articles

Mapping the Journey TO RESULTS

a subway map is your roadmap

By Lise Arnett

Your business strategy is your vision for the future; a way to articulate how your business will make money.  It may have a tag line that helps other understand what the value proposition is and it is aspirational, not just what your business is now.  Let’s face it, if you are a for profit business, it’s about how you will make money through products or services.  If you are a not-for-profit, your strategy is still about money, so you can deliver your services. 

It’s often difficult to imagine how you will execute your strategy.  Since it is a vision of the future, it may involve significant changes in products, your operating model, your technology needs, and your client base. 

Once you have your vision, you will need a plan to help visualize the path to realizing that strategy. Two tools that will help here are a business model canvas and a strategic roadmap.  Templates for both tools are widely available with a quick internet search and a prompt in your GenAI of choice will give you the basics on how these are used.  This is where you may need some help.  When you engage a consultant, the first meeting will be to understand what your vision is and how big a change this represents.

Here are some questions to consider:

1. How good is your elevator pitch of you vision?  I was engaged to help a line of business build a technology strategy and before we started, I asked the business leader to give me the 5-minute elevator pitch on how the business would make money, how this was different than today, and why this was a good value proposition.  Most leaders and teams do not think of a business strategy in this way. 
   
   

2. How big of a change is this new visIon compared to how you operate now?  Of course there will be changes, as a business evolves.  This might be a change in products, new technology options, or an expansion.  Any of these changes will have an impact on your clients and your team.
   
   

3. What is the best way to go from there to there? This is where visualizing the changes helps.

Next, a facilitated team session builds out the business model canvas.  A typical canvas includes the value proposition, key partners, activities, resources (people and other types), customer relationships, customer segments, channels, costs, and revenue streams.  Get the team involved, and start with describing what the value proposition is, then move around the canvas and fill it in.  Less is more to start.   Focus on who, what and why. A good facilitator will challenge the team to make sure the content is easy to understand, is measurable, and has limited jargon.  Value propositions that state "we will be the best company" is not as clear or measurable as "we will solve a client need with this new product". 

The canvas is the starting point for creating the strategy execution plan.  There are many ways to articulate a plan.  A timeline, with items plotted in sequence is common.  Often this will look like a road map, a fishbone, or Gandt chart.  Kanban boards, which show tasks in stage of completion and in the order of priority, is a popular Agile approach.  It’s the backlog of work to be done but may not show a timeline as clearly.

I like to use a subway map as a visual way to build and track the plan and progress.  It has been a very successful and fun way to help the team see progress. Imagine the London Tube map with each line representing a major element in the plan, and that element stops on the line representing the tasks.  The tasks are plotted in sequence, but new branches of the line can be added if needed.  The main line is the overall timeline that anchors all aspects of the plan. Stops change colour when tasks are done and the "train" moves along the lines.  For a small business, this board and a quick team meeting is often all the team needs to manage work progress.  Pairing the map with a Kanban board lets the team work through what the different tasks are, and what is needed for the task to be considered done.

If you are at the start of your journey to develop a new strategy or refresh your existing one, reach out and let’s have a quick conversation to see how I can help, contact me. 

MANAGING CHANGE IN A DIGITAL WORLD

CHOOSING cloud computing

By Lise Arnett

I work with charity organizations that are staffed largely with volunteers and a very small staff base.  Depending on the size of the organization, a lot of the “tech” used to manage the organization is whatever the volunteer has at the time.  I also work with small businesses who have the same problem.  Think Excel accounting and payroll, paper based files, email with document attachments.   

The problems to solve are 1) what are the solutions out there which are easy to use and collaborative, 2) free or cheap as all charities are under the radar for operating costs and small businesses have tight profit margins and, 3) cloud based so that the records are not lost.

There are a large number of small and large companies offering web and cloud solutions today that will tackle almost any problem.  If I look up payments processing, project management or accounting I can find dozens to chose from.   In most cases these solutions are very similar, but not all will be a good fit for the team who will use them.  Big accounting packages are designed for big companies and may not be the best option for small foundation with a board and volunteers or a small shop or factory owner. 

