From Strategy To Done

Challenge

The challenge that we were set was to to create the first ever executable technology strategy for a government department. The organisation had multiple high level directional strategies and roadmaps.

However, it did not have a single coherent easy to digest statement of how to use technology to deliver business goals. This absence meant that leaders at all levels were pulling in different directions. Staff motivation was suffering. The citizen was was not getting the value that should be expected:

• High friction and inconsistencies in customer facing solutions
• Lack of collaboration between different parts of the business
• Inability to share data and make the best decisions
• Data quality was poor
• Increased costs of operation
• High levels of technical debt
• Security vulnerabilities

These issues are common issues across all sorts of large established organisations. In a government department they can pose serious threats to life, livelihoods and the ability of society to function.

Route to Value

The engagement began with an initial discovery and planning exercise to plot out how to achieve the challenge. This plan was a “big bar” plan to set expectations, identify key milestones and allow others to plan and align their activities. Detailed planning was done on a monthly and weekly basis. This allowed us to flex as we and the customer learned more.

During the value planning we identify the priorities and perceptions of the leaders. As is normal, there was some divergence based on different perspectives, motivations and goals. There was no need to resolve this at this stage. We expected information to be uncovered that would change views and priorities once we started to talk to the experts and doers.

The engagement started with two consultants for value planning. The team expanded to four consultants working as team across the five work streams from month 2 onwards. The five work streams operated in parallel over the remaining 8 months. We worked using a two weekly strategy sprints.

Our sponsor provided the ideal level of engagement, a two to three hours every week. Most of this time was off line giving feedback on outputs and findings. Urgent matters were handling via online chat. We had 30 minute calls every 2 weeks and 30 minute face to face minutes in the intervening weeks

Our first major flex was to align our approach with ongoing operating model work that had started 3 months earlier. We agreed some assumptions about the technology strategy and put our initial focus into the operating model. After two months we were ahead of the main operating model work and could shift our effort back to strategy.

The technology strategy was divided into 12 topics that covered how applications, data, infrastructure and security would deliver business goals. The first topic was aligning the overall technology direction with the business goal. We then drilled down into key areas developing guardrails to shape technology execution.

I was very pleased at the high level of business content there was and the emphasis on meeting business goals.

Business Architect

Our approach is to facilitate the co-creation of the strategy by the internal staff. We will lead where necessary but it is important to draw out the nascent strategic thinking within the organisation. Not everyone will have the capability or interest but by working with a large selection of people we can find them. For this organisation we identified a team of six people to take the strategy forward.

It was great to hear the diversity of views of different people in the organisation and to collaborate with them to create a clear direction.

Enterprise Architect

The new team gained executive approval for their technology strategy. They set up a lightweight governance structure in line with the operating design. This reviewed incremental updates of the headline strategies and lower level guardrails.

Throughout the engagement, we managed change and communication for sponsor.

Outcome

The department have a business aligned technology strategy covering applications, data, security and infrastructure to:

• Share investment on common solutions
• Reduce complexity and increase productivity
• Modernise and reduce vulnerabilities
• Improve the data infrastructure
• Improve the data infrastructure

They have operating and governance models. They have a managed adoption approach for the strategy. There is a strategy team with the capability to drive adoption and sustain the strategy as the business evolves.

A spend of ~£250mn over 5 years should unlocks savings of ~£300mn in the same period. From year 5, annual savings of ~£100mn should be delivered.

Less tangibly but of great importance is that the strategy enables greater integration and coherence of services to the public.