Architect Strategic Change

New technologies are changing the way we do business, changing the way we interact with things
We are intertwining digital tools with everyday life and everyday business processes, creating a world of connected things and connected people.
Organizations also are becoming more connected, forming stronger partnerships to deliver smarter value to customers and clients.
As often quoted from Darwin’s theory of species evolution, it is not the strongest that survive, it is not the smartest that survive, it is those that adapt most effectively to the changing ecosystem. Your enterprise has the opportunity to not only leverage ecosystem changes to grow, but also to develop new products and services that bring new value to customers and clients and the communities they exist within.
The pace of change is increasing – organizations must architect their growth and change to stay ahead. There is no standing still. Continuing to simply evolve in a reactionary way will result in diminishing effectiveness, potentially being left behind – ergo Kodak
Architect Optimum Alignment
Architecting your enterprise future involves vision, creativity, courage and discipline to achieve optimum alignment of all aspects of your business model and strategy. It requires

• Establishing a strategic direction reference point.
• Keeping strategy and operations aligned to that reference point.
• Understanding operational gaps that need addressing to implement the strategy.
• Understanding the journey to implement the changes.
• Purposefully architecting the journey so that all stakeholders are engaged and committed to success.

Along the way it is critical to periodically monitor and evaluate the reference point in light of changes in your ecosystem. This will alert you to know if you need to adjust the reference point and to determine what corresponding re-alignments to make to your strategic plan.
Effective enterprise architecture describes a vision of the effective value delivery of an enterprise, maps the scope of change and charts the journey to get there. It does so in such a way that adjustments can be decisively made along the journey by leaders that are fully informed of the resulting internal impacts and the key requirements to address any new gaps.
In this series of posts we will explore a straight forward method you can use to architect business change to ensure your strategy will deliver your desired future business model. This approach can be used by organizations of all sizes and purposes – for-profit, non-profit, and public sector.
Align your Strategy & Business Model
There are 4 key steps to architecting strategic change:

1. Figuring out WHY to change
   • What new or improved value will you deliver in response to the needs of  your stakeholders?
2. Figuring out WHAT to change
   • What new or improved products or services will deliver this value?
   • What new or improved business capabilities are needed to deliver the products and services?
   • What new or improved business resources are needed to deliver the business capabilities?
3. Figuring out HOW to change
   • What initiatives and projects will deliver the business resources and implement the changes?
   • What results will each initiative and project achieve?
4. Figuring out WHEN to change
   • What is the schedule for these initiatives and projects?

In the next post we will focus in on the first and most critical step – clearly understanding and articulating the purpose of your strategic change.

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