Blueprinting Your Success: Innovation in Organizational Strategy

After years of working with myriad clients, the responses I get to this question never cease to amaze me. It’s a simple question with a complex answer and goes like this:

What does success look like to you?

When I ask this question, I get responses like, “What do you mean?” or “Can you clarify that for me?”

The most common response is one of thoughtful shock and revelation, where the client admits, “Wow, no one has ever asked me that before!”

The reason this question often catches people off guard is that they are usually too caught up in the tactics of everyday business, putting out fires or just trying to manage their current workload.

Success means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, depending on who your stakeholders are.

It’s a simple, powerful question that opens up a complex can of worms and forces you to step back for a minute and think. The question is easy, the answers are hard and require the right approach to capture and leverage whatever results come out from the questioning.

It was because of these experiences over the years that I designed the Solution Blueprint Process.

This process was developed to help answer the question, “What Does Success Look Like?”

Through a series of stakeholder focus groups, culture surveys and other data gathering mechanisms, the solution blueprint provides a detailed description of organizational challenges through comprehensive analyses, while also providing strategies and recommendations for appropriate solutions related to organization needs. These design and development activities target the following areas of any organization:

· People

· Process

· Content

· Technology

· Measurement.

The process gives businesses the opportunity to step back and see the forest for the trees. Business leaders use these tangible, tactical blueprints for strategic planning as well as building consensus and support from all of their stakeholders.

The result of the solution blueprint is a formal, documented strategy that provides a go-forward plan for any organization. These blueprints all contain the following:

· Work Plan — Documents the understanding of the purpose, background, success indicators, deliverables, approach and schedule for the project along with a description of the project team’s roles and responsibilities.

· Discovery/Analysis Sessions — Focus group(s) to outline current challenges and needs both internal and external that will impact program development

· Front End/Gap Analyses — Provides current state data related to your audience, product content, information and training as well as technology enablers and barriers. This analysis also provides data on content, information or business process gaps that may impact program development

· SWOT Analyses — Highlights the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that will impact the project or program

· Strategic Optimization Plan — Provides a tactical framework, architecture and a road map validating the business goals and objectives of the organization, while recommending the right “blend” of organizational strategies for implementation and successful execution

· Visual Road Map — Visual content map identifying the audience, topic and content areas for the business strategy, as well as recommended processes and delivery platforms for the successful execution of any business strategy.

As our workforce continues to evolve, leaders need to rise and guide organizations through the maze of talent management. Whether it’s recruiting, onboarding, employee development or succession planning, there has never been a more critical time in business for leaders to step up and set a course of action.

Trying to foster change or transform your organization without an agreed-upon plan is like going to Home Depot, buying lumber, nails and tools and starting to hammer away at your dream home.

Without an architect and a blueprint, you’re just setting yourself up for a home owner’s nightmare.