Research by PwC indicates that leading companies are in a near perpetual state of Reorganization.  This upsurge in Organizational Design initiatives is owing to the accelerating pace of strategic change caused by disruption of industries, changing competitor landscape, customer behaviors, and distribution channels.

Companies opt to commence efforts to restructure their organization in the hopes of enhancing efficiency, perpetuating growth, and surviving in future.  Some shift their Business Models, few alter their focus from products to customer-centric; whereas others adopt new behaviors, systems, or IT architecture.  However, merely a quarter of the Organizational Design initiatives succeed in achieving their anticipated objectives.

The reason for this high failure rate is simple.  Reorganization is not about changing a company’s organogram.  It’s a methodical processes that necessitates transforming / streamlining the decision-making process, mindsets, talent pipeline, reward structures, reporting lines, and the way responsibilities are assigned.

There is no cookie-cutter approach to Reorganization that can work across all organizations.  However, research and management best practices reveal 10 principles that are critical for developing an effective Organizational Design, applicable to any enterprise:

1. Don’t get caught in past Reorganization initiatives
2. Consider Organizational Design elements
3. Transform Organization Chart in the end
4. Don’t overlook top talent
5. Converge attention towards controllable factors
6. Encourage responsibility
7. Use best practices with care
8. Harmonize organizational hierarchy with Strategic Objectives
9. Give due emphasis to intangible elements of organization
10. Make efficient use of company culture and practices

Let’s dive deeper into these guiding principles.

1. Don’t Get Caught in Past Reorganization Initiatives

Leaders at most organizations tend to keep discussing and focusing on the old reorganization initiatives.  This takes away much of their time and energy which should rather be spent on making the current Organizational Design a success.

Organization Design should be created on the basis of an enterprise’s sense of purpose, strategy, core competencies, products, competitive advantage, and experience offered to customers and employees.  Senior leaders need to be able to see the broader perspective, set clear organizational objectives, and steer the workforce to achieve their personal as well as organizational objectives.

2. Consider Organizational Design Elements

Reorganization is a complex undertaking, but a structured approach to Organizational Design assists in identifying and prioritizing key priorities.  Organizational Design has 8 fundamental elements that are important for all organizations, Business Models, sectors, or regions.  These elements can be categorized into 4 pairs.  Each of these 4 pairs constitute a formal (tangible) and an informal (intangible) element:

• Decisions team up with Norms (the way people act).
• Motivators (the way people are influenced to work) pair with Commitments (what affects people’s thoughts about work).
• Information (the way data is processed) pairs with Mindsets (how people process knowledge and meaning).
• Structure (reporting lines) pairs off with Networks (how people collaborate).

Leaders should select fewer, prioritized Organizational Design elements to work on that have the most impact on their organizations.

3. Transform Organization Chart in the End

Most leaders consider Organization Structure to be the most critical element to Business Transformation.  In reality, there are other key organizational elements that need to be tackled first to improve effectiveness.  Revisiting the organogram does not have much effect on the way business is done—or to improve it.  Structure depicts reporting lines and changing it can reduce costs temporary.  Changing structure alone—without transforming other organizational elements—allows the redundant reporting lines to reappear and put the organization back to its earlier state of affairs.  Instead of changing the organogram, core organizational issues should be prioritized and confronted first.  Structure will adjust accordingly once the issues resolve.

4. Don’t Overlook Top Talent

Top talent often go unnoticed when it comes to Reorganization.  The skills and traits of the senior leadership has a profound impact on Organizational Design.  Mapping of technical capabilities and leadership abilities of top leadership is an important step to Reorganization.

Interested in learning more about the guiding principles critical for Organizational Design?"  "You can download an editable PowerPoint on 10 Principles of Organizational Design here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Employees with the right skills make or break an enterprise, create brand impression, represent the company’s culture and values.

Disruptive technology is changing the contemporary work environment.  Employees in traditional roles are now feeling insecure and disengaged.  This dissonance threatens to take away the Competitive Advantage of companies.

Employee Engagement has emerged as one of the significant pillars on which the Competitive Advantage, Productivity, and Growth of an organization rests.

Disruptive technology and the resulting Digital Economy have uprooted many of the so-called traditional jobs.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) making diagnosis on medical tests is an example.  Does this mean that the doctors will lose their jobs?  The answer is no.  Doctors will have to train to gain new skills to work with AI.

Many other fields are, likewise, seeing work of employees being taken over by machines.  Does that mean employees will lose jobs?  Yes and no.  There is an urgent need for managements to upgrade employee roles and skills as well as take other steps that make an AI-enabled Workforce.

Upskilling Strategy can create new roles for existing employees leveraging their experience and help engage employees in an otherwise adverse work environment.

Upskilling comprises of acquisition of new and pertinent competencies, made necessary because of the current or emerging work environment.  Upskilling adds to the skills the employee already possesses.  Contemporary examples of Upskilling may be provision of Digital skills, Analytical skills, or Organizational Transformation skills to the employees.

Contrastingly, Reskilling means teaching totally new skills to employees.  Reskilling often mandates sending employees back to college or trade school to obtain a degree or certificate in a new field.

Expanding comprehension regarding how to effectively design and implement Upskilling projects may possibly determine society’s Knowledge Assets.  The following 6-phase approach to Upskilling Strategy summarizes the key actions required to ensure effective design and implementation of Upskilling initiatives:

1. Determine the circumstances and define the project.
2. Create a skills plan.
3. Evaluate and guide each employee.
4. Pair jobs and skills and involve workers.
5. Pick out trainings and trainers.
6. Manage the project and examine output.

Let us explore some of the phases of the Upskilling Strategy a bit more.

Determine the Circumstances and Define the Project

Each circumstance is exclusive.  For determining what is involved in making an Upskilling Strategy for that particular situation; coordination, decisions, and actions on a number of levels at the same time is essential.

