The Strategic Edge ASP's monthly update on strategy news, tools, resources and upcoming events
December 2015
Contents:
The Presidential Perspective
The Presidential Perspective 2016 Annual Conference Global Webinars Chapter Events/Webinars Featured Articles Announcements Career Center Membership Corner
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Message from Lee Crumbaugh, ASP President We are socialized to see the world in calendar increments – today, this week, next month, next year. Organizational planning, be it strategy development, budgeting or operational planning is typically programmed to recur annually. And we are further wired to see the present projected into the future in a neat progression. Yet, events and change do not always respect our desire for an orderly, rational, and measured calendar-based approach to life. I am reminded of the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center and the sudden impact of the great recession later in the decade. Leaders were forced to immediately abandon previously programmed courses of action – no matter what the calendar said – and re-plan, more often than not multiple times, based on a dramatically altered environment.
Not yet an ASP member? These types of macro events and change drivers are mirrored by technological, competitive, legislative and other types of changes that affect organizations at the micro level and impact their plans. When I was a banking trade association executive, time and again I watched financial institutions fall behind the curve of regulatory change in part because of “annualitis”, thinking that adapting to the unfolding new paradigm could be done through an orderly, measured annual planning and implementation process. When I was a magazine publishing consultant, I likewise watched publishers develop and implement plans that were untimely and insufficient in scope and impact to enable their publishing entities to adapt and succeed in an increasingly digital world.
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This reflection leads me to commend to all of us two salutary actions that we can take in the coming year (yes, I, too, am programmed to think in yearly spans!): 1. We can adopt planning practices that are less calendar driven and more change driven. 2. We can adopt processes that help us recognize and leverage or adapt to the change that will inevitably affect our organizations. ASP has resources that can help us with both of these challenges, especially the Annual Conference in San Francisco next March, which is focusing on innovation. I hope to see you there! P.S. Be sure to register for the Conference by December 30th in order to receive the discounted rate. Happy New Year! My best,
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Lee Crumbaugh ASP President
2016 Annual Conference
Registration is NOW OPEN for the 2016 Innovations in Strategy ASP Annual Conference! WHEN: March 16-18, 2016
WHERE: San Francisco
Up your strategy game at ASP’s 2016 Conference / World Strategy Summit North America Innovation is the sum of two parts. First, a pattern, not previously seen, becomes visible. Second, an application of the pattern, not previously visible, becomes seen. For our 2016 conference, the Association for Strategic Planning is coming to San Francisco and diving headlong into the wellsprings of innovation. Here we will gather numerous thought leaders who have recognized the patterns and applications of organizational strategy—and who are eager to help you hatch some innovations of your own. If you are responsible for creating or executing strategy in your organization or business unit, this is the conference for you! Here’s what you can access by attending: 6 pre-conference masterclasses, led by industry experts, take you deeper into a specialized strategy management topic. AM MASTERCLASS #1 Title: ASK MATT: A Gamified Approach to Stronger Strategic Plans Date: Wednesday, March 16th 2016 Time: 9:00am - 12:00pm PST Presenters: Dr. Steve Wallis and Morrie Warshawski
AM MASTERCLASS #2 Title: Developing Leaders Using Team Insights at Each Stage of Organizational Maturity Date: Wednesday, March 16th 2016 Time: 9:00am - 12:00pm PST Presenters: Peter DiGiammarino & Brent Green
AM MASTERCLASS #3 TITLE:Making Icarus Fly Again: The Logos of Smart Decisions Date: Wednesday, March 16th 2016 Time: 9:00am - 12:00pm PST Presenter: Lee Crumbaugh
PM MASTERCLASS #1 Title: Using Gear Up to Develop Faster, Smarter Strategies Date: Wednesday, March 16th 2016 Time: 1:30pm - 4:30pm PST Presenter: Dr. Tanai Charinsarn
PM MASTERCLASS #2 Title: Incubating New Business Ideas Date: Wednesday, March 16th 2016 Time: 1:30pm - 4:30pm PST Presenter: Jitu Marwaha
PM MASTERCLASS #3 Title: Ending the Uphill Battle - Creating Collaborations that Fit Date: Wednesday, March 16th 2016 Time: 1:30pm - 4:30pm PST Presenter: Ilona McCullough
To register or to learn more about our Masterclasses, please click here. 24 workshops build out the breadth of your strategic planning and strategic management knowledge. Workshop tracks include strategy leadership, advanced theory & practice, interdisciplinary synergy and cutting edge topics. 4 facilitated discussions, led by ASP credential holders, bring alive the ASP Body of Knowledge (BOK 2.0), increasing your fluency in best strategy practices. Individualized peer-to-peer sessions help you explore, and get answers to, your toughest strategy questions. 4 keynote speakers, each a renowned thought leader, accelerate your global perspective. For 2016, we are pleased to present business author Robert B.Tucker, practice pioneer Philippe Latapie, social innovator Kriss Deiglmeier, and tech guru Kim Silverman.
