I’ve recently been working with a client to review progress with the new strategy they developed last year. One of the most useful exercises we undertook was to use the Importance-Progress matrix attached.

It can be tempting to believe that, once the strategy and its related plans have been signed off, everything is of equal value. That’s not true. Some things are simply far more important than others.

The other major conclusion for my client was that it is tempting to try and do too many things and, in particular, it is too easy to incorporate projects into a plan that don’t add sufficient value. We fixed that issue through this exercise.

We reviewed each of the ongoing projects on two dimensions:

1. Importance. For each project we gave it a score out of 10 based on its overall profit impact and its strategic importance (ability to develop important new capabilities, or take the company into new markets).
2. Progress. Again, we scored each project out of 10 based on its performance against the milestones they developed a year or so ago.

We then mapped the projects on the matrix, allocating each project to one of four boxes:

1. Drop. Several projects ended up here. These stalling, but relatively unimportant, projects had been a source of major frustration, but my client saw that they could be dropped (although we refined the objectives for a couple of them and merged them with other initiatives).
2. Delegate. We realised that these projects weren’t as important as they first thought. Although progress had been made, and my client decided to let the projects run, they were taken off the monthly review of the business-wide strategy, and were overseen by departmental heads.
3. Drive. These projects were making good progress and we identified areas where we could accelerate future progress.
4. Deal with. These were the problem projects. We reviewed each of the projects in more detail, identified the underlying causes of the delays and developed refreshed action plans. In short, these initiatives were put on the critical list, and are now subject to weekly progress reviews until they start to hit their milestones regularly.

How is your strategy progressing, and which of your projects are getting in the way of your organisation’s success?

© Stuart Cross 2010. All rights reserved.

How effective is your strategy? Why not take my quick strategy test, and see where your strategy management approach is working and where there is further work for you and your team to do.

Simply score yourself and your organisation from 0 to 5 for each of the statements below, where ‘0’ means you strongly disagree with the statement, and ‘5’ means you strongly agree with the statement.

After completing the survey sum up your total score and find out what it means for you and your company by comparing to the summaries below.

1. Do You Have A Compelling Strategic Intent?

2. Do You Have Clarity On Your Big Issues?

1. Performance Assessment. We know where we make money – and where we don’t - across the business.
2. Market Assessment. We understand our markets, their likely growth and profitability and their key trends and dynamics.
3. Competitive Position. We recognise our current competitive position and know what we need to do to succeed in the future.
4. Organisational Capabilities. We appreciate which capabilities drive our success and where we have emerging or critical weaknesses.

3. Do You Have A Focused Agenda For Action?

1. Addresses the big issues. We have a strategic agenda focused on the big issues and opportunities shaping our long-term performance.
2. Delivers the strategic intent. Our agenda will move us closer to achieving our major goals and objectives
3. Clear themes. The agenda is broken down into a few core themes that everyone in the business can get to grips with.
4. Prioritised initiatives. Our strategic initiatives are based on a few priorities that will best drive current and future success.

4. Do You Have An Effective Strategy Management Approach?

1. A consistent Executive focus. The strategy is the Executive’s constant focus and their decisions are consistent with it.
2. Organisational engagement. Our strategy is understood across the organisation, and our people actively support our direction.
3. Decision-making. Our people have the freedom to make decisions in line with the strategy, and are held accountable for them.
4. Ongoing strategy management. Strategy is managed on a continuous basis and is not a one-off exercise.

WHAT YOUR RESULTS MEAN

Your score is less than 40

Your company is probably struggling to make real progress in delivering a winning strategy. Your people and your stakeholders may be confused about your future direction and your key priorities, and senior managers may find it difficult to achieve alignment around decisions with a long-term impact. As a leader of the business you may find many low-level decisions are being passed up the chain for your approval and new initiatives may struggle to gain traction across the organisation. You are likely to find yourself being forced to compete on price rather than product/service quality or effective customer relationships.

Your score is in the range, 40-65

You have a reasonably effective strategy, yet you may find that you struggle to make it stick. Strategy is likely to be seen as something that is worked on once the “real” work has been done, and you may find it difficult to balance long-term goals with short-term demands. Strategic initiatives may be viewed as being distinct from business-as-usual, and you may have problems in persuading your best people to lead and drive these programmes.

Your score is more than 65

Your company is set up to develop and execute an effective strategy. You are likely to have set a clear direction, alignment around the strategy is likely to be high and your people understand their role in its delivery. The key watch-out going forward is to ensure that your strategy remains relevant in the context of fast-changing business environments. Remember, nothing fails like success, and you must ensure that you continue to be proactive in raising the bar and driving future growth.

© Stuart Cross 2010. All rights reserved.

For the past couple of months I’ve been posting strategy insights on Twitter. You can follow me at https://twitter.com/stuart_cross.