All Upskilling initiatives, whether originated by the local government or a result of a situation faced by a single enterprise, have some shared elements.

Create a Skills Plan

The skills plan should center priorities on the categories of jobs being impacted by the disrupting technologies, personnel extremely at risk, companies that stand to gain the greatest.

Devising a skills plan helps determine jobs that will be affected by new technologies, savings realized because of automation, categories of new skills that will be required, time span for these changes to take place.

Determining above factors helps design the training initiative that focuses on specific strategic training goals.

Evaluate and Guide Each Employee

Change always conjures fears in employees and takes them out of their comfort zones.  A well-thought-out assessment program that incorporates individual counselling and guidance can go a long way towards pacifying employee fears and assisting them move to an improved situation.

Interested in learning more about pitfalls and benefits of Upskilling, costs and ROI of Upskilling initiatives, details of the 6 phases of Upskilling Strategy?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on Upskilling Strategy here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Profitability is at the core of successful businesses.  Many markets do not allow as much top-line revenue increase as the companies would like.  Therefore, organizations have to focus on improving the bottom-line.

Boosting the bottom-line entails raising Productivity.  Productivity enhancement can be achieved by eliminating redundancies and improving processes that change the company.  Process Improvement also means less people needed to accomplish the same tasks.

Change projects—as is the case with most other projects—almost always run over budget and over time, especially when new technology comes into the mix.  Causes for failures in Change Management are many and one of them is heavy and bureaucratic teams.

Raising Productivity in teams designated for change projects is well-nigh impossible.   A solution to this is Building Effective Teams by keeping teams small—a remedy that has shown its effectiveness time and again.

Smaller teams tend to communicate effectively, decide quickly, do course corrections more easily, work faster, and innovate more.

Large organizations have the tendency of deploying large teams because as the planning process goes on, the scope gets bigger and bigger.  This practice is defeating in itself because sight of the goal is lost in the bureaucratic rigmarole.

For projects to be executed swiftly and successfully the following 10 best practices for smaller, more Agile teams are very effective:

1. Break Down Problems
2. Eliminate Indispensable Roles
3. Adopt One-step Decisions
4. Foster Trust
5. Share Information Freely & Informally
6. Increase Visibility & Accountability
7. Minimize Conference Calls
8. Track Less
9. Increase Cross-team Collaboration
10. Adopt Technology Faster & Effectively

 Let us delve a little deeper into some of the best practices.

Break Down Problems

Dividing the project into distinct problems or separating business capabilities into converged organizational units makes it easier for smaller teams to deliver.

Assorting sizable, complex problems into discrete, attainable pieces and teaching members to develop a Problem Solving Mindset enables small teams to take them on easily and over deliver on them.

An alternate to making teams smaller without compromising on the structure of the organization is to separate business capabilities into focused organizational units. 

Eliminate Indispensable Roles

Making sure that individuals with a certain type of skill or key people are not scarce in the organization lest they get pulled by different teams at the same time. 

Essential people are wanted by all teams, consequentially their time gets split into such small chunks that no task gets done properly.  Operational risk becomes prodigious when dependent on a single person.

It is vital to work away from such scenarios in a team.

Adopt One-step Decisions

Bureaucratic way of decision-making in large teams should be avoided by identifying types of decisions and the decision-making authorities, at the outset. 

Foster Trust

Trust speeds up progress, augments quality, and diminishes execution risk.  Trust has to be built up by conscious effort.

Share Information Freely & Informally

One of the ways for effective Team Management is to keep communication swift and the only way of doing this is to keep it informal.

Interested in learning more about these best practices for Small, Agile Teams?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on 10 Best Practices for Small, Agile Teams here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one area considered by many executives to enable Automation and steer positive growth.  A couple of years ago, most executives thought that deployment of Artificial Intelligence isn’t a big deal.  However, revamping traditional systems, implementing AI, and scaling it, in reality, is not as simple as it seems.

A survey by PwC Research in 2020, which gathered responses of 1062 business leaders, validates that scaling and industrializing AI is not straightforward at all.  Only 4% of the respondents asserted that they plan on implementing organization-wide AI in 2020.  A year earlier, the same survey revealed 20% of the executives planning to do that.  The survey shows a significant decrease in the number of senior leaders thinking of executing AI.

The reason for this dwindling interest in AI deployment is mainly because of the tough prerequisites necessary—contemplation, resources, preparedness, overhauling legacy systems, and integration of technology applications—for enterprise-wide AI implementation.

A robust AI Implementation Strategy needs to be first devised in order to assist the organizations in moving forward with their AI deployment plans.  Research reveals 5 key priorities of AI Strategy that businesses should follow to position themselves as AI leaders and reap value from Transformation in future.  These priorities not only highlight the key requirements for AI deployment but also pinpoint ways to maximize pay offs associated with the initiative:

1. Boring AI
2. AI-ready Workforce
3. Responsible and Ethical AI
4. AI Operationalization
5. Business Model Innovation

Let’s delve deeper into a few of these key priorities.

Boring AI

One of the key reasons to employ AI, as cited by PwC research, is to automate routine administrative functions—e.g., using AI to pull information from tax forms, bills of lading, or invoices that can otherwise take up long hours of human effort.  44% of respondents revealed that AI will help them operate more efficiently.

To ensure AI adds value to the business, leaders should develop a strategy to identify the areas where AI can have a much deeper impact; build capabilities to do that; develop AI solutions, govern them, and embed them with existing systems.

AI-ready Workforce

Building or enhancing the capabilities of the workforce to become AI ready is critical today not only for technology enterprises but also for other businesses.  Organizations should identify the skills required for AI and train their people to deploy AI solutions.

