The data strategy has been drafted; the end is in sight … or is it?

There have been references throughout this book to the focus being placed entirely on devising the data strategy, only to see it fail to materialise due to a lack of conviction, readiness, relevance or commitment to it by those you will depend on to see it into implementation. The goal of this chapter is to prepare you so you can avoid such an outcome, and see the fruits of your labours actually deliver some positive outcomes for your organisation.

I have seen organisations in which those who devise strategy hand over to others to drive implementation, as well as those in which the process of compiling the strategy and implementing it is done by the same person and/or team. I do not view one as better than the other, as there are pros and cons to both options and, in some organisations, it might necessitate the same individual owning all of the process.

However, I believe the successful evolution from a strategy defining team to a separate implementation team works best if there is a transition, with those who have defined the strategy on hand to advise on interpretation, baselines and key contacts and information, whilst those picking up the implementation work alongside the strategy definition team in the last weeks and months to get a handle on the organisational dynamics and commitment to seeing the data strategy come to life.

In 2013 The Economist provided some insight into the benefits of linking strategy formation with execution through their study into why good strategies fail.² This found that a third of respondents at the best executing organisations identified implementation as a strategic activity in itself with lessons learnt fed back into the process, compared to just 11 per cent at other organisations. In addition, 59 per cent of those organisations who were best at execution involved staff who set the high-level strategy in its implementation, compared to just 23 per cent elsewhere.

The intention of this chapter is to provide you with the tools and techniques you will need to navigate through the intent of the data strategy, bringing it to reality. It challenges on the mindset needed, which is a different one to that which has been pivotal to achieving the sign-off of the data strategy, and the approach to be taken, to provide you with an understanding of what can emerge as blockers and delays to a successful outcome. This chapter is focused on readiness for the implementation stage that you are about to encounter, ahead of the subsequent chapter which gives greater clarity on how the execution of the data strategy is delivered.

8.1 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TRANSITION TO DATA STRATEGY EXECUTION

As the preceding chapter concluded, there are numerous factors to be taken into account in the transition to delivery. There are also many steps to consider to be sure that you are ready to meet the demands to mobilise the implementation of the data strategy. Bear in mind, when considering the resources that you need to succeed, how much of the work is embedded in the organisation today and the need to work with, rather than on top of, the existing priorities to fine tune or realign day-to-day activities. The key to progress is to find a way to have others embrace what you are seeking without it being seen to be an additional burden placed upon them – often the starting point if you ask people to engage and support an initiative. Consider how the request you are placing on them is either substitutional or enhancing what they already do, so there is something in it for them to want to engage with.

The start of the mobilisation phase in executing the strategy needs to be a fine balance between a bold statement of intent as to what is to be achieved and why, and a more modest focus on doing things better and smarter to deliver better outcomes for all – staff and customers alike. Remember the campfire stories: this is where you need to bring the many ways of delivering ostensibly the same story to engage radically different audiences in to play, taking the approach with the greatest chance of achieving engagement with each audience subset.

Mobilisation has become a little less trendy as an activity to be undertaken prior to commencing implementation than it was less than a decade ago. Certainly, the trend has been to make this little more than a token activity as the project or programme enters the delivery stage.³ This overlooks the importance of the investment at the start of the implementation phase of any programme, and I have seen many instances where organisations have embarked on a course without considering the implications down the line and preparing for these in advance.

Time spent in preparation has been a constant in good practice, as two of the great leaders in American history are often quoted as saying:⁴ Benjamin Franklin is said to have exclaimed ‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail,’ whilst Abraham Lincoln is attributed with ‘Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.’ Whether mobilisation has been overlooked through the advent of formal methodologies such as Agile, which focus on artefacts, user stories or other ways of garnering background information, its importance has not diminished.

A very helpful short reminder as to what makes for an effective mobilisation stage was created by Malcolm Follos of Sensei UKE, in which he talks of five critical steps to take: ask and answer the question ‘why bother?’; consider who to involve and select your core team carefully; plan the mobilisation session carefully; diverge and converge in sequence; and develop a project brief.⁵ I will use these steps to some degree in this chapter, but as a common approach to embarking on a successful project, Follos’s five tips are a sound basis to give your project every chance of a positive outcome.

Returning to the key theme of readiness to transition from strategy to execution, I find that too many data strategies have failed to give those responsible for implementation any guide as to where to start. The more effective data strategies may have some reference to goals – the better ones will have the waymarkers I talked about in Chapter 5 – but there is a need to make clear the baseline, assumptions and key drivers in the data strategy to stand any chance of the implementation starting off in the right place.

You are entering the operational phase. This entails: turning the data strategy into everyday language; incorporating it into the workplace as an extension, replacement or reinforcement of current activity; building a communications and evidence base to show progress; and retaining the confidence and backing of your key stakeholders.

An effective mobilisation is essential to ratify a commonly held understanding of the current landscape and a set of priorities to start to establish a sense of momentum that will ensure stakeholders remain committed. Rather like a pilot conducting pre-flight checks before taking to the skies, the mobilisation stage is an essential checkpoint to establish clarity, purpose and direction. If a plane fails mid-air, there is little chance of a positive outcome. If your strategy implementation gets off on the wrong foot, it will almost certainly be challenging to restore confidence, credibility and integrity, undermining the data strategy regardless of its merits.

8.1.1 The pre-implementation review

Having established the premise of why the data strategy is needed, its relevance and importance to the organisation as the final stage in gaining approval from those who need to sign it off, commencing a pre-implementation review becomes the first integral step of the mobilisation phase. Cascading this knowledge to all who are to be involved, whether as part of an implementation effort or in the delivery of a component through everyday activity, through the campfire briefings gives the appropriate prominence to the implementation phase and its associated activities.

The implementation phase needs to plan out the detail of the data strategy, which inevitably involves adding further meaning and context to that which was considered in the drafting of the data strategy but was too detailed and peripheral for inclusion. This is why the link between those involved in the drafting of the data strategy and the implementation team is so important: the knowledge and understanding that bring life to the data strategy are held in the materials collated along the way or the heads of those who took part in countless discussions and gained context from so doing. Some of this will be documented, but the nuances and interpretation will best be gained from talking to those who translated the inputs to shape the outputs – the strategy team.