Cloud computing is reasonably priced and secure option for many small businesses with a team that need access to applications.  There are several suppliers with solutions for most needs, and the number of solutions available in the cloud is increasing daily.  So, what is a charity to do! A GenAI search will help create the list, but it wont’ know if the choices are a good fit without a good set of prompts or someone to help sort through the results. 

Before you dive in, make sure to spend some time considering what you need, who will use it and what it will replace. Here is what I recommend:

• What is there now?  Inventory the tech that is there, how current it is and how well it works.  If there are gaps, what are they and how do you close them. 

• What is not there now?  What is still being done on paper, in distributed file folders, or kept in emails?  Are there processes that are taking hours to do? 

• What’s on the wish list and how important is it from 1 to 10, with 1 being most important.

• What can you afford to pay for software services?  Most software fees are a subscription base that is charged periodically.  For example, a monthly license fee based on the number of users for services like Office.

• Create a roadmap.  Big categories like accounting, branching out into options to be investigated and selected, followed by a timeline to put it in place.

•  Execute your plan.

A consultant who specializes in modernizing business solutions will help sort through the noise, spend time researching and trying the different options, price each option and make recommendations for the best solution to consider.  They will help sort out how to move to the new software and convert any records that make sense and help the team migrate. Bringing in a consultant helps with an extra set of hands to do this background work while business continues.

If you are ready to engage a consultant and would like to learn
how I can help your organization in its modernization, contact me.

The People Side of Change

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME?

By Lise Arnett

In my career as an executive and a management consultant, I have experienced change and led many teams through it.  Not many of us like change, and many find it difficult to adapt.  Before we can deal with change, we need to know what it will mean for us individually. 

Change can be big or small.  Big changes are easy to predict but small changes are often missed when we plan change management support.  With the pace that technology is changing and the shift to Artificial Intelligence, modernizations are happening in many organizations.  This type of change will cause anxiety if the messaging doesn’t focus on what it will mean for the teams.  

Many years ago, I was involved in a business expansion that involved a number of acquisitions.  It’s easy to see how the staff and management of the company that is being acquired can become concerned about what will happen when they merge with the new organization.  It is less obvious that the team that is part of the buying company are equally concerned.  Two companies, lots of similar roles, systems, and products.  Who will win?  Often the team members who you want to retain, are the first to jump. 

Remember, as you plan for your change, the overall message is why are we making this change, and what does it mean for you?  Start there, otherwise the rest of the message is not heard because we are all too busy worrying. Change Managers will plan for this type of big change using tools from well-known change management methodologies such as PROSCI ADKAR or Kotter's 8 step process.  They all involve knowing your stakeholders, assessing their level of involvement and influence, assessing the level of change expected, creating key messaging to help understand why the change is needed, and a series of steps to gauge how the team and clients are accepting the change.  

Smaller changes are harder to anticipate and manage. How do you react when your favourite application changes as part of an update without giving you warning?  When one thing is going to change, you should not assume that what is not changing won’t have an impact.  Anticipate that you and your team will need to relearn everything. 

• Start with letting the team and clients know what the change is, why it’s being made, and what will that change mean for them.  

• Develop messaging and training to cover both what has changed and what did not. 

• Keep a channel open for individuals to ask questions.  This often needs to be done through a private channel, rather than in a large group. 

• Encourage the whole team to take the full training available until they are confident that they know the new process and technology. 

• Look for simple tracking metrics that will tell you how well the change is being accepted.  Customer service calls, delays in completing work, employee or client satisfaction.  Surveys and key productivity indicators (KPI) are important. 

Like any other method, there are lots of articles, books and templates to explain how to manage change in your organization.  Bringing in a consultant who specializes in change will give you the benefit of experience.  As a Change Management expert, I have learned more about how to manage change by watching how the teams have reacted and adjusted the process, to anticipate the individual needs, as well as the needs of the overall organization. 

If you are ready to engage a consultant and would like to discuss how I can facilitate
a seamless transition in your organization, contact me.