However, thinking of achieving this through traditional means of offering training sessions isn’t a viable strategy to tap the opportunities offered by AI.  In addition to training people, organizations should cross-skill their people in multiple trades and provide them the opportunities to apply and hone in the skills learnt.  In fact, organizations should reward people who apply what they learn into real-time problem-solving and productivity enhancement.

Responsible and Ethical AI

AI can be perilous if adequate understanding of its responsible use and necessary procedures to protect against its risks and negative usage are not taken.  There are growing apprehensions around AI related risks e.g., biased algorithms, facial recognition tools, and deep fakes.  As per PwC survey, a large majority of respondents, using AI routinely, declared readiness in their organizations in terms of taking sufficient measures to protect against AI risks.

However, in reality most organizations are quite far from implementing controls around data and decisions generated using AI.  Just about 33% businesses mentioned having the ability to fully tackle risks associated with data powering AI, AI models, outputs, and reporting. It is imperative to have rigorous Risk Management processes in place to effectively use AI in the workplace and address the risks associated with it.   AI risks can be mitigated by integrating processes, tools, and controls needed to address AI bias, explainability, security, accountability, and ethics.

Interested in learning more about the other key strategic priorities essential for AI deployment readiness?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on Artificial Intelligence Strategy: Top Priorities here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Agile is a robust approach to value creation.  More and more organizations are adopting Agile Software Development approach.

Becoming Agile is imperative to meet and exceed customer expectations and emerging business trends.  Implementing the Agile approach to Software Development leverages significant benefits, including:

• Rapid design and development of new product and service offerings
• Revolutionizing processes
• Managing talent
• Reforming organizations

However, Agile alone is not enough.  Agile Transformation can slip-up as Agile teams can stagger while working together and depending on others.  In order to become an effective Digital organization, companies have to steer clear of the obstacles that bog down the rapid progress of Agile software development.  These organizational obstacles to Agile include:

1. Rigid Technology Architecture
2. Poor Talent Management
3. Lack of Product Mindset

Overcoming these barriers necessitates sincere harmonization, persistent effort, and commitment from the business and technology leadership.  Anticipating and addressing these major organizational obstacles is integral to becoming Agile.

Let’s discuss these obstacles in detail.

Rigid Technology Architecture

Using and expanding the same old codes and plugging gaps with software patches renders the IT Architecture cumbersome and unyielding, at most organizations.  Many organizations have outdated systems to manage operations and facilitate their customers.  The integration of these outdated systems with modern applications and IT architecture isn’t easy, making them inflexible.  Most of these systems and aps are inter-reliant and connected.  A small change in a code has serious implications on other connected applications.

IT executives have to consider a number of factors before modernizing their IT architecture.  These factors include potential value envisaged from the new architecture, requirement for new functionalities, risk of disruption, complications involved in the process, extent of fragmented data, and costs.  Based on thorough evaluation of these factors, executives select one of these 4 common approaches to revolutionize their IT architecture:

• Inaction – The investment in overhauling certain applications is thought to be nonviable as their impact is considered insignificant in the overall architecture.
• Integrate – Uncover the old system’s essential function / elements and connect them with modern systems using interfaces (APIs).
• Overhaul – Modify the design of applications—e.g. dissecting the code into distinct, autonomous sections and eliminating any hard-coded values.
• Replace – Design innovative applications and deploy latest architecture (e.g. micro-services).

Poor Talent Management

Most leaders understand the importance of finding and staffing top talent in becoming Agile.  However, outdated HR Management practices at some organizations become a major hurdle in attracting and retaining talented individuals.  The issue with IT management at most technology firms in the recent past was their shortcoming in visualizing the problems through a business perspective.  This led to the depletion of technical capabilities due to hiring of more and more people with strong business sense, but inadequate technological prowess.

Another factor compounding the talent deficit is entrusting the hiring function to external contractors by scores of IT organizations.  This practice, although, assists in staffing talent and gaining new capabilities promptly, but diverts much of the executives’ time in supervising the external contractors.  This leaves little time for them to acquire new technical skills and gives the contractors too much control over innovation.  Outsourcing the software maintenance to 3^rd parties is another factor that leads to poor accountability and Talent Management.

To mitigate these issues, technology companies need to transform, strengthen their technical capabilities, eliminate dependencies on 3^rd parties, and clearly define responsibilities.

Interested in learning more about the obstacles to becoming Agile?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on 3 Organizational Obstacles to Agile here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Business and technology resources are aligned using Enterprise Architecture (EA) in order to achieve strategic results, improve organizational performance, achieve Cost Optimization and Operational Excellence, and guide departments to fulfill their central missions more efficaciously.

Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) does that for any U.S. federal agency and helps systems transcend interagency boundaries.

Planning is one of the most important elements for bringing about change in an organization, if not the most important.  Planning methodology for the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework is called Collaborative Planning Methodology (CPM).

Collaborative Planning Methodology is the next-generation successor to Federal Segment Architecture Methodology (FSAM).

Collaborative Planning Methodology encompasses 2 phases and a total of 5 steps under these phases:

Organize and Plan phase lets planners facilitate partnership between sponsors and various stakeholders in order to ascertain and prioritize requirements, explore other organizations with same needs, and devise plans to tackle the stated requirements.

Implement and Measure phase has the planners in assist role to other key personnel working to implement and monitor change related activities by supporting investment, procurement, implementation, and performance measurement actions and decisions.

Each step under these 2 phases has a number of activities that need to be completed in order to obtain the outcome for that step.  There are regular and essential iterations within and among the phases even though the phases have been displayed as successive.  Let’s discuss the key steps of the methodology in detail.

1. Identify and Validate

The objective of the 1st step is to ascertain what is required to be attained, comprehend the main drivers for change, and afterwards delineate and prioritize the goals with stakeholders and operational staff. 