Depending on the organisation, the implementation plan may only need to define the year ahead rather than the full term of the data strategy. In a way, this is easier to do but also carries significant risks – the drafting of what can be achieved in the year ahead makes assumptions and sets dependencies for others to have to pick up, either in-year or in a later year, when these may be essential to the successful delivery of the data strategy. I would always advise at least sketching out the later years, even at a high level, to provide those who pick up the task of defining subsequent annualised implementation plans with the rationale for why decisions were made at the time.

It is all too easy to forget that the world of business undergoes constant change. The whole organisation therefore needs to be engaged with change for it to succeed. In an increasing number of organisations, there are dedicated teams that are called ‘Change’ or ‘Transformation’ that are detached from the rest of the organisation and centralise expertise in delivering such activity. The intent is to build deep skills and repeatable programme methodologies that increase the likelihood of success, but the challenge with this is that is makes it a specialist activity, and by implication not one the rest of the organisation can lead.

This is a dangerous path to take given much of the research quoted in this book shows that many programmes fail through a lack of engagement and resistance to change, and the best approach to resolving this is to engage at all levels and increase involvement. If this is the route taken by your organisation then guard against an ‘ivory tower’ risk of resistance through a ‘not invented here’ mindset, and ensure communications are inclusive and effective at all times.

To deliver change requires total organisational commitment and empowerment to achieve at all levels, which may be evolutionary. A global survey of strategy implementation found 51 per cent of middle managers resist strategic implementation initiatives,⁶ and so progress has to be seen to be inclusive and evolutionary, even if it is more extensive in totality. There is a need to create positivity around the notion of change that the data strategy will bring.

A critical step in the pre-implementation review is to identify the waymarkers in the data strategy and plot these out. Hopefully, the dependencies will be aligned to the waymarkers to make it clear where they sit in the timeline, and when they need to deliver to enable the key outputs to be achieved on time. Indications of which functions are responsible, as well as those accountable, for the outcomes to be achieved should enable your implementation plan to be defined with these confirmed and assigned. A quick check on the baseline should ascertain whether the starting point has changed, though implementation should follow swiftly on from the data strategy having been signed off, so this should be a formality. However, engage widely, though quickly, to validate.

Discussions with those who devised the data strategy will inevitably identify opportunities for ‘quick wins’ in the first months of the implementation phase. The information picked up whilst compiling the data strategy will have encountered initiatives already under way which, through greater focus that the data strategy implementation phase can bring, can be accelerated and delivered sooner than would otherwise be the case. The strategy team will also have encountered those who are keen to engage and have either good ideas or work under way, but need some help in unblocking issues or building a head of steam to get momentum behind them. In many ways, these are the helpful equivalents of a ‘cheat sheet’ in providing the implementation phase with ready-made activities to get behind and build credibility in the data strategy implementation. Grab them with both hands: they will serve you well when, inevitably, there are trickier phases of the implementation ahead!

There is a need to review the risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies (RAID) captured in the process of compiling the data strategy, more of which will be discussed later in this chapter, focused particularly on the importance of assessing dependencies. Reassessing these and exploring them in more detail will provide the baseline for the commencement of the implementation. The data strategy has provided a high-level assessment of the RAID; it is the task of the pre-implementation review to establish further detail to quantify and qualify the RAID log to be the starting point for implementation.

It is highly likely that additions will be made to the RAID log as a result of the mobilisation phase, as the definition of the data strategy will have identified those which are significant enough to the strategy as a whole. Implementation will delve into a deeper level of understanding of the RAID to determine what needs to be factored in, enriching and enhancing the RAID to be more comprehensive in scope to manage and lead the implementation to achieve a successful outcome.

8.2 WHY DO DATA STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATIONS FAIL?

Whether specifically data strategies or strategies in general, the evidence suggests that most fail to transition successfully to the execution of the strategy. This may seem alarming and in many ways it is, given the amount of time, resource and effort which goes into producing strategies across organisations. Strategy has become central to the organisational psyche in most of the world, and academia has established specialist colleges and faculties focused on strategy, yet the inability to deliver on strategy has been overlooked far too long. Why is this?

Strategy implementation is complex on so many levels it is hard to begin to describe its landscape. This is where the challenge is on the front line, knowing the organisation well enough to know how to be successful in navigating the often choppy waters to be encountered over a number of years.

Most senior executives are comfortable in the strategy space, and have reached their level of seniority through being able to command and control or set a vision with a degree of passion and confidence. Many are functional experts, comfortable in their own space and confident in leading in the adjacent spaces to bring enough of the workforce with them. Yet few have really practical experience in devising strategy and also having been responsible for strategy implementation. This is one of your biggest challenges in the steps that you have to take, as they will not have trodden the same path in terms of practical experience or be aware of the challenge of transitioning from one to the other to know how to do so successfully.

I referred previously to the research undertaken by Strategy& PwC which stated that only 8 per cent of company leaders were said to excel at both strategy and execution, in a global survey of 700 major organisations. More than one in three were classed as neutral or worse on both strategy and execution. This begs the question of how effective your organisation is in either of these spheres, given the gap amongst leaders in global organisations. It also exposes that the corporate strategy is just as likely to be either flawed or executed poorly, in the worst cases possibly both.

In their research for their book The Balanced Scorecard (1996), authors Robert Kaplan and David Norton found that 90 per cent of organisations fail to execute their strategies successfully.⁷ This was the compelling case to introduce a balanced scorecard approach (a strategy-orientated performance management tool to align operational activity and financial performance to the corporate strategy through the use of lead and lag indicators) to focus on performance and measurement to achieve the subtitle of the book – Translating Strategy into Action. Subsequent research⁸ suggests an improvement to just 67 per cent failing by 2016, but that is still two in three major organisations investing in strategy but failing to deliver on it.

To this day, the same concepts as found in the Balanced Scorecard apply: we should expect to measure the effectiveness of the implementation effort to deliver the strategy. Yet, most organisations struggle to articulate how to measure strategy implementation, often because the strategy fails to articulate targets, goals or anything measurable in the vision that is set to know when the objective has been achieved.