Robert B. Tucker: "Thinking Ahead of the Curve" Robert B. Tucker is President and founder of The Innovation Resource, and one of the world’s foremost innovation speakers. Formerly on the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, Tucker has been a consultant and keynote speaker for 25 years. His pioneering research in interviewing over 50 leading innovators was published in the book Winning the Innovation Game in 1986.
Kriss Deiglmeier: "Strategic Turnaround: Uniting the Classic and the Cutting Edge"
Kriss Deiglmeier is CEO of Tides, a values-based, social change platform that leverages individual and institutional leadership and investment to positively impact local and global communities. Kriss is a recognized pioneer in the social innovation field and most recently was the founding Executive Director for the Center for Social Innovation (CSI) at Stanford University, Palo Alto, where she established CSI as a global leader in the emerging social innovation field.
Philippe Latapie: "Blue Ocean Strategy: Putting Innovation and People at the Heart of Strategy" Philippe Latapie is Partner and Managing Director of StratX Boston. At StratX, he helps major corporations drive top line growth by building strong cultures of customer focus and innovation excellence. He was an early adopter of Blue Ocean theory and became one of the first Blue Ocean certified practitioners. Philippe is a regular speaker at senior management events and has coached several thousand executives and managers around the world. A range of Ambassador Dinner options, organized around a common theme, get you acquainted with fellow strategists in a relaxed setting. New for 2016, our conference app connects all the pieces for you, leveraging your smartphone, tablet or laptop to maximize your conference experience. Come join us. Your next innovation awaits.
ASP conference participants will enjoy a special discount on guest rooms at the Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf Hotel: $199/night single or double occupancy. To make a reservation, guests may call toll-free 1-888-627-7024 and use group discount "ASP Annual Meeting" or click here to make a reservation online. Please note: Additional nights before and after the ASP conference dates may be booked at the ASP group rate. For additional nights, please contact the hotel sales office directly at 415-627-6507 or email cathy.zappone@interstatehotels.com.
For Sponsorship Opportunities, please click here
Global Webinars
The 2016 Webinar season is well underway! We know that as professionals, we need to keep up to date with management practices so that each of us keep our own skills well honed. The webinars are an important way of hearing from academics and organizations.
Corporate Stewardship: Achieving Sustainable Effectiveness January 14, 2016 - 1:00PM ET What is required for corporations to become stewards of the future? This webinar presents the best thinking and knowledge from scholars who have been at the forefront of studying and working with corporations and other stakeholders to develop approaches and knowledge about what will be required to change the trajectory of the global economy toward sustainable development. The session will address both the organizational elements of sustainable functioning, and also the changes in understanding of organization purpose, and the ethical underpinnings of such a transition.
Featuring:
Susan Albers Mohrman The Center for Effective Organizations Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California
James O’Toole Neely Center for Ethical Leadership Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California
Portfolio Management Can Help You Become a Focused Organization February 9, 2016 - 1:00PM ET This webinar will focus and interest is on the link between strategy execution and project/portfolio management. On how to reconcile the need that organizations have for change – the initiatives (or projects) they invest in - with their need to run an organization – the operations or business as usual -. In academic terms this is called organizational ambidexterity. Research has proven that there is a positive correlation between the ambidexterity capabilities of an organization and successful strategy execution.
This webinar will build on some of the key learning’s of Antonio NietoRodriquez's research and own experience in the corporate world.
Featuring:
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez Director Head of PMO GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines
Learn more about the ASP Global Webinar Series. Missed a webinar? Click here to view our recorded archives.
Discounts in December for On-Demand Webinars We understand that not all of you can always make it to our live webinars. That is why we are currently offering On-Demand Webinars! As a special offer, we are currently streaming 6 ‘On Demand Webinars’. These will be FREE for ASP Members and only $25 for Non Members - a savings of nearly 60%! This offer will expire on January 4, 2016. How do you get the discount? Use promo code DECDISCOUNT.
To REGISTER or to LEARN MORE, please click here.
Chapter Events/Webinars First Mondays Forum Date: Monday, January 4, 2016 Time: 4:00-5:00 PM ET
NCA Chapter Presents: Strategic Planning within the US Postal Service Date: Thursday, January 21, 2016 Time: 12:00PM EST
Click here for additional information about upcoming events in your area!