Key outcomes of the step include:

• Identified and validated needs.
• Overarching set of performance metrics.
• Determination of who (governance) will ultimately oversee and approve recommended changes to meet those needs. 

2. Research and Leverage

The aim of this step is to detect organizations and service providers who have already fulfilled or presently have requirements similar to those identified in Step 1.  This necessitates studying their experiences and outcomes in order to discover if they can be used and leveraged or whether an alliance can be created to fulfill the needs together. 

Key outcomes of the step include:

• Clear grasp on the experiences and results of other organizations.
• Determination by sponsors regarding applicability, usage of experiences of other organizations or formation of partnerships if the other organization is also planning to fulfill similar needs.
• Detailed analysis of alternatives.

3. Define and Plan

The purpose here is to form the integrated plan for the alterations essential to fulfill the requirements determined in Step 1. 

Key outcomes of the step include:

• Sponsor and stakeholders hold an integrated set of plans and articles outlining what is to be done, when is it to be done, what benefits will be achieved and when, and a projected cost.

4. Invest and Execute

Point of this step is to carry out investment decision and effect the changes as delineated in the Integrated Plan produced in Step 3. 

Key outcomes of this step include:

• Clear funding strategy and a decision to approve the investment of required funds.
• Implementation of recommendations for tackling the identified needs.

5. Perform and Measure

Objective of this step is to execute operations and measure performance outcomes against established metrics.  The recently applied changes are leveraged by the organization in Performance Management. 

Key outcomes of this step include:

• Performance outcomes gauged against pre-determined metrics.
• Production of significant outcomes e.g., feedback into planning with the view to making more adjustments in addition to what was implemented in Step 4.

Interested in learning more Collaborative Planning Methodology, its salient features, and the key activities in each step?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on Collaborative Planning Methodology here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Business and technology elements are aligned by means of Enterprise Architecture (EA) so as to attain strategic results, augment organizational performance, and drive departments to deliver their central missions more efficaciously.

Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) achieves this for any U.S. federal agency and assists systems go beyond interagency boundaries.

We discuss here 1 of the 6 interconnected reference models of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework—the Infrastructure Reference Model (IRM).

IRM takes care of definition of infrastructure technology elements, as well as provides direction for promoting favorable results across technology implementations.

IRM implementation aids in:

• Reduction of lifecycle costs through sharing and reuse, also helps in exploiting economies of scale.
• Increased interoperability throughout the government including its partners by identification and endorsement of demonstrated industry standards and associated platforms and products.
• Detection of pragmatic design-patterns as clusters of technology packets or blends of technologies that work well collectively to sustain efficient acquisition and deployment.
• Efficient control and sustainment of IT assets/resources through contribution to the delivery of consolidated and measurable infrastructure services and service levels as envisaged in Enterprise Architecture Management Maturity Framework (EAMMF).
• Supplying of realistic use cases and methods corresponding to IT capabilities to facilitate business initiatives and better access to information across enterprises.

Common Approach to Federal EA as well as Purpose and Outcome of IRM are, respectively, the root of IRM Guiding Principles.  IRM guiding principles are:

• IRM ought to be a robust-enough taxonomy and approach to fulfill future requirements and adjust new technologies.
• IRM must be defined with regard to technology infrastructure services put forward.
• IRM has to be expounded as a hierarchy of IT infrastructure components.
• IRM should be developed in such a way to promote usability, convenience, and reporting.
• IRM should simplify interoperability and shared services.
• IRM ought to be criteria-based, both international and national, concurrence-driven standards organizations, with numerous levels of abstraction.
• IRM has to be accommodating of the Application Reference Model (ARM) and Data Reference Model (DRM) by touch points.

Enabled by the Common Approach to Federal Enterprise Architecture and supported by the IRM, 4 primary outcomes of IRM include the following:

1. Service Delivery
2. Functional Integration
3. Authoritative Reference
4. Resource Optimization

IRM scope encompasses hardware, platforms, networks, and the facilities that house the infrastructure.  The 3 levels of the model include:

Level 1—Domain comprises of Platform, Network, and Facility.

Level 2—Area covers 13 areas, each belonging to 1 of 3 domain elements.

Level 3—Category consists of 90 total categories and each linked to 1 of 13 areas.

The interconnectedness of the IRM domains allows analysis of IT assets throughout the 3 dimensions.

For an implementation of an IRM-based categorization of assets to be useful, additional data points should be captured.  These data points include:

• Manufacturer of the asset.
• Cost
• End-of-life/end-of-support date
• Mapping to the Security Reference Model (SRM) 

Data points classified by IRM are relevant to detecting prospects of sharing services, decreasing redundancy, and stimulating consolidation.

IRM classification can be embraced, as part of implementation, by the ensuing extensively recognized best practices, guidance, and standards, both in the public and private sectors.

Interested in learning more about the FEAF: Infrastructure Reference Model (IRM)?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on the Infrastructure Reference Model (IRM) here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

With most Transformation initiatives people gradually revert back to their old habits of doing things.  Sustainable Change Management necessitates 4 key processes:

• Chartering—defining the scope, rationale, and team for the change initiative.
• Learning—testing and refining ideas before a full-blown execution of the initiative.
• Mobilizing—using symbols and metaphors to engage people and gain their buy-in for the change program.
• Realigning—redefining the roles and responsibilities and managing performance of the initiative and the people driving it.

These processes are critical to enable an Organizational Culture which encourages execution of lasting change.

In addition to these key processes, for the change to entrench into the organizational fabric, Leadership needs to put in place the environment necessary for the people to embrace and own the new processes, systems, and desired behaviors.