If you recall from earlier in this book, the 5W1H concept should apply in the formation of the data strategy, articulating the detail to ensure the strategy has clarity on the direction to be taken, the choices to be made and the priorities to be followed. These need to be articulated in a way that makes it clear what is needed to deliver on the strategy, along with a framework in which to measure its achievement.

In an article by Sull, Homkes and Sull I can thoroughly recommend for those wishing to know more about failure to transition into executing a strategy effectively, the authors highlight a survey of more than 400 global CEOs that found executional excellence was the number one challenge facing corporate leaders in Asia, Europe and the United States, heading a list of some 80 issues, including innovation, geopolitical instability and top-line growth.⁹ Just think about the importance of that message for a moment. Of all the issues facing them, over 400 global CEOs ranked executional excellence as the number one challenge, which is what you are seeking to achieve with potentially the first data strategy (or, harder still, a subsequent data strategy, following in the wake of a lack of executional excellence delivering any perceived value or traction from your predecessor).

In the same article there is the bold statement that, according to research conducted by Donald Sull some years previously, ‘several widely held beliefs that managers hold about how to implement strategy are just plain wrong’. This provides the basis for five critical myths that were found and advice on how to replace these with a more accurate perspective to help managers effectively execute strategy.

The five critical myths they focused on were:

1. Execution equals alignment.
2. Execution means sticking to the plan.
3. Communication equals understanding.
4. A performance culture drives execution.
5. Execution should be driven from the top.

8.2.1 ‘Execution equals alignment’

There was a lack of cross-functional commitment – only 9 per cent of managers said they could rely on colleagues in other functions and units all the time, with half saying they could rely most of the time. This led to compensatory activity which undermined the whole execution process, further exacerbated relationships between functions, and caused slippage and, ultimately, performance failures. These are all at the heart of demonstrating that the strategy is being executed effectively, so their failure is inevitably going to impact on a successful outcome. Even those organisations that have effective performance management cultures (objective setting, goals and so on) fail to see such processes and systems through, with 80 per cent of managers saying they do not work well at all or most of the time. Twice as many managers highlighted the need for more structure in the processes to coordinate cross-functional activity as those who wanted more structure in the performance management through objectives.

8.2.2 ‘Execution means sticking to the plan’

Detailed route maps hindered progress, acting as a straightjacket to innovation, agility and adaptability, all of which are so key in the uncertainty that lies ahead. The majority of those questioned found a lack of resource alignment and agility in reallocation of resource to respond to a dynamic world one of the biggest constraints, resulting in organisations failing to realise opportunities or act rapidly enough to fast emerging threats.

Only 20 per cent of managers believed their organisations were effective in shifting resources across units to support strategic priorities. Worse still, only 11 per cent of managers thought their organisation had the financial and human resources needed to succeed in delivering all of the strategic priorities.

According to 80 per cent of managers, organisations were also inclined not to exit declining businesses or disinvest in failing initiatives soon enough. This distracts from the strategic intent, pulls resources away from those priorities (often disproportionately), and undermines confidence and credibility due to the perceived failure to resurrect what was beyond saving.

8.2.3 ‘Communication equals understanding’

Senior executives believed that relentlessly communicating strategy was key to success, but were often mistaken in how effective this was across the organisation. Only 55 per cent of middle managers surveyed in the research could name even one of the top five strategic objectives, despite 90 per cent claiming their leaders communicate the strategy frequently enough, which means the chances of onward communication being accurate or aligned to the strategy are low indeed. Just 16 per cent of frontline supervisors and team leaders were able to connect the corporate priorities to the strategy.

The myth is based on volume rather than value: in other words, say something frequently enough and it will be understood. Middle managers highlight the large number of corporate priorities and strategic initiatives four times more often than a lack of clear communications. The importance of ensuring understanding, rather than focusing on frequency, is the key here, which plays back into the importance of being able to track and measure the effectiveness of the communication being delivered.

8.2.4 ‘A performance culture drives execution’

The research found that the performance was being monitored, rather than the concept, with too narrow a focus being placed on outcomes. Broader abilities are required – agility, teamwork and ambition play a key role – yet these are all too frequently overlooked despite being essential to successful strategy execution.

In a changing environment, a willingness to try new approaches, collaborate across functions and be bold in decision making can all lead to failure in a way that is very visible, hence there is a reluctance to take such a path or to set ambitious goals when others play safe, hit their targets and reap the rewards. However, adopting a safety-first approach is more likely to constrain cross-functional collaboration and result in a failure to spot opportunities or react quickly enough to exploit them.

8.2.5 ‘Execution should be driven from the top’

This is related to the earlier example of the campfire strategy discussions. Concentrating authority and leadership with the CEO breeds a successful approach in the short term, as there is a focal point and drive, but this is where execution needs to operate at multiple layers of the organisation and will be constrained if it has to be managed through the senior hierarchy. Therefore, the concept of distributed leadership is essential to success, as this is where the fleet-footedness to respond opportunistically will arise and resources can be reallocated without recourse to senior leadership and a slow decision-making chain.

Distributed leaders exist at all levels in an organisation, whether middle managers, technical experts or others seen to carry authority and hold responsibility. Strategy is owned by the senior executive, who shoulders the responsibility for defining it, but their task is to support, guide and facilitate the execution of it at all levels of distributed leaders across the organisation. Unfortunately, all too often senior leaders are either failing to provide the structure to enable collaboration across functions or, worse still, are seen to be driving their own agendas at the top of the organisation rather than pulling together as an executive team.

8.2.6 Other evidence of leadership failings undermining strategy implementation

The findings in this report are not out of the norm. The Economist report cited above found that whilst 80 per cent of respondents regarded executing strategic initiatives as essential or very important for their organisations to be competitive over the next three years, 61 per cent stated that their organisation struggled to bridge the gap between strategy formulation and its day-to-day implementation. In the preceding three years, just 56 per cent of strategic initiatives had been successful. It concludes that those organisations that lack strategic alignment report weaker financial results than their peers.¹⁰

The rest of the report is equally damning of the failure of senior leadership to ensure strategy is effectively executed, finding broadly the same issues as Sull et al. – executives missing in action when it comes to providing guidance and facilitating delivery, and micromanaging the execution instead of providing the support and space to those better suited to driving the implementation activities. One additional area of concern is the lack of skills to successfully implement the strategy. Forty-one per cent of respondents agreed that their organisation provided sufficiently skilled staff to execute high-profile strategic initiatives, only 18 per cent could relate to their organisations hiring people with the necessary business skills or leadership talent to drive strategy implementation as a high priority, and just 11 per cent saw their organisations developing those skillsets amongst their existing executives.

