrupt and detour that process, and many more complexities arise on a day-to-day basis, as well as many more people being needed to work on the strategy, a more robust approach is needed.
Strategy mapping is a multi-dimensional, logic-based, diagrammatic approach to planning the accomplishment of goals. It is based on several key assumptions:
- Everyone who understands the strategy can work toward it. Anyone who doesn't understand is probably not working on it.
- In order to be readily understood, strategy needs to be diagrammed, and articulated in a way that is intuitive and transparent.
- All strategy is based on hypotheses about cause and effect. For example, to strategize winning a football game against a very strong passing team I hypothesize that if we can prevent them from passing our chances of winning increase. Our strategy ought to include an initiative that impedes the other team passing, such as fanatically guarding all prospective receivers and tackling the quarter-back as fast as possible.
- Strategy starts from the financial goals and gets designed backward through successive layers of depth or "perspectives". Those perspectives are Financial, Value Proposition, Operations and Processes an finally, People (including capacities, competencies, technology, culture, values and organizational development.
- Strategy gets executed in the opposite order, starting with people and is ultimately measured by financial results.
Consistent with these premises, strategy mapping starts from the financial goals and is built "backwards", it is easily understood as a flowchart displaying cause and effect relationships, it is measurable at each moment of its execution and accomplishment, and it can be understood by anyone in the organization. Mapping one's strategy is as vital to business as a blueprint is to building a skyscraper.
The Devero Group endorses and is expert in this methodology.
For more information on Strategy Mapping, its rationale, results and process, please read The Strategy-Focused Organization by Robert Kaplan and David Norton (available from Harvard Business School Press or at Amazon.com )
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