The 4 critical processes aid in creating the enabling conditions necessary for institutionalizing change in the organization.  These enabling conditions for sustainable Change take place in 3 settings:

1. Structural Context
2. Procedural Context
3. Emotional Context

The environment for sustainable change must be put in place way before the actual execution of the Transformation initiative.  These enabling conditions encompass making changes to the organization’s structure, procedures, and sentiments / behaviors.

Let’s dive deeper into the 3 conditions critical to enable sustainable change in the institution.

Structural Context

The first element of the enabling environment requires the change leadership to work on reshaping the organizational structure.  The 4 key processes have a direct bearing on the organization’s structure.  Their effect pervades over:

• The organization’s hierarchy and reporting lines.
• Compensations, benefits, and rewards systems.
• Monitoring and control systems.

The Structural Context significantly affects the way employees’ work and expend their time and their interest in certain types of projects.

The structural context is altered during the Realigning process of Transformation in the way new personnel practices are employed.  The Learning process informs the redefinition of linkage between the leadership and field staff.  The Mobilizing process informs the changes to be made in the roles and responsibilities of the management and front-line people—through storytelling and metaphors.  Whereas, the Chartering process helps instill a reformed, team-building culture in the organization.  Together, these changes in the structural context cascade down across the organization.

Procedural Context

The Procedural context pertains to a feeling of objectivity and authenticity of new processes and systems.  The Procedural environment involves the perception of people that their views are taken seriously and acted upon while designing and implementing a new initiative.

Procedural authenticity is critical in gaining commitment from the employees on initiatives that were not validated by them earlier.   It involves belief of the people that the change initiative integrates well with the philosophies of the organization and the way business should be done.  It makes the people feel heard, ensures trustworthiness of the change leadership through positive track records and effective decision making abilities, and alignment of the change initiative with the core values of the organization.

Interested in learning more about the other enabling conditions mandatory for institutionalizing change?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on Conditions for Sustainable Change here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Did You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Enterprise Architecture (EA) denotes management best practice for lining up business and technology resources to realize strategic results, expand upon Organizational Performance and steer departments to achieve their core missions more successfully and achieve Operational Excellence.

Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) assists any agency of the Federal government achieve this through documentation and information that conveys a summarized outlook of an enterprise at various tiers of scope and detail.

The FEAF comprises of 6 interconnected Reference Models including Security Reference Model (SRM), linked through Consolidated Reference Model (CRM), each relating to a sub-architectural domain of the FEA framework.

Security is a worldwide concern pervading through all layers of the organization.  Effect on security at any level has an impact on each successive level, both ascending and descending.  Appropriate place for developing and charting Security standards, policies, and norms is the Enterprise Architecture Governance since it is the enforcement point for IT investments.

Security Reference Model (SRM) is a framework for maturing a security architecture created on Information Security and privacy standards.  SRM is omnipresent, entwining itself through all of the sub-architectures of the all-encompassing EA across all the other reference models.

Enterprise and solution architects have to remain aware of entire technology, business, performance, and security drivers so as to suitably steer IT Strategy and design Information Technology systems and choose apposite technology that fits their needs.  SRM offers all levels of architects a direction to understanding when and where those needs can be consolidated.

SRM facilitates in forming an even security architecture in 3 key areas:

1. Purpose
2. Risk
3. Controls

All the layers of SRM are vital for the security posture and wellbeing of an entire agency and/or system.  Highest levels of Federal architecture transform federal laws, regulations, and publications into specific policies.

Main principle of the SRM, at the enterprise layer, is to utilize the standards in place throughout the Federal or national IT security expanse to classify policy for a particular enterprise or agency. 

Segment level transforms department specific policies into security controls and measurements.  Policies set in place from the enterprise layer are utilized by SRM to categorize controls for a certain agency or segment. 

SRM utilizes controls set at the segment layer to enable system-specific designs and/or requirements of the individual system.  SRM employs controls chosen by the agency or segment to truly embed security into a system or application.

Proper security procedures ensure both risk reduction and regulatory compliance.  Regulatory compliance is not an aim in itself, but a constituent of the course by which risks and controls, applicable to the circumstance at hand, are chosen.  Risk mitigation is the eventual motive for the application of security controls.

In the same vein, chief goal of security is not to apply controls rather it is to diminish risks by means of layered security measures of which implementation of controls is a part.  Attaining decreased risk profile means that controls ought to be integrated throughout the organization, vertically and horizontally, across system and solution deployments, layered progressively.

Consequences of security are far more challenging to measure, and differ based on the organization’s business.  Metrics are signs of an organization’s advancement in security maturity and part of the overall IT Capability Maturity.  Undeveloped organizations have diminished capability of defining or collecting metrics.

Interested in learning more about FEAF: Security Reference Model?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on FEAF: Security Reference Model (SRM) here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Accelerated pace of technological disruption has forced organizations to change.  It has triggered leaders to think of the ways they must adopt to survive in these challenging times.

Organizations are confronting this scenario by embracing digital technologies.  Traditionally, the focus of the organizations in these Transformation initiatives has remained on speed of change.  To get the most out of their initiatives, they are making drastic changes, to include:

• Creating Agile Teams
• Introducing Mobile Apps
• Building Big Data and Analytics capabilities
• Experimenting with creative Digital Business Models.

Digital Transformation programs are launched with huge fanfare, see success early on, but fail to keep the momentum going.  The issues that plague the sustainability of these initiatives are typically:

• Aging Technology Infrastructure
• Incompatible Operating Models
• Archaic ways of doing business
• Change-agnostic culture.

Drivers of change for the Digital Leadership have changed significantly over the years.  There is an increased focus on building scale when executing Digital Transformation.  Leaders have realized that quick Decision Making is not the only element required for successful Transformation.  To achieve its full potential, they need to create differentiated offerings and scale the most viable initiatives across the organization to create value.