In conclusion, The Economist identified 13 per cent of respondents benchmarked as well above average in strategy execution, and regarded these as best executors when comparing with all other respondents in terms of performance criteria.

The evidence is perhaps most stark when looking at alignment of strategy with the actual business model, with 51 per cent of those organisations found to be the best at execution having these aligned compared to just 8 per cent of other organisations.

If this is the canvas on which you are seeking to deliver a data strategy, possibly for the first time (maybe both for you and the organisation), then this is understandably daunting when the success rate is so low and the pitfalls so many and commonplace in organisations around the world. The steps in the remainder of this chapter seek to provide some clarity and guidance on how to navigate your way into delivery of the strategy, but this is – as so often the case – very much defined by your circumstances and organisational culture, so there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. It is a case of picking up tips, learning about what to avoid and charting your own course to increase the likelihood of success.

8.3 THE PLANNING CYCLE

Most established organisations will have a planning cycle, even if it is not evident to those who are not engaged with it. This will almost certainly be defined by the budgeting cycle, the financial year end for your organisation and the prioritisation of resources – human and financial – to enable the organisation to function and achieve its goals in the year ahead. As you can tell, the financial arm of your organisation will inevitably have a large say in the planning cycle process, so it is worth exploring how strategy works in the context of their view of the organisation, especially if you are approaching this area for the very first time. Remarkably, only 40 per cent of organisations link their budgets to their strategy,¹¹ which explains why so many strategic initiatives fail to materialise through a lack of funding, prioritisation or ability to commit resources.

The notion of planning itself defines a level of direction setting and resource allocation, along with an inherent prioritisation determining what is to be achieved. Whilst this may be as simple as an annual plan, there is a need to recognise that the short term will drive focus and decisions, not to mention reward and recognition in many cases, and so deviating from this will take a significant amount of effort to communicate the change of direction, realign priorities and convince the existing decision makers who are driving the behaviours at many levels in the organisation.

It is therefore imperative that you are fully versed in the annual plan, rationale, the timelines and the expected outcomes before embarking on any deviation – indeed, your ideas for the data strategy implementation plan may have already been considered, and it would be folly not to investigate this first to avoid repetition of what has already been discounted by those you now need to convince regarding the direction and content of the data strategy implementation plan.

However, a note of caution. Only 20 per cent of organisations review progress on strategy execution on a monthly basis (most only do so annually), and 47 per cent lack an effective measurement system for tracking the strategy implementation.¹² This suggests that there is a disconnect between the planning process, its implementation and the things an organisation chooses to track – what are usually termed key performance indicators (KPIs) but all too often are bloated to measure far more than what constitutes that which is key to the organisation. However, surely the definition of ‘key’ should be that which is linked to measuring the strategic initiatives through the strategy execution phase?

As highlighted earlier in this book, there may be a strategic time frame that the organisation operates to, and it is imperative that the data strategy is devised with this in mind. It makes more sense to connect the data strategy into the wider strategic landscape in your organisation, as failing to incorporate the same timings and, therefore, intent is more likely to cause the data strategy to be misaligned with the other strategies in play within the organisation. This will also determine the period of time that the data strategy needs to cover in the first instance to enable it to be devised to interconnect and align with supporting the corporate strategy.

8.3.1 Waymarkers into milestones

Chapter 5 set the context of using waymarkers to guide the implementation plan. Waymarkers are guidelines to give the data strategy some context as to the intended course and pace of delivery but are not constraints or inflexible; their purpose is simply to assist in translating the breadth of the data strategy into something navigable and to give some insight into the intent of those who devised and delivered the strategy in the first place. This is particularly key if there is a transition to a different individual or team to implement the strategy to those who devised the strategy in the first place.

If waymarkers have been constructed in a comprehensive manner then they will also guide those implementing the data strategy through the complexities of the RAID that are embedded in the data strategy. Assuming these were checked and seen to be valid at the time the data strategy was approved – recognising the nature of a point in time being fraught with limited visibility of what lies ahead – then it would seem entirely rational that these should be the basis on which to build the implementation view of a RAID log to be managed, reviewed and enhanced through the subsequent implementation period.

The RAID log forms part of the suite of tools you need to keep track of the numerous variables you will need to be regularly apprised of and monitor throughout the implementation period. Of course, the environment you are working in is almost certainly going to change, which the data strategy is unlikely to predict, and hence you need to be adaptable and flexible in translating it into an implementation plan, and constantly review and revisit whether your assumptions are still valid. As W. Edwards Deming said: ‘Two basic rules of life are: 1) Change is inevitable. 2) Everybody resists change.’ Your challenge is to accept the first premise by taking the waymarkers and recognising the data strategy is not a fixed programme to be followed to the letter, whilst ensuring that the second rule does not apply to you, nor those you are collaborating with and dependent upon to ensure the implementation is a success.

The waymarkers identify deliverables or achievements at a point in time to give a sense of where the strategy expects to have reached, assuming the implementation goes well. They avoid the detail of what would typically be included in milestones – resources, dependencies and so on – and focus on a brief description of the outcome to be able to guide the implementation team. For example, a waymarker may include the following: ‘data governance will have been established in half the organisation with quality metrics on all high-priority data attributes’. It is left to the implementation team to determine which half of the organisation, to define the high-priority data attributes with those who are SMEs in those data sets and to establish parameters against which to judge data quality. However, the waymarker has given an indication of the progress anticipated to be on track with the overall goals of the data strategy.

Distilling the waymarkers into key deliverables that form the milestones within your implementation plan is the first step to assigning roles and responsibilities in that plan, from which resources and timings can be assessed and confirmed as being achievable. This is the key point at which to determine the appetite and commitment across functions and business units for the collaboration needed to make the plan deliver the outcomes on which it is based. Up until this point, the waymarkers in the data strategy have been signposting what lies beyond, and whilst there is an inherent acknowledgement required to get behind these to reach agreement, this is still theoretical. Never forget, the time at which there is most scope for prevarication, procrastination and deviation from what has previously been agreed is the point at which this becomes real – when resources are being committed, objectives set and measures put in place.

