Getting strategy into action, focusing on interrelationships, and evolving strategy quickly In scale-up stage technology businesses.

1. STRATEGY EXECUTION
→ GETTING STRATEGY INTO ACTION
→ FOCUSING ON INTERRELATIONSHIPS
→ EVOLVING STRATEGY QUICKLY
IN SCALE-UP STAGE TECHNOLOGY BUSINESSES
NOVEMBER 9, 2021
DAVE LITWILLER

2. INTRODUCTION
• A common, overly simplistic view of strategy execution
• More realistic strategy maps of interrelationships
• Strategy execution process
• Blending top-down and bottom-up views
• Tools to help identify and understand causality and
interrelationships beyond the superficial
• Select examples

3. • A classic waterfall view to
drive strategy execution
• Provides a quick summary:
• Strategy
• Context
• Main influences
SIMPLIFIED VIEW
• Common weaknesses of this high-level depiction:
 A triumph of simplicity and brevity over a more useful model of reality
 Too little attention given to interrelationships, assumptions,
dependencies, and the cascading effects of change

4. STRATEGY MAP –
VIEW OF INTERRELATIONSHIPS
Business objectives
connected by cause-
and-effect logic
Balanced
Scorecard

5. CAUSAL LINKAGES –
MFG. EXAMPLE
Customer
Customer Retention – x & up-sell New Customer Acquisition
Workforce Training

6. CAUSAL LINKAGES –
AIRLINE EXAMPLE (SOUTHWEST)

7. STRATEGY MAP –
AIRLINE EXAMPLE (SOUTHWEST)

8. STRATEGY MAP –
CUSTOMER INTIMACY PRIORITY

9. STRATEGY MAP –
PRODUCT & TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP

10. STRATEGY MAP –
LOW COST, OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE POSITION

11. STRATEGY EXECUTION PROCESS
Loop Speed  Metabolic Rate

12. RELATED STRATEGIC PROCESSES

13. BLENDING TOP-DOWN &
BOTTOM-UP INFLUENCES

14. BLENDING TOP-DOWN &
BOTTOM-UP INFLUENCES

15. • Input Metrics: Controllable, day-to-day behaviours
• Things that done right, bring about desired results in output metrics
• Tend toward leading indicators
• Output Metrics: Results that matter for the business
• Lagging indicators
INPUT METRICS VS.
OUTPUT METRICS

16. BALANCED SCORECARD KPIs – SaaS

17. ASSESSING A SUITE
OF GOALS AND KPIs
• Does it:
• Clearly define what constitutes business excellence?
• Provide the information required to set aggressive yet
achievable strategic objectives?
• Accurately portray progress, and probability of achieving
upcoming milestones?
• Identify the root causes of barriers?
• Focus the organization on the priority improvement needs?
• Drive the behavior and actions required to achieve the
objectives?
• Align with the mission and values?

18. TOOLS TO REVEAL CAUSALITY
AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS

19. TOOLS TO REVEAL CAUSALITY
AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS

20. TOOLS TO REVEAL CAUSALITY
AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS

21. TOOLS TO REVEAL CAUSALITY
AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS

22. SELECT EXAMPLES –
CUSTOM ENGINEERING AND ADVANCED MANUFACTURING
STRATEGY EXECUTION TOOLKIT

23. CUSTOM
ENGINEERING CO.
Strategic Objectives:

24. CUSTOM
ENGINEERING CO.
Balanced Scorecard:

25. KPIs – MFG. CO.

26. WRAP-UP: STRATEGY
EXECUTION LEVERAGE POINTS
• Explicitly stating assumptions and interdependencies
• Building cross-functional knowledge
• Investing the time discussing the cascade of interrelated change
• Focusing as much on tactics and relationships as on goals and
objectives
• The How, as much as the What is to be achieved
• The interfaces, internally and externally
• Discussing rationale and context, to align frames of reference
• Getting down to what people can directly control or strongly
influence in day-to-day actions
• Limiting the number of goals & objectives to the fewest & most
important, to bound the complexity of interrelationships and
interdependencies
• Integrating strategy execution with regular operations, in part
through operating planning, budgeting, periodic business reviews
and linkages to leadership development

27. WRAP-UP: STRATEGY
EXECUTION
Tips:
• Maintain strong market focus and customer centricity
• It is easy to overemphasize inward looking issues
• It takes time and customization to get the sustained value
from this (or any) strategy execution framework
• It requires data, much of which must roll up from daily and
weekly dashboards in routine operations to be tractable
• Managing the yin-yang of competing forces to sufficiently
reflect the complexity of any sizeable enterprise
• Many of the causality arrows are at least somewhat
bidirectional, not purely unidirectional
• Iteration and successive refinement are the norm, not the
exception

28. WRAP-UP: STRATEGY
EXECUTION
Tips:
• The strategy, strategy map, goals and KPIs will change over time,
and need to be maintained
• All assertions are really just hypotheses
• Ongoing validation and revision are obligatory
• Innovation is inextricably about experimentation, both in what to
make, and how to make it
• Nothing stands still, internally or externally
• Most progress comes from the cumulation of individually small
improvements
• Implicit is that there is a functioning risk management process
• Otherwise, plans can get derailed too frequently, limiting the value of
the process
• Little happens without accountable individuals, a shared will to win,
and deadlines

29. IMAGE CREDITS
• “Putting the Balanced Scorecard to Work,” Harvard
Business Review, Sept.-Oct. 1993
• “Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic
Management System,” Harvard Business Review, July-
Aug. 2007
• https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/bio16610w18/cha
pter/balanced-scorecard/
• https://augurian.com/blog/saas-metrics/

30. FURTHER
DISCUSSION
For further dialog about how to get more strategic intent into
action, and to increase the rate of strategic evolution in
scale-up stage tech businesses:
dave.litwiller@communitech.ca

31. ADDITIONAL READING

32. KEYWORDS
Strategy execution, balanced scorecard, strategy evolution,
scale-up, high technology, KPIs, KPAs, metrics, mission,
vision, values, strategy, tactics, tempo, metabolic rate, loop
speed, top-down, bottom-up, root cause analysis, RCA,
Ishikawa diagram, fishbone diagram, plan-do-check-act,
PDCA, DMAIC, define-measure-analyze-improve-control,
SaaS, software-as-a-service, advanced manufacturing,
Working Backwards, The Metronome Effect