What is Business Execution and Why Should I Care About It?

Business Execution is the #1 CEO Priority

Key Execution Problems — CEO Perspective

• Poorly Communicated Strategy
• Unclear Accountability
• Poorly Defined Roles/Responsibilities
• Inadequate Execution and Performance Monitoring

Why do organisations struggle to execute?

Business Execution ‐ What really happens in large organisations today…. 100,000 ft view

The reality of the Goal Cascade process (30,000ft view)

The reality of the Performance Management process (30,000ft view)

LSS + BSC + ? = Superior Execution

• LSS project selection typical driven by operational priorities.
• Impact of LSS projects on strategic indicators rarely articulated.
• BSC focuses predominantly on building a measurement system.
• BSC doesn’t really guide goal deployment/action identification.

Hoshin Planning — The Concept

Hoshin Planning is a systematic and disciplined process to align, communicate and execute strategy by focusing on those few breakthrough objectives that give you competitive advantage.

Hoshin Planning — The Process

The X Matrix — A Powerful Tool to Drive Alignment

Catch‐ball ‘handshake’ ensures commitment and meaningful targets at every level

Consistent execution fundamentally depends on being able to answer 3 questions…

1. Are we on track?
2. If we are not on track — are we doing something about it?
3. In aggregate, will the actions underway get us where we want to go?

Paradigm Shift 1 ‐

Review execution not historic performance

Execution Bowling Chart — Based on the actions underway are we likely to hit our goals?

Keeping on Track — Implementing Countermeasures via MAAR Charts

Keeping on Track — Implementing Countermeasures via MAAR Charts

Keeping on Track — Implementing Countermeasures via MAAR Charts

Business Execution — The Potential

Business Execution can:

• Motivate and align every employee
• Eliminate unnecessary internal competition
• Focus energy on real breakthroughs
• Ensure action is followed through
• But ultimate value lies superior results from superior execution…..

An organisation which executes well on a mediocre strategy will always outperform an organisation that executes badly on the most brilliantly crafted strategy.

Driving Execution with PACE

• Simply cannot ground the plane for months to refit it.
• PACE is a pragmatic approach to building on what you have and doing it fast.
• It focuses on changing the emphasis of the monthly business review from reviewing performance to driving execution.
• It delivers value to the senior management as fast as possible and illustrates the art of the possible.

The first step is to build a shared understanding of execution challenges

The next step is to sort the important from the urgent

Once the important is clear, we need to refine and validate the plan

The final step shifts the focus from reviewing performance to driving execution