If this sounds a little negative, just reflect on what the research demonstrates repeatedly. Strategy execution fails not through the lack of clarity, but a lack of will to work together when it becomes reality. Therefore, it is imperative that you are challenging and retain a healthy dose of scepticism on the commitments of those you need to pull together on this until you see the behaviours translate into positive, collaborative outcomes. This builds trust, not only in your resilience and determination to see the implementation plan through to successful delivery, but in those you will learn are willing to support your activity and enable you to succeed. Trust is the essence of collaboration, and will be needed throughout the implementation to remain on track to complete your goals.

The waymarkers should have been constructed to make them measurable, so breaking these into milestones in the implementation plan needs to be undertaken in a way which remains consistent with the intent as to how this was to be achieved. Do not lose measurability in defining the milestones, as these too need to evidence the progress made to demonstrate the success of the strategy execution. If you are seeking to have a budget assigned to your programme, then the waymarkers need to be specific enough through the measurability to outline an indicative budget, within a rough order of magnitude estimate. The implementation plans, along with the milestones, will fine-tune the budget needed to complete an activity over the annual planning time frame.

Finally, if the landscape does change to affect the pace, direction or feasibility of achieving what is set out in the data strategy, then do reflect this in your RAID log and capture the decision taken as a consequence and seek approval for this change of course. Failing to do so will risk undermining the integrity of the data strategy (one diversion will lead to another, which may be necessary, but could just as easily be a case of drifting from the original intent) and the credibility of your implementation of the data strategy. This reinforces why setting a data strategy as if the environment does not evolve, requiring the organisation to adapt, is a misplaced view that a strategy should endure. In most cases, the core principles of intent may remain valid, but it is the route to get there, as demonstrated by the waymarkers, which needs to be updated to reflect an emerging reality.

8.4 DEPENDENCIES – THE ICEBERG BENEATH YOUR IMPLEMENTATION PLAN!

The compilation of the data strategy will have captured many factors which are provided via the RAID log. As you start to think about the implementation of the data strategy, the review of the RAID log takes on significance, as this defines the understanding of the baseline position from which you are to commence implementation. I therefore recommend a thorough review and exploration of the contents, with a particular focus on the dependencies, as these are captured in the RAID log due to their importance for your future success.

Each dependency should highlight who owns it, why it is seen to be important to the data strategy, some context as to how the dependency is being managed and the timeline (and therefore the risk) to the effective implementation of the data strategy. Such dependencies could be programmatic – for instance, a programme to implement new technology that impacts on how data is to be managed – or managed in the context of business as usual.

Generally speaking, the latter are harder to track, simply because there might not be a focus on the activity at hand, and therefore the imperative to address it as quickly as the data strategy requires may be lacking and the reporting of progress might be a more time-intensive activity. However, it may actually be of benefit to the individual holding a dependency to be able to link it to something of greater focus, such as the implementation of the data strategy, simply to give it more visibility and hence elevate the need to resolve it beyond the level it is currently held. Either way, there is a need to ascertain the current position of all dependencies and decide how you wish to track these through your implementation plan.

In order to ensure that the dependencies are fully up to date, it is worth doing an audit of these to ascertain the current status to validate whether the position has changed as readiness for implementation comes into play (the same actually applies to risks, issues and assumptions). This forms a critical part of the pre-implementation review, and you should determine whether you wish to assume responsibility for some of these wider dependencies – such a course might be favourable if there is a lack of decisiveness or ownership that could hinder your progress otherwise.

Further, this is an opportunity to explore the full extent of the dependencies at large. Bear in mind that the current RAID log was collated in support of the data strategy, which had one eye to the need to implement it but was not focused on the detail. It is in the implementation that the essence of how strategy translates into the detailed activities to be undertaken that the majority of dependencies emerge, demonstrating that there is an importance to uncovering these before they become the iceberg on your chosen course.

To quote Dean Devlin, the American filmmaker: ‘The Titanic hit the iceberg not because they could not see it coming but because they could not change direction.’¹³ It is important that you have the time to change direction and to do so in the implementation phase, which requires agility underpinned by a detailed understanding of where those icebergs are, to be nimble enough to know their status and adapt accordingly.

You need to undertake an extensive review of the dependencies that have not yet been identified through the compilation of the data strategy and map these into your own initial version of the RAID log. It is essential that you create a capability to track these, getting updates on their progress and assessing the risk they pose to your success along the course of the implementation plan. It is also critical to make reference to these in your progress reporting, highlighting where these are likely to cause issues ahead of time, enabling others to lean in to support you in removing the blockages before they veer into your line of sight – remember, allowing the time to change course can be as important as resolving the dependency itself.

In some organisations, the management of dependencies is not as mature as it might be. This will be apparent if you discover that those activities on which you have a dependency are also essential to achieving goals in other programmes but are not being tracked as such. Remarkably, it is not uncommon for organisations to focus on risk management, possibly some issues tracking, but be weak on dependencies. This is often due to a lack of management across activities, with programmes and day-to-day activities managed in silos and dependencies known to individuals but not formally documented as such.

In such cases, the only course of action might be to be open in what you are seeking to achieve through the implementation and actively engage parties from across the organisation to spot initiatives or activities which might have a bearing or influence on your own activity. Whilst this might sound laborious, it does have real benefits, as it gets the communication of your own activity known whilst also forging links across the organisation that might otherwise have been overlooked.

Whichever way you seek to capture and ratify dependencies, time spent in ensuring you have these under a level of control from the outset will serve you well as you enter implementation. Do not feel tempted to skimp, learning as you go. As the quote above demonstrates, time is as important a factor as knowing what lies ahead, and the combination of the two gives you a greater likelihood of success.

8.5 AGILITY AND FLEXIBILITY IN STRATEGY EXECUTION

One of the challenges in embarking on strategy execution is establishing the level of understanding of those who compiled the data strategy in the first instance as to the complexities of the world around them in order to comprehend the potential impact on the implementation of the data strategy. The process of defining a data strategy is often a long and complicated exercise, getting inputs and buy-in from a variety of teams across the organisation and plotting a course which, ostensibly, seems the right one to be heading for.

