Business Support: Capability Between Strategy and Results - Part 4

Business Support: Capability Between Strategy and Results - There are 6 parts to the session, broken into chunks to digest. Who actually enables and operates strategy implementation? When we asked the APM PMO Conference - no one from 100+ delegates could say they knew who supported the connection from strategy to delivery in their organisations. At an APM Governance Session, we took 400 points which boiled down to - there are issues with strategy communication, cascade, prioritisation, metrics and information, integrated governance - and the support of it. So - Who: ensures strategic objectives are cascaded into accountability facilitates prioritisation across BAU, value creation and change establishes and operates integrated governance ensures information and data exist to support decision-making provides insight, challenge and assurance maintains the connection between strategic intent and delivery reality Many organisations assume this is the PMO. Yet most PMOs were never designed, sponsored or mandated to perform these roles. In any case - strategy delivery is more than just projects and programmes. Others assume strategy teams, governance teams, transformation offices or operational leaders will fill the gap. Often nobody does. The result? Accountability is ill defined Projects / BAU / Products compete for funding Teams compete for resources Governance is fragmented Benefits / value become difficult to evidence Strategy becomes disconnected from purpose and delivery Perhaps the question is not how PMOs demonstrate more value or become strategic. Perhaps the question is: What organisational capability is needed for implementing strategy - and who is going to enable it? We discussed exactly this at our July 6th BIG Book Club session on Business Support using some challenges: Challenge 1: Strategy delivery is not just projects - BAU, value creation and change, all compete for leadership, funds, resources and attention. Challenge 2: Support already exists – but it is fragmented across: PMO, finance, strategy, BI, risk, assurance, product, operations, IT delivery support, resource planning, etc. Challenge 3: Who supports the connection of strategy to delivery in your organisation? We then discussed how an enabling Business Support capability could: Orchestrate governance Operates agendas Manages tools and processes Sustain the capability ...operating as a Hub-and-spoke capability, not monolithic centralised, "help no one" support function. Who should lead it? Do you think your PMO already does this - or is this a capability that most organisations have simply never designed? Start here with some background: Business Support in the BIG Body of Knowledge - https://big-cic.org.uk/body-of-knowle... blogs about the topic - https://big-cic.org.uk/blog/posts/ To get notified of more in the series - register - Membership is free - https://big-cic.org.uk/membership/