Traditional organizations have started following the footsteps of digital disrupters like Amazon and Tesla.  They are implementing new digital services and adjusting their operations.  However, typical hurdles—e.g., old enterprise systems, bureaucratic red tape, delayed decision making, and segregation between IT and business units—make them slip back into the outdated ways of doing things.

Sustainable Digital Transformation involves building not only the technology infrastructure but also revisiting the operating model.  Successful Digital Transformations essentially involve embracing 4 key strategies to enable an ecosystem that encourages change to stick as well as scale:

1. Create a strong Digital Foundation
2. Integrate and consolidate the Digital Ecosystem
3. Front-end to back-end approach
4. Create a new Business Model

Let’s delve deeper into these strategies.

Create a Strong Digital Foundation

Manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries are the major sectors that employ this strategy.  The typical state of affairs in organizations implementing this strategy is such that they are in need of developing new digital capabilities from scratch to tackle nimble rivals who are churning out novel value propositions using digital tech.  These companies are burdened by dated tech infrastructure, sluggish decision making, and dated business models.  The risk of disruption to these businesses is growing but it hasn’t challenged them to transform drastically.

To them, building a digital foundation warrants acquiring novel foundational capabilities.  Their approach should be to start implementing and managing small changes one step at a time.  For instance, building a smart technology architecture with advanced Big Data, Analytics, and predictive modeling capabilities.  This should be followed by testing prototypes of the new model to prove their worth before implementing a full-blown execution.

Integrate and Consolidate the Digital Ecosystem

This strategy has gained traction most in organizations from the Consumer Products industry.  These organizations are typically marred by scores of fragmented IT systems running in different parts of the organization.  There is a general inability to prioritize the most viable projects and scale them.  The need to reform and rapid deployment of Digital Infrastructure is critical for survival.

The approach to Digital Transformation in these organization should be to establish a central management position to manage the initiative and streamline dispersed technology landscape.  This entails revising the technology infrastructure and operating model, deploying a unified IT platform for gathering and storing customer data, establishing a common data repository accessible to all units to recognize customers’ needs, and creating a culture that encourages innovation, acts on creative ideas, and refines them through experimentation and advanced tools.

Interested in learning more about the other strategies to enable Digital Transformation?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on Sustainable Digital Transformation here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Did You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Initiatives aimed at improving performance are often launched with great uproar, costing an organization significant investments.  Such initiatives necessitate extensive changes in the Organizational Culture and the way the enterprise systems and processes function.

However, most initiatives fall short of realizing success.  Decades of scholarly research on Change Management reveals that the issues that contribute the most to the failure of strategic initiatives are:

• Incompetence in sustaining process improvement.
• Lack of trust on senior leadership.
• Failure to embrace new ways of doing business.
• Performance relapse.
• Inability of the initiative to produce any positive financial returns.
• Skepticism towards the desired behaviors and return of impractical employee behaviors.

Researchers have carried out scores of studies to isolate the drivers of lasting change.  Research published in MIT SMR in 2005 discusses how leadership can design and execute Transformation initiatives that bring lasting changes in the organization.  The study entailed in-depth analysis of the strategic Customer Service Enhancement (CSE) initiative undertaken by a large clothing retailer, having franchises in multiple geographic locations.

The researchers conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with leaders, in-store operations and support function managers.  Detailed notes of the interviews were shared amongst the researchers alongside an exhaustive literature review.  A case study of the initiative was prepared using independent research to have an unprejudiced viewpoint, free from any bias.  Feedback from the organization’s management was gathered and incorporated throughout the study to seek clarifications or corrections.  Data analysis was carried out employing a coding scheme developed using Atlas.ti tool.  Comparative analysis was conducted and similarities and differences in conclusions were discussed.

The study brought to light 4 key processes necessary for change to stick in an organization.   These key processes assist in laying the foundation for successful institutionalization of change initiatives by creating a company-wide culture that encourages enduring change:

1. Chartering
2. Learning
3. Mobilizing
4. Realigning

Let’s delve deeper into the first 2 processes.

Chartering

Chartering is a process through which an enterprise classifies the purpose, scope, and the way people interact with each other on a strategic initiative.  Clear delineation of project boundaries, resources, responsibilities, and reporting lines are the elements integral for the success of a change initiative.

The Chartering process entails 2 critical components:

• Boundary Setting
• Team Design

Boundary Setting involves the key steps a team takes for accurate definition of change initiative’s scope.

The project team should clearly outline the problem(s) that the project is, and isn’t, going to tackle.  Ideally, while designing and executing a change initiative, the focus of the engagement should be on confronting the most crucial problem area.  The leadership should ensure not to confuse the core team by eyeing too many priorities to deal with through the strategic initiative.

The Team Design element of Chartering involves ascertaining the roles, accountabilities, and guiding principles for team’s collaboration.  Team design entails creating ground rules for team members to interact, devising mechanisms to manage conflicts.  The leadership needs to not only maintain diversity of the project team’s expertise, but also ensure they complement each other, and inculcate a standardized approach to decision making in project teams.  There needs to be fostered a culture of positive discourse and testing ideas amongst the team members.  Incorporating these guidelines helps spark thinking, learning, and decision making.

Learning

Learning aids in anticipating and dealing with hurdles during implementation of Transformation initiatives.  Learning enables the managers to improve the quality of the new processes.  it is a process through which managers develop, test, and refine ideas before full-scale implementation.  The process entails 2 critical components:

• Discovery
• Experimentation

The discovery element involves gathering data to identify the objectives of the change initiative and outlining ways to achieve those objectives.  Before rolling out a complete implementation of a change initiative, testing and refining the individual elements of the initiative immensely assists in the success of the initiative.  Gathering adequate information relevant to the initiative, setting up baseline metrics to measure performance, and identifying issues hampering customer satisfactions are the key aspects of this phase.  The team should learn from the failures of prior initiatives, introduce change in a systemic fashion rather than piecemeal, and encourage people to change rationally as well as emotionally.