Just in case you’ve missed them, here are the first 50 insights:

1. Many companies fail because they’re great, not bad, at what they do – it’s just no longer valued, eg Kodak.
2. Don’t let planning kill strategy. Focus on the what, not the how.
3. Raise the bar and focus on your real priorities. What 3 things will really drive your long-term performance?
4. Innovation is more valuable than problem solving. How do you split your time and effort?
5. Don’t be mindlessly customer led. Innovation means that you must lead not follow the customer.
6. Nothing fails like success. Even the best strategies erode, so you need to refresh it constantly.
7. The #1 reason for top entrepreneurs’ success is the ability to ‘experiment fearlessly’. How fearless are you?
8. Strategic success happens when you’re the first to profitably exploit a change in your external environment.
9. The essence of great strategy = informed choice + timely action.
10. Separate objectives from tactics. Be fixed on the vision, but flexible on the route.
11. Your ability to deliver your strategy is directly proportional to the quality of your relationships.
12. Who owns your growth agenda for the next 2-5 years? If no one, then you’ll always have incremental plans.
13. Strategy is as much about what you’re not as it is about what you are. Are you clear what’s off-strategy?
14. Avoid developing strategy within your annual planning process. It only leads to incremental change.
15. A great strategic vision is specific, focused on outcomes, and gives a sense of how it will be made real.
16. The top 3 threats to ongoing success? Arrogance, defensiveness and inertia. Focus on the future, not the past.
17. If you’re not leading, you’re not succeeding. In what ways is your business a market leader?
18. Successful strategies rely on serendipity as much as analysis. In what ways are you open to opportunity?
19. A great strategy process starts with these two words: “What if…..”
20. The 3 characteristics of sustainable business success: distinctiveness, operating excellence and agility.
21. Which of these do you lead on – Best Product, Low Cost, Most Convenient, Best Service or Bespoke Solutions?
22. The secret of great strategy is action. Only when you are doing stuff can you learn, grow and succeed.
23. It’s better to be great in a poor market, than poor in a great market. Focus on your advantages.
24. Ideas are the currency of strategy. Be a big spender in giving your ideas away to others in your business.
25. When it comes to strategy, disruption is mandatory. Be bold. Sometimes you need a little dynamite.
26. Having an effective organisation is more important than a great strategy. How capable is your organisation?
27. The best strategies tend to be pretty simple. A simple solution is easier to understand, explain and deliver.
28. Strategic success is far more about dogged, persistent action than it is about brilliant thinking.
29. Failure is inevitable in any new venture. The secret is to fail quicker and cheaper than the other guy.
30. A good strategist is a good storyteller. You need to tell a great story over and over again.
31. Expect to communicate your strategy 6,000 times: 3 years x 200 working days per year x 10 meetings per day.
32. Many busy, successful executives resent the time they spend on strategy. Find ways to engage, not bore them.
33. Strategy is about choices and trade-offs. These require useful data, not ungrounded opinions.
34. You can only succeed if you focus on a few – say 3 – key areas of the business. Dabbling drives failure.
35. You must face into the real issues. Challenge assumptions and conventional wisdoms, and tell it straight.
36. Always develop more than one possible solution. Robust alternatives give you clearer choices and trade-offs.
37. Avoid long strategy reports. Instead of pages of analysis ask, “What are the five key issues we need to focus on?”
38. Profitable growth is the benchmark of strategy. Don’t just fix current problems; deliver new growth.
39. You must bring your “high level” strategy down to “ground level”. What specifically do you want to achieve?
40. The 3 characteristics of great strategic leaders: passion, rigour and persistence.
41. It’s fine to use opinions to develop strategy, but be rigorous in testing that they’re valid.
42. Don’t fear competition. You need competition to create a market. Even Apple needs competitors to reference against.
43. Shop your business. What does it feel like to be a customer of yours? What frustrations do you have?
44. Don’t just ask customers, observe them. Customers are poor predictors of their own future behaviour.
45. Ask different work groups to develop their ideal strategy for your business. What ideas do you get from new starters, retirees or suppliers?
46. Discuss companies you admire in other sectors. What excites you about them, and how could you translate their benefits for your business?
47. What will happen if you carry on with your current strategy? In the next 5 years, 2 years, 6 months?
48. What are your internal barriers to growth? The biggest one is fear, masquerading as intolerance, of failure.
49. Be prepared to cannibalise your sales. If you don’t do it your competitors will. Look at Gillette for inspiration.
50. Invest in strategies, not initiatives. Ryanair could profitably add first class seats, but it ruins the strategy.

© Stuart Cross 2010. All rights reserved.

The chart sets out the three factors that give innovators their ability to drive change where others had simply failed to take action:

• Passion. Innovators are driven. They want to make a difference to the world and aren’t shy about letting people know about it. Without passion, nothing will ever get started.
• Objective. Innovators face the facts. They don’t delude themselves, but take a learning-based attitude that allows them to keep what’s working and ditch what isn’t.
• Persistent. Innovators keep on keeping on. Never giving up in the face of repeated failure is the hallmark of all great innovators. Some of Silicon Valley’s top entrepreneurs were surveyed on what drove their success. Their #1 answer was their ability to ‘experiment fearlessly’ and that means persistence.

If these three characteristics are critical to successful innovation, where are you on the chart?

True innovators may not be the easiest people in the world to work with, but they are the heroes that keep driving our species’ amazing progress.

Where do you sit against them and their characteristics, and what could you focus on to become more innovative?