Featured Articles BOOK REVIEW: 2015-2016 State of the Future, A Publication of The Millennium Project Authors: Jerome C. Glenn and Elizabeth Florescu Article By: Dr. Stanley Rosen
William E. Halal, Professor Emeritus of Management, Technology, and Innovation, at George Washington University calls this book “strategic planning for the planet.” Bill Halal is one of the world’s foremost strategic planners and managers. (He once substituted for Peter Drucker in giving a talk to 2000 managers at the Los Angeles Colliseum.) By recognizing the significance of this book, the eighteenth and best in a series of similar reports, Halal has put his finger on its importance to the strategic planning community. It sets the framework for all planners who must enable and enlighten (and even make) decisions in their specific domains. We are all swimming in the sea of global trends. Methodologically, the book, and the underlying work it represents, achieves what all strategists attempt: a process to frame a view of the future in the context of what is and what can be. Drawing on what is probably the world’s most comprehensive set of “futuring” tools, the book sets the stage by systematically assessing the current state of fifteen global challenges that have been tracked yearly since 1998. Based on the work of the Millennium. Project’s “think tank” of fifty-six globally dispersed operating nodes, each of the challenges is assessed for its global and regional implications. The Millennium Project is a global participatory think tank of futurists, scholars, scientists, business planners, and policy makers who work for international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities and who
volunteer their time to improve each edition of the State of the Future. It was selected to be among the top 10 think tanks in the world for new ideas and paradigms by the 2013 and 2014 University of Pennsylvania’s GoTo Think Tank Index and as a 2012 Computerworld Honors Laureate for its innovations in collective intelligence systems. The substance that emerges from this process, although surprisingly concise (the book manages all this in 230 pages), provides uniquely integrated insights into factors that will impact the success of all our endeavors. Including a report on an updated and improved State of the Future Index that provides a ten-year outlook for the future, the book clearly identifies where we are winning and where we are losing. What is working and what is not? Where are the biggest challenges and the most promising opportunities? With enough data to undergird the analysis, the book lays out the facts and enough well-based opinions to keep the reader challenged. This year’s book also includes a new, innovative set of infographics, to help the reader digest and integrate the vast data collection upon which the work is based. Finally, this year’s book leverages the Project’s Global Futures Intelligence System, which contains the background and data for the research as well as a description of the methodologies used (described as “the largest internationally peer reviewed set of methods to explore future possibilities ever assembled in one source”). Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, lauded the book for its “invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its member states, and civil society.” This report is for thought leaders, decision-makers, and all those who care about the world and its future. All strategic planners operate in this context; we should pay attention. The book’s concluding thought is a lesson for us all: “we should care about the whole world because the whole world will affect us—from new forms of terrorism and artificial intelligence to climate change and financial ethics. The State of the Future is offered to help us better understand the whole world of potential changes.” This book is a model and a database for those who seek to understand the big picture. To order the book online, please click here.
Creative Strategy Generation: Using Passion and Creativity to Compose Business Strategies That Inspire Action and Growth Author: Bob Caporale
Many business leaders are taught to develop strategies by analyzing case study after case study of other companies' already implemented ideas. However, in order to develop a truly great strategy, you must learn how to tap into your own instincts,
intuition, and original ideas to connect with people in ways that have never been thought of before. In short, you need to learn how to be more creative.\
Author Bob Caporale
Written by a successful business leader, corporate facilitator, and part-time musical composer, Creative Strategy Generation is a step-by-step guide to creating successful business strategies by learning how to apply a creative process to classic strategic theories. Its lessons are aimed squarely at the thousands of strategic practitioners who are tasked with developing product, portfolio, and market-level strategic plans for their organizations. Drawing upon examples from real-life business situations, and coupled with clever musical and artistic analogies, Creative Strategy Generation is sure to provide not only a proven framework for developing business strategies, but also a new way to think about the entire strategic process. To order online, please click here.
Project Excellence for Superior Execution By: Jim Stockmal, VP Association of Strategic Planning A lot has been written on the gap between strategy formulation and the execution of the strategy in this newsletter, as well as on our LinkedIn group page by our Hall of Famers, other ASP members, and independent experts. I would like to add to the dialogue and focus on a current example that may shed some light on the topic. A new client of mine called us in to help them with a major transformation effort that is a huge part of the strategy. At first glance, the client has a strong vision, people are really passionate about their mission – providing high quality products to their customers, and they have very specific objectives focused on transforming the technology used to deliver their products, improving and standardizing processes, and providing growth opportunities for their staff. What could go wrong? Plenty. Although the specific objectives addressed, people, process, and technology, most of the effort heretofore has focused on technology. They really needed to, as some of their systems are nearly at the 30 year mark and the average age of their technology is 15-plus years. They chose commercial off the shelf packages that are completely compatible and rated in the upper Gartner quadrant. The project lead ran the effort as if he was on a mission to “capture the hill” at all costs and paid very little attention to help bring the staff impacted by the new technology along on the journey. Strides have recently been made to address the lack of change management. But that hasn’t been enough. The project has had cost over runs and has not been compliant with organizational policies for the management of information technology investments. The products that were part of the “pilot” have not been completely “transformed” across all of the business processes. In addition, there are more basic things that haven’t been put into place to enable more effective cost controls, process design, and change management. The project manager left the organization and the organization has been trying to recover. The overall strategy of transformation is at risk and being scrutinized by outside governing bodies. To complicate things even more, the staff still use the old technology AND the new technology for those products that went through the partial transformation to deliver products weekly and monthly. The staff is very lean with virtually no redundancy to accommodate such a massive change in operations.