However, it is worth contemplating the level of knowledge those closest to the process of defining the data strategy can have of the rapidly evolving world around them and their desire to be constantly seeking to assess the ‘what ifs’ of the landscape in which the data strategy is set. For instance, we can all agree change is a constant, and one which will impact on the way an organisation collects, manages and exploits its data in the furtherance of its corporate objectives. How many of us within an organisation, particularly of some size and complexity, can have a comprehensive view of the way a market may change in the course of a year, let alone three, five or more years that the data strategy is set to reflect?

Aside from the seismic impact of coronavirus around the world, which has decimated some industries and yet seen others more profitable than at any time in living memory, there can be less obvious change that has ramifications for the data strategy. Consider a change in leadership within your own organisation, for example. This usually occurs due to the incumbent stepping down due to their retirement, ill health or seeking a break, being replaced or moving on, all of which have profound impacts on the future direction and priorities for the organisation and hence its data strategy. Certainly, if your organisation is a private sector organisation with aggressive shareholders or private equity funding, then a change in the CEO or chairman role can be driven by a change of tack, whether through acquisition, divestment or simply a reprioritisation of where focus is to be placed. All of these scenarios are data-heavy in the demands put on the organisation and the direction in which the data strategy will need to head.

Similarly, a change in your competitors’ intentions can have profound implications for your own organisation, as can changes in the regulatory environment – most organisations, though, should have the right level of engagement to spot these coming, especially as they are rarely knee-jerk or instantaneous in implementation and may have included extensive consultation in advance.

The findings in the research undertaken by Sull et al. (2015) highlighted that most organisations do not adapt quickly enough to changing market conditions, with only 20 per cent of managers indicating that their organisations shifted people across business units to support strategy in such circumstances, and 30 per cent moving funding likewise. Agility is essential to spot opportunities for the organisation to reach a strategic outcome faster, smarter or more cheaply through being ready to act and seize the initiative, all the while continuing to meet the strategic intent.

The data strategy, just like the corporate strategy, will include activities needed to be undertaken to deliver successful outcomes, but does not preclude those tasked with its implementation from being opportunistic in spotting those initiatives which could lead to getting ahead in the delivery of the strategy. However, to do so requires alignment and the key factors of trust and collaboration to pull the resources together at the right time in the right way to achieve the right outcome. It is why smaller organisations, with more entrepreneurial focus and fewer lines of communication, can so often outsmart much larger organisations as they are prepared for, and ready to act on, any such initiatives swiftly to achieve significant gains.

At every step of the way, challenge the implementation team on how effective they are in opportunity spotting any activity that might enable the strategy to be delivered faster and better, regardless of the nature or size of your organisation. As Deming said, change is inevitable, so embrace it and be ready to be at the front of it rather than adjusting and coping through a lack of anticipation.

A good mantra is that a successful implementation team delivers the plan on time, to budget, achieving the targets set, whilst anticipating and handling change along the way. A great implementation team, on the other hand, exceeds the plan by identifying ways to deliver enduring progress smarter, faster and more cheaply than assumed within the plan, and explores the business landscape – internal and external – looking for ways to surpass what was expected to be delivered. Challenging the status quo, looking at risks and assumptions, and being willing to view things from a different perspective to realise opportunities which would otherwise have been missed are at the heart of operating at a fundamentally different level.

It is the blend of good programme implementation discipline with a zeal for innovation and exploration that is the differentiator between good and great implementation.

8.6 CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT

Research suggests that a constant failing in most organisations’ efforts to execute strategy lies in the calibre of the people to deliver it. Yet, ironically, the one area that is assumed in almost all organisations is the expectation that all managers (regardless of level of seniority) have some inherent capability to execute strategy. This seems preposterous, as there is little or no formal training provided by most organisations to support this, and the evidence shows that there is limited expertise amongst managers to be able to hire this expertise in, which is why so many organisations turn to consulting firms to support this activity.

Given the direct link between strategy, delivery and corporate performance, it is still surprising how little credence organisations seem to give to preparing managers for this important role, yet the evidence suggests it has been like this for decades. Little appears to have changed in the way organisations tackle the implementation of strategy, and still the evidence shows a compelling case to address this if successful outcomes are to be achieved.

I have explored elsewhere in this book the dichotomy between the art of devising strategy and implementing it. However, neither of these disciplines are taught effectively in the vast majority of organisations, and often those tasked with devising the strategy are assumed to be just as skilled in its execution. Some organisations take it to a new level, creating a strategy function that is to some degree removed from the rest of the organisation, as if working in a specialism that has to bring every member of staff with them on a coherent journey is achievable by creating a hothouse of expertise, the strategy ivory tower, if you like, where only those capable of thinking strategically can be found.

I referred earlier in the book to the use of data maturity assessments as a key starting point on the strategy definition journey. It is important to explore the readiness of the organisation from a capability standpoint to implement the critical strands of the data strategy, identifying the need to upskill as part of the data strategy deliverables. As a prelude to moving into the strategy implementation phase, there is a need to review the findings of the data maturity assessment – which should form a key part of the overall tracking of progress of the data strategy through implementation – and to enhance it through a review of the readiness and capability of the organisation to enable the implementation to succeed. This may take the form of an employee skills audit or matrix to assess the capability in those parts of the organisation that are essential to success in a documented approach which can then be utilised to drive learning and development and identification of skills that are needed by the programme.

I have set out a checklist below for you to use in a pre-implementation review.

1. Construct a coherent implementation plan from the data strategy.

The first step is to consider how clear the data strategy is to be able to develop a clear implementation plan. This involves a review of the waymarkers (assuming these exist, of course), the timetable, the RAID log and the scale of commitment required to enable the organisation to meet the strategic timeline and ambition. Once this has been undertaken, it must be ratified by all stakeholders as part of a pre-implementation checklist, to ensure the baseline position is fully understood and approved by those you will need to engage resources and support from. It will also be the trigger to determine the communications strategy to be followed, turning the implementation plan into a story to run alongside the data strategy vision that has already been developed. You now have the ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘how’ to sit alongside the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ to complete the picture and enhance those campfire discussions with practical steps to be undertaken.