Interested in learning more about the other processes critical for change to stick?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on 4 Processes of Sustainable Change here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Did You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Top products are the creation of top designers and developers. Lean Product Development helps in developing expert designers and developers, who are excellent problem solvers and are adept at creating innovative solutions.  Developing Key Talent for Product Management accelerates Innovation and time to market while lowering costs.

Managers responsible for developing creative products and solutions need to take 5 key steps, in order to facilitate Learning and Development of Key Talent in the manufacturing sector:

1. Incorporate Technical Excellence into the Organization DNA
2. Create and Implement Design Standards
3. Hold Regular Technical Design Reviews
4. Evaluate Organization’s Product Development Process
5. Revisit Organizational Leadership Culture to Focus on Learning

Let’s dive deeper into the steps to effective Talent Management.

STEP-1 Incorporate Technical Excellence into the Organizational DNA

Technical mastery needs to be at the heart of everyday work practices and the guiding principle for manufacturing concerns.  Incentives, recognition, and rewards should be created based on technical competence, and it should be incorporated into routine business practices.  Likewise, training programs need to be geared towards enhancing the engineers’ technical capabilities.

For instance, technical competence is an integral element of training new engineers at Toyota.  One of the main requirements for qualifying for an engineering leadership position at the company is mentoring of young engineers.  Similarly, Ford Motor Co. has a technical maturity model in place for each department in the engineering function.  The giant automaker reinforces this when creating roles and responsibilities, conducting design reviews, and remunerating its engineers.  These measures help curb attrition and motivate people to stay longer.

STEP-2 Create and Implement Design Standards

The next step is to develop design standards and execute them.  Design standards should be set in place and implemented by using the existing organizational knowledge.  Design leaders should hold regular sessions with developers on a smart board and solicit their views on the layout of a certain system and training an apprentice in design principles.  These design guiding principles should be compiled into user-friendly handbooks for future design and development programs.  Lessons learnt from each project should be incorporated into the design standards with regular updates to the handbooks.

Toyota reserves 10-15 days out of the development project time period for the development team to ponder over the lessons learned from an ongoing project.  The development team incorporates these lessons into the design standards and updates the design manuals with these newer experiences.

STEP-3 Hold Regular Technical Design Reviews

The 3^rd step involves holding frequent technical design reviews to nurture people via action learning and collaboration. The product design and development units should organize weekly technical design assessments.  The assessments need to be conducted at the design and development facilities—factory premises, test lab, or prototype shop—instead of a conference room.  This helps in gaining practical knowledge and skills.  Regular assessments assist in developing design and engineering teams through on-the-job experiences and cross-unit cooperation.

Interested in learning more about the other steps to facilitate Learning and Development of Key Talent in the manufacturing sector?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on Lean Product Development: Talent Development here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Did You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Business and technology resources are lined up by employing Enterprise Architecture (EA) so as to realize strategic results, augment organizational performance, and direct departments to meet their key missions more effectually and achieve Operational Excellence.

Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) achieves these objectives for any U.S. federal agency and aids systems exceed interagency boundaries.

The FEAF comprises of 6 interconnected Reference Models, each relating to a sub-architectural domain of the framework.

Here, we deliberate on 1 of the 6 reference models of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework—the Application Reference Model (ARM).  ARM sets the foundation for categorizing software applications and their components.

Through the implementation of ARM, we can achieve a number of positive outcomes throughout the enterprise.  Mapping of existing and future information systems to ARM categorizations assists in detecting gaps and redundancies.  Gap detection helps identify occasions for sharing, reuse, and merging or renegotiation of licenses.  Gap information is used in conjunction with other models to identify opportunities. 

ARM has been based on guiding principles that emanate from Common Approach to Federal EA with further refinement based on the purpose and desired outcomes of the Application Reference Model.  The principles are:

• ARM should be based on the Separation of Concerns principle i.e., founded on an adaptive structure that permits addition of new methods of providing IT capabilities.
• Definition of ARM should be with reference to applications supplied within the Service Oriented Architecture enabling facilitation of shared services and interoperability.
• Definition of ARM should be in terms of a hierarchy of broadly paired IT application components.
• ARM ought to be standards based along several levels of abstraction to circumvent vendor lock-in, under permitting circumstances.
• Ascertained touch points should enable ARM to back the Business Reference Model (BRM) and the Data Reference Model (DRM). 

ARM contains 3 levels in its structure: Systems, Application Components, and Interfaces.  ARM is also strongly connected with the rest of the 5 reference models of the Consolidated Reference Model Framework.  More on that in the FEAF: Application Reference Model presentation. 

ARM uses 3 potential methodologies in combination with one another to assist in taking advantage of information and strategizing of applications and investments:

1. Capability Modeling and Analysis
2. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
3. Portfolio Management

These 3 methods help take advantage of the information in the ARM structure as well as the agency mapping of applications and investments to it, in addition to the other Reference Models.

Let us dive a little deeper into these methods.

Capability Modeling and Analysis

Capability Modeling and Analysis is a requirements analysis technique that converts business or mission as well as technical requirements into distinct competencies that assist in sharing and reuse analysis.

Instead of employing standard requirement or business process analysis techniques, breaking down requirements into detailed capabilities, and modeling the capability dependencies, leads to a clearer picture regarding commonality of requirements.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

For assembly of IT solutions, a collection of interacting services enables an architectural style—SOA—a layered diagram that depicts the services and their dependencies.  SOA offers extra application flexibility due to ease of modification and replacement of services. 

Portfolio Management

Portfolio management techniques are employed to gauge assets for feasibility of use in future and to mature a service lifecycle plan for each asset thus promoting reuse and sharing of services.