So what do you do when a key project that is vital to the execution of the strategy goes south? Apply some basic project management techniques and teach the staff how a few artifacts can help provide structure, transparency, and accountability. Some recommendations that they have adopted and are institutionalizing include standard integrated project team (IPT) agendas, structured meeting minutes, institutionalizing a governance structure that includes a steering committee (SC) that
is separate from line management to assist in coordinating a matrixed project team, and classical issues log and risk register. A key tenant is to push issue resolution and risk management down to the IPT and use an escalation process to raise issues and risks that the IPT can’t resolve to the SC and then up through the executive ranks. The IPT and the SC needed some instruction on the difference between an issue and a risk – a risk is something that has a probability and an impact in the future, an issue is something that is or has been occurring and must be dealt with now. Four weeks into the new cadence has resulted in clarity of project status, quicker resolution of issues, and greater visibility of risk. In addition, decisions are tracked and are transparent for all to know what and why to keep everyone apprised. Additional project management tools have been put into place such as a dependency analysis of project tasks, critical path analysis, and success measures. The leadership of the organization now wants to roll out these simple tools and methods to all projects that constitute the execution portfolio. The project teams are more optimistic about the project reset, and resources have been aligned more appropriately to the project tasks. Our next set of activities to keep the execution on track includes project estimation tools, economic value analysis, and more robust change management and communication. Sometimes a little intervention goes a long way for more effective execution.
Announcements Nonprofit Center for Excellence “First Mondays” Series Continues
The ASP Nonprofit Center for Excellence invites you to the January First Mondays “Planning to Plan Conversation 3” > Documenting the Plan and Positioning for Execution. Join us as we dig into unique aspects of the planning process through interactive conversation. Each topic is stand-alone so you can join in the conversation any time during the series. Notes from the sessions are shared with participants and recordings are posted to ASP’s YouTube channel . Join us January 4th! Planning to Plan Conversation III: Documenting the Plan and Positioning for Execution on January 4, 2016 at 4:00-5:00 p.m. US Eastern Time. We will explore these important questions:
How do you document your strategic plans? What is the outcome of your planning process/what do you leave with clients? How do plan documents impact long-term plan implementation? How do you set an organization/client up for successful plan execution?
This conversation will be facilitated by Lynne Brown, NPCE Communications CoChair and Sue Radwan, NPCE Chair.
Check the ASP Community Calendar for details and connection information. How to join the conversation? RSVP Here.
Want to get involved with ASP? Join a Committee! Participating in a committee can offer you another opportunity to develop relationships and network with your colleagues while contributing to your profession and the association! Opportunities Include: 2016 ASP Conference Committee Charge: Plan and assure execution of a successful 2016 Annual Conference. Please download and complete the volunteer form, and email it to aspconference@strategyassociation.org Chapter Council Charge: Strengthen and add new chapters. Technology Committee Charge: Assure most effective use of technology within the association. Please contact Executive Director Rachel King at executivedirector@strategyassociation.org for more information or to express your interest in participating.
Members At Work It is always interesting to hear from members and their activities. Let us know what moves you are making, articles you are writing, and presentations you are giving in the area of strategy and strategic planning. To send us an update for "Members At Work", please contact membership@strategyassociation.org.
Career Center Did you know that ASP members have access to job opportunities in strategic planning and business analysis? For members to see all jobs listed, please click here. Make sure you login first!
Membership Corner Welcome to new ASP members in December 2015! Members At Large: - Debi LucasSwitzer, City of Lethbridge - Christina Hopkins, Wizards of the Coast
- Richard Fenster, British Columbia Lottery Corporation - Kayla Marshall, Moore Norman Technology Center - Gayla Brown, Moore Norman Technology Center - Donna Hanes, Moore Norman Technology Center - Mattew Mantione, ASIS International - Kevin Godden, SD 34 - Angela Musimba - Abdulrahman Alblooshi, Armature Management Consulting - Yassine Nazzal, Almajal Alarabi Holding Company Boston Chapter: - Emily Klein, Flexwork Global Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter: - Peter Hoessel - Jessica Mares Atlanta Chapter: - John Davis, Eagle Management Solutions Inc. - Mark Allen, Insperity Inc. National Capital Area Chapter - James Evans, ASIS International