What decision are you making?

Sure they pay you make it but how will you know you made the right one. Or more importantly how will you consider your stakeholders opinions? In such a way that they support your call and do not undermine it during execution.

Have a portfolio to prioritise? Each entry represents another stakeholder, anther person who wants a piece of your budget. Are you telling them what you want to buy? Or are you browsing, looking for something that tickles your fancy … like walking through a department store?

If you have a decision greater than $500,000, or a portfolio greater than $2,500,000 give me a call. My methods and tools take a little bit of time and money but the reduced time and improved quality of results are value for your money.

Strategy a good start ...

Strategy is how an organisation starts to answer the question "What do we do?"   From the OGC website 

Strategic Direction Fitness for purpose checklist:

• The strategic direction exists, as a set of strategic themes which are capable of providing a starting point for the planning of the required set of change programmes?
• Is there a set of strategic change initiatives which are consistent with the vision and the strategic themes for the business unit, are described in sufficient detail to enable subsequent prioritisation, selection and sequencing? Is the nature of the description of the change initiatives also such that implications of their influence on overall strategic direction can be interpreted?
• Is there a prioritised set of change programmes which clearly shows the interrelationships and dependencies between the change programmes themselves together with their costs and relative contributions (expressed in terms of potential benefits) to the vision and strategic themes of the organisation?

(http://www.ogc.gov.uk/documentation_and_templates_business_strategy.asp)

To be fit for purpose Strategy must enable the prioritisation of your organisation work program based upon the relative contribution to the business strategy.  How do you identify the relative contribution of a programme of work to your organisations strategy?

At Strat-D we take you through a process to build a Value Structure™ that starts with your Strategy.  

At the top level of the value structure are the elements of your Strategy.  Through facilitated workshops you identify the success criteria for each element; and sub-criteria as required.  When complete the structure shows a clear picture of how value is achieved within the organisation.  

Our process goes further.  At each level in the Value Structure™ you prioritise the contribution.   Because of our unique approach to prioritisation we are able to multiply the relative contribution throughout the structure.  

To complete the process each programme of work is compared to the Value Structure™ to identify its potential contribution.  The results allow you to compare the programmes to each other in a clear way understandable by all stakeholders.


Contact me now to learn more.

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Strategic Decision:
A Strategic Decision will commit more than 5% of your budget, or set a multi-year direction for your organization; it requires stakeholder support for success, and most importantly it is something that you need to get right.

The Strat-D selection methodology harnesses the best thinking within your organization to create and prioritize the Value Structure™ appropriate for the decision.  We then work with the people in your organization to define and evaluate options to maximize the Value to your organization.

Prioritization:
You are on point to allocate millions of dollars across competing opportunities.  Each stakeholder group believes that their opportunities are the best.  It is politically charged situation and the outcome will be strongly contested.

Our methodology starts by understanding what your stakeholders value.  Then working together we build a prioritized model of how that value can be achieved.  Once the Value Structure™ is defined opportunities value to the organization is calculated.

Strategic Direction:
Organizational Strategies tend to end with a program of work.  A Strategic Direction is a living document which people executing that program can make a right decision.

Starting with the board we confirm (or create) the organization strategy and prioritize each element's contribution to the whole.  Where additional clarity is needed we further expand specific elements of the strategy into an organizational Value Structure™.

Then for each major program of work, or division, we build a local Value Structure™ that is directly connected to the organizational Value Structure™.  The result is a clear understanding on how everyone contributes to the success of the organization.

VALUE for money
For Value for Money to be more than a buzz word you must be able to quantitatively and qualitatively define value that goes beyond revenue.

Your team knows what is valued in the organization, our role is to facilitate the documentation and prioritization of that value.  The resulting Value Structure™ you can use to calculate the value of a particular option to the organization.

If you have not calculated Net Present Value we can help you there also.

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Project Portfolio Prioritization

The Strat-D Approach to project prioritization and governance overcomes the natural emotional and competitive tendencies in budget discussion by providing an easy to use framework. Challenges to the assumptions, ground rules, and priorities no longer de-rail the discussion but instead provide further clarity into the organization goals which directly improve the final outcome.

the result … a scale of priorities for the objectives and sub-objectives that is a set of criteria, with relative weightings that are used as a basis for business case decisions on investment in projects.

Value for Money

In business value discussions are often dominated by revenue or market size. What happens where these metrics are not available? Or if there are large parts of the organisation that do not have direct financial contributions? How do you determine and measure value?

Your team knows your business better than anyone else and knows the value, you simply need help articulating and measuring the value.

By group facilitation I work with your leadership team and appropriate other stakeholders to actually quantify other value drivers (personnel, capability, market opportunity) right along side of revenue; which together creates a breakdown of the true value of the organization.

The process cuts through the politics and builds a consensus view that simplifies portfolio management, value for money discussions, and decision making. The result is a transparent view of organizational value that is well understood by all stakeholders.

The Man

Tom Weber is currently based out of Wellington New Zealand working with Asia Pacific clients establishing Value Based Governance and Decision Making models.

Tom started his career at Accenture. Where he built expertise in managing computer systems and people. He supported a variety of operational environments, from startup development, production financials and payroll, to complex multi-site multi-technology development platforms.

After Accenture, Tom was a founding partner in a Chicago based consultancy Alcyone Consulting. Where he built a business around fixing and making operable existing applications that were poorly constructed. He analyzed, identified, and fixed performance and stability issues so that organizations were able to get more value (greater uptime and less headaches) from their current product suite.

Tom moved to Wellington New Zealand where he took up a senior level IT position at the Ministry of Health. Under Tom’s leadership he significantly improved uptime and reliability of many of the Ministry’s systems.

However Tom’s passion is Governance and Decision Making. His background in Accenture, as an entrepreneur, and in a government agency; has shown him the importance of, and given him the necessary experience in, governance frameworks that goes beyond revenue, one based on the organizational values. 

His approach cuts through the politics and builds a consensus view that simplifies portfolio management, value for money discussions, and decision-making.

Call Tom today and learn how you can make your organizational strategy actionable.

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