2. Establish the maturity of the organisation to embrace and achieve the data strategy.

The data maturity assessment will have identified the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation and had some input from all parts to have reached this conclusion. It should be a key artefact to be signed off within the data strategy, as this becomes an important element in the need to track progress and demonstrate the impact of change as it is implemented. The critical step to be undertaken at this point is to articulate, as clearly and simply as possible, what differentiates the next stage of maturity from the current position and to break this down to specific actions needed to evidence progress to the next level. Whilst this is usually an internal measure, it does have some merit in being conducted by a third party, to provide objectivity.

As the data maturity assessment highlights gaps, which hopefully should link clearly to the deliverables specified in the waymarkers, so there needs to be an assessment of the organisation’s capability to fulfil those gaps. After all, if these capabilities were already within the organisation there is a perfectly reasonable argument to suggest these should have been addressed already, unless they were not deemed a priority previously (in which case, why has this been the case and what is so different now?) and were suppressed. It may be that there are gaps which require training and development of existing staff within the organisation, but there is just as likely a strong case for hiring expertise if that skillset is hard to develop without internal support, is too big a leap from the starting point or there is an urgency to make progress quickly that would benefit from acquiring those skills through recruitment.

This information gathering involved in reviewing the maturity of the organisation to be ready to embark on implementing the data strategy is perhaps the most focused activity to be undertaken. As such, it should be a key element of the pre-implementation review and be signed off as part of the commitment to deliver against the commitments that each part of the organisation needs to support – remember, strategic execution fails due to a lack of realism, commitment and collaboration across teams, so this is your opportunity to bring this to the fore in making it clear what you are expecting from senior leaders and to act as a reference point whenever resources are challenging to source.

If additional resources need to be hired, make sure there is clear accountability as to who will take the lead on this, when they are needed by and how these resources will be made available to support the implementation of the data strategy, and that there is an understanding of the core skills to be sought – I have seen organisations fail to appreciate the skillset being demanded within a role that is new to the organisation and so hire inappropriately. Finding an individual with unrelated skills to those you need to succeed will hinder the implementation more than having no one with those skills available.

3. Consider data and analytics capability.

There will inevitably be a high demand on those individuals in your organisation that undertake a variety of roles in data and analytics – assuming your organisation has these and it is not your single-handed task to be a jack of all trades. They will almost certainly have played a part in shaping the data strategy, so you probably have some insight as to their capability, experience and scale of ambition, but it is important that you embark on the implementation phase clear as to how resources are to be balanced between ‘keeping the lights on’ through the delivery of current activity (which may not, of course, be aligned to the direction of the data strategy, which is another issue you will need to address, as any activities that may need to be ‘switched off’ at some point will need the agreement of the stakeholders involved) and supporting the new activity that moves the organisation forward in delivering the data strategy.

In determining the capability of the organisation to deliver on the data strategy implementation, you will also need to consider the readiness of the data and analytics teams to support you as effectively as you will need. They will undertake a critical role in making the implementation a success, so it is essential that you do not compromise on capability in this critical area. In addition, these individuals must also carry the rest of the organisation with them and have confidence in their ability to deliver outcomes in conjunction with the wider teams across the organisation. Therefore, you may need to consider their effectiveness at engaging with the wider organisation and there may be a need for support to develop their confidence in this area.

Many analysts are comfortable operating in their own arena, but lack the ability to transcend the complexity of their world and translate it into language and stories that business leaders can comprehend and engage with. I recommend that you look for those who have the spark, the ability to be the go-between in the communication between analysts and the wider business, and harness that capability. I have developed many individuals in various organisations to perform this critical stakeholder management role, operating with a foot in each camp, building confidence and translating requirements. They are a minority, but I believe you will find people with the willingness to learn and be those translators; you just need to help by showing them the way to begin.

If you are not a data and analytics professional yourself, but are tasked with driving the data strategy implementation, then I would recommend getting an external assessment of the capabilities of the data and analytics resources at your disposal. It is relatively easy for those with years of experience in the field who have operated in complex environments as a leader to provide such assessments – I’ve done so in a number of organisations, as well as building teams from scratch. This provides an insight into the key resources you are about to depend upon to implement the data strategy, and for a modest investment will highlight where you have gaps or training needs that can then be tackled up front, before you are exposed by these in-flight.

8.7 AVOIDING STRATEGY PARALYSIS

This section could equally apply to many parts of this book, but I thought it fitted into this part as an important step in the readiness for strategy execution. There has been a logical structure throughout this book that might suggest that the process of defining a data strategy, structuring a communications approach and readying for implementation is a logical flow that moves seamlessly to a logical and rational conclusion – the delivery of a strategy and its successful implementation. If only life were so simple!

In reality, there is a stop-start nature to much of the work that underpins reaching readiness for implementation that is a fact of business life. As with every project, there is a planned approach to how the future will unfold that often falters within days, not through the lack of planning or thinking through the steps to be taken sufficiently but just because the unforeseen may happen and you have to adapt. Dwight D. Eisenhower is quoted as saying: ‘In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.’¹⁵ In other words, do not find yourself in an endless loop, refining the data strategy and readying for having to translate this into an implementation plan, constantly seeking ways to improve and amend the content. As General George S. Patton, renowned for his dislike of indecision, stated: ‘A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.’¹⁶

This chapter has highlighted that the landscape around you is in constant change; there is every likelihood that you learnt something today that you did not know yesterday. However, the data strategy has to stand the test of several years, and so any expectation that planning accurately to within a week or a month makes all the difference is misplaced. It simply moves the goalposts to being more aware of some facts but conscious of yet more that you are not able to answer at that point in time.

