(note, this is incomplete, but still of value in this form).
Tier 1
- Vision
- Business Strategy
Tier 2
- Plans
- Platforms
- People
- Policy
Tier 3
- Tools
- Metrics and Feedback Plan
- Rollout
- Proactively and Continuously Monitor and Anticipate
- and...
Stating a Vision is easy.
"We want to rule the world!"
Stating detailed, actionable visions is more difficult.
"We want to be known for industry leadership, innovation, and consistently excellent client service." Better, but how?
Here's mine: "I want to help an organization move to industry leadership in the greatest transformation in Civil Engineering since we moved to CAD".
My How is by:
- helping define and refine Vision
- using my extensive expertise in platforms (Design, Collaboration, Communication, and Learning Platforms) to define Execution Plans
- building, assisting, or collaborating in Plan Execution
- there's a lot of cross-platform, cross-discipline integration (IT has a big role, for example, but needs informed direction)
- continuously uplifting staff via scalable, sustainable systems
- continuously looking for opportunity (new markets, new service offerings, better practice and tools)
The hard part is the Plans, the Strategic Business Plan and the Execution Plan - the When/How Much and the How.
There are inescapable costs in transformation. There are inescapable costs in adoption. There are inescapable costs in staying still, in lagging.
The costs in transforming always precede the revenue.
The Strategic Plan to balance investment and expected benefit is step one. You need experienced unbiased expertise to map out risks, cost schedules, ROI sources and timelines, adoption effort, new work opportunities and strategies. etc.
Honestly assess your organization's learning capabilities (tied to communications and learning platforms) as well as the attitude, aptitude, and opportunity to adopt (this is a product of both the staff's interest and the project/business environment. How often do we hear, "We don't have time to learn to do it right!"?)
Assess the project business and communication structure. How well do distributed production teams share insight and value? Do the leaders communicate and synergize? Do you know who the leaders are? This is important because Early Adopters adopting early drives implementations forward. You need to know who your available early adopters are. Do they have support and bandwidth? If not, do you invest in a business mechanism to allow them to drive the innovation? Central-out is only one avenue in success; you need in-situ growth nuclei.
Assess the obstacles, especially Petrified Policy. I've seen organizations that have had some outdated policy that is petrified in place and protected perhaps into perpetuity. Policed by a Gatekeeper. Sometimes it's a bad policy left unquestioned. Sometimes it's one person in a position of power that is entrenched in "success" based on very outdated, poor, or personal (no) metrics.
"We're waiting for our Hydraulics Chief to die to implement that software." I laughed, thinking it was a joke. It was not. It was their plan.
There are risks in any large transformation. Understanding the risks in the technology and industry externals is critical. But not understanding the internal risks, the obstacles and insufficiences in platforms, in adoption readiness, in business structure and in policy and people leave advancement-crippling risks in place. A major transformation like this Digital Integration Revolution requires expert assessment across all aspects of business and production operations.
Excellent synergistic real-time communication/collaboration is critical to identify, assess, and plan for the risks and opportunities. The quality, efficacy, and speed of your collaboration system will determine the speed and quality of your solution. Your first evaluation should be of how well your distributed team members collaborate. A necessary transformation there can transform everything you do.