In other words, there is no right time for the data strategy to be ready, other than the point at which you have mapped all the points to be captured in the RAID log, have sought inputs from all parts of the organisation and have the opportunity to engage senior leaders with the content you have refined to this point. In truth, no strategy is perfect – research has shown only 2 per cent of senior leaders were confident enough to state that they expected to achieve at least 80 per cent of their strategy over the time frame it was due to deliver.¹⁷

Your goal is to minimise the risk of failure by providing a clear route map to achieve the strategic goals you have set and to provide the means to be able to measure progress reliably and easily. This is the point at which implementation takes over, and this is the phase which needs to be closer to the detail on a day-to-day basis to reflect whether the data strategy still holds true or needs further refinement based upon new observations and learning from what has been achieved so far. Uncertainty is unavoidable in the complex world we live in today, and to chase down every detail to try to mitigate it is largely a fool’s errand. To quote Voltaire: ‘Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.’¹⁸

The implementation plan will translate the data strategy into a series of defined deliverables to achieve, via milestones, the waymarkers you outline within the data strategy. The plan will iterate and evolve, shaped by what is known and a reflection on the changing nature of that which is contained in the RAID log and the priorities of the organisation. A highly experienced individual in the implementation of strategy will advise that there is little to be gained from trying to anticipate and prepare for every eventuality; these have to be addressed as they become known, otherwise there is little to be gained from what might never materialise in defining the data strategy.

Seek advice, get feedback, test drafts of the data strategy with those able to proffer an opinion as to how it might be received, but have the courage of your conviction to deliver a data strategy that is the best that you and your team (should there be one) can produce, and believe in the evidence you have gathered and the inputs you have gained from across the organisation to make this compelling to the senior leaders in your organisation. You know more about the detail within the data strategy than they will ever know: it is the alignment of your strategy with their conviction and appetite for change which will be put to the test. This cannot be addressed through constant review of the data strategy; it is to be hoped that your senior sponsor has acted as an effective supporter of your initiative at a peer group level to have prepared the ground, and you find a mutual meeting of minds, in which the data strategy is fully embraced with an appetite to see it delivered.

8.8 TEN TO TAKE AWAY

The important points to take away from this chapter are:

1. The most effective organisations at strategy execution treat implementation as a strategic activity, with the same people involved in both definition and execution.
2. The mobilisation phase of your data strategy implementation is critical to success. It enables detail to be gathered to ensure readiness to begin implementation, establishing the data strategy baseline, assumptions and key drivers.
3. Review the RAID log at the start of mobilisation, with a strong focus on assessing the dependencies.
4. Senior leaders are not effective at both strategy and its execution, with more than one in three weak at either of these skills. Consider how the five myths of strategy execution fit with commonly held beliefs in your own organisation and prepare accordingly.
5. Assess the strategic alignment – both the corporate strategy and data strategy – against the actual business model to determine likelihood of success. Are you set to be one of the 13 per cent of organisations to be effective only half of the time, which in itself demonstrates the challenge of succeeding in strategy execution?
6. Convert waymarkers into milestones, defining the detail behind the deliverables and ensuring these are measurable.
7. Plan your course based on what you know about the dependencies that are ahead of you. Remember the Titanic analogy: it is about having sufficient time to adjust rather than simply seeing the iceberg lie ahead on your path.
8. Be agile. Flexibility is key: a great implementation team can exceed the plan through being smarter, faster and cheaper, and challenging the status quo to view things from a different perspective. Innovation and exploration, alongside good programme implementation discipline, are at the heart of a successful implementation.
9. Benchmark the capability of the organisation to deliver the data strategy. Evidence shows a lack of skills and capabilities to define and execute strategies in organisations worldwide, so do not assume your organisation is different. Use the data maturity assessment as a baseline and build a skills matrix to understand where capability lies and seek to utilise it.
10. Avoid strategy paralysis. There is never a period in which total knowledge is captured, so accept it is a world of change and embrace it. As Voltaire said, certainty is an absurd position. Utilise Agile, engage with your sponsor and gather facts as you go to refine the inputs that shape the plan and its deliverables.

1 E. Nightingale, The Strangest Secret [spoken word – vinyl]. Nightingale-McHugh Company, 1956.

2 Economist Intelligence Unit, Why Good Strategies Fail: Lessons for the C-Suite. 2013. https://eiuperspectives.economist.com/strategy-leadership/why-good-strategies-fail.

3 Project One, the management consulting firm, talk about the benefits of a full mobilisation approach in a blog post (https://projectone.com/blogs/mobilising-change-programme/) and as an article (https://projectone.com/mobilising-change-programmes-ive-started-so-ill-finish/).

4 These commonly used attributions are likely incorrect, however.

5 Malcolm Follos, Sensei UKE. 9 October 2015. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mobilising-project-simple-checklist-follow-malcolm-follos/.

6 Bridges Business Consultancy Int Pte Ltd, What Drives Strategy Implementation? Top Line Findings. 2008. www.bridgesconsultancy.com/research-case-study/research/.

7 R.S. Kaplan and D.P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 1996.

8 Bridges Business Consultancy Int Pte Ltd, Strategy Implementation Survey. 2016. www.bridgesconsultancy.com/research-case-study/research/.

9 Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull, Why Strategy Execution Unravels – and What to Do About It. Harvard Business Review, March 2015. https://hbr.org/2015/03/why-strategy-execution-unravelsand-what-to-do-about-it.

10 Economist Intelligence Unit, Why Good Strategies Fail: Lessons for the C-Suite. 2013. https://eiuperspectives.economist.com/strategy-leadership/why-good-strategies-fail.

11 J. De Flander and K. Schreurs, The Strategy Execution Barometer. Expanded edn. Enschede, The Netherlands: Performance Factory, 2012.

12 Bridges Business Consultancy Int Pte Ltd, Strategy Implementation Survey. 2016.

13 In D. McNary, AFM: ‘Independence Day’ Producer Dean Devlin Celebrates Independence. Variety, 10 November 2013. https://variety.com/2013/film/news/afm-indepedence-day-producer-dean-devlin-celebrates-independence-1200812581/.

14 A star chamber is a scrutiny board which challenges rigorously the thinking and decision-making process to test out how effective and optimal the proposal or outcome is likely to be. It usually consists of people with significant experience who have not been directly involved. It is named after the court that sat in the Old Palace of Westminster between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries that was composed of judges and privy councillors.

15 Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises. New York: Pocket Books, 1962.

16 In G.S. Patton, War as I Knew It. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1947.

17 Bridges Business Consultancy Int Pte Ltd, Strategy Implementation Survey. 2012. www.bridgesconsultancy.com/research-case-study/research/.

18 Letter to Frederick II of Prussia, 6 April 1767.