Interested in learning more about the Application Reference Model (ARM)?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on FEAF: Application Reference Model (ARM) here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Improving Product Development competencies in designers and developers is a concern for senior leaders in the Manufacturing sector.

The approach most organizations take in developing Human Resources does not go beyond staffing the cream of the crop from leading global educational institutes.  Talent Development to them is, typically, sending their people to attend workshops and keeping up with employee annual training hours’ goals, and that’s it.  Companies usually spend more on acquiring latest manufacturing equipment or modern collaboration tools than they do to develop their greatest asset—their people.

Research on manufacturing practices unequivocally suggests that it’s primarily the inspiration to adopt a culture of Continuous Improvement in people that results in operational excellence.  This Continuous Improvement Culture has more significance than implementing Lean practices across all processes.

The “Lean Product Development” concept isn’t a new notion.  The practice has been around since the 1980s.  An MIT study in the 1980s revealed that manufacturing practices in Japanese automakers were totally opposed to those of auto manufacturers in the rest of the world.  These approaches were referred to as “Lean” practices.  Research into manufacturing practices of Toyota has spread the knowledge about Lean Product Development globally.

Lean concept is strikingly opposing to the philosophy that emphasizes on delegating the responsibility of developing the designers’ / developers’ capabilities to the Human Resources Department.  In order to develop and deliver superior products, Lean Product Development focuses on enabling the developers build “personal dexterity” as the key element of success.  The concept necessitates technical training and collaboration between developers.

Before embarking on the Lean Product Development and Innovation journey, organizational leadership should work on finding answers to these 3 fundamental questions:

1. In order to design better products, which critical insights do we need to develop regarding customers, products, and processes?
2. Which mediums, organizational knowledge, and tools are required to develop these insights?
3. Which organizational structures and ways of doing businesses are ideally suited to develop these valuable insights and improving the expertise of developers?

Pondering over these critical questions and answering them facilitates in creating a pool of skilled Product Designers and developers.

Let’s dive deeper into these questions.

Question 1

Lean Product Development emphasizes on developing a steady stream of products at an even pace—referred to as “Takt.”   iPhone 1 and iPhone 2 are examples of a steady stream of products released at regular intervals in Apple’s iPhone value stream.

Takt has evolved the way products are designed.  An initial product is developed as a means to validate an idea.  Products are progressed from the initial product based on stakeholders’ feedback.  The purpose of a value stream of products is to improve the current product offerings, inspire the existing customers to upgrade, and tempt potential customers to try the product.  In these evolving value streams, every product release serves as an opportunity to gain insights into the market.

The value enhancement through Takt has 2 broad objectives:

• Fixing problems in existing products and creating offerings meeting the customer needs.
• Lowering manufacturing costs and improving quality.

Question 2 

Lean Product Development underscores the significance of the medium through which developers should learn in order to create superior products.  Developers’ capabilities in technical Problem Solving and learning what the others are doing helps enhance the quality of each new release.  Development teams should have quick access to accumulating a thorough knowledge of the entire supply chain and the effect of their decisions on manufacturing.  This assists in improving the efficiency of the developers.

Instead of learning and gaining knowledge through traditional ways, Lean Product Development encourages the developers to learn through Action Learning—the process where teams are continuously mentored and encouraged to learn collectively on the job, solve problems creatively, and test models to cope with real-life issues.

Interested in learning more about the key elements to consider before enabling Lean Product Development & Innovation, and the phases of the Lean process?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on Lean Product Development & Innovation here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Did You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Enterprise Architecture (EA) conveys management best practices for positioning business and technology resources to fulfil strategic goals, enhance Organizational Performance, and guide departments to achieve their core missions more successfully via Operational Excellence.

The Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) realizes this goal for U.S. Federal agencies and assists systems surpass interagency boundaries.  FEAF facilitates through documentation and information, and conveys a summarized outlook of an enterprise at various tiers of scope and detail.

The FEAF comprises of 6 interconnected Reference Models, linked through Consolidated Reference Model (CRM), each relating to a sub-architectural domain of the FEA framework.

Data Reference Model (DRM) is a FEA tool for ascertaining the data that the Federal government has and the process through which that data will be shared when business/mission requirements occur.

DRM is propounded as a theoretical framework from which actual implementations may be derived.

DRM offers a uniform way to describe, categorize, manage, share, and reuse data/information within and across the Federal government.  DRM also enables detection and communication of core information across organizational boundaries.

What DRM is not is static and invariable nor is it a data management manual for how to build and maintain data architectures.  It is neither a pan-government conceptual data model nor an all-embracing / fully attributed logical data model.  DRM is not supposed to be a comprehensive collection of XML schemas or a substitute of prevailing data structures within the agencies.

DRM works in consonance with other reference models in various ways.  For example, it identifies opportunities for strategic coordination through relationships among data sources by linking with Performance Reference Model (PRM) while improving business processes and decision-making performance through data sharing with Business Reference Model (BRM).

Data Reference Model arrangement is demarcated by a 3 layered hierarchy.  The 3-layer arrangement of the Data Reference Model delineates domains, subjects, and topics.

• Domains – Uppermost level of the hierarchy comprises of 4 Domains.
• Subjects – Central level of the hierarchy covers 22 Subject elements.
• Topics – Lowermost level of the hierarchy consists of 144 Topic elements.

DRM refers to data and information required to execute Federal business and mission functions.  In order to assist agencies in consistently categorizing, describing, and exchanging their data, there are 3 fundamental method areas associated with the DRM:

1. Data Description
2. Data Context
3. Data Sharing

Let us delve a little deeper into the DRM methods.

Data Description

Data Description offers an approach to consistently arrange, portray, and share data.  Customarily, Data Description was exclusively concentrated on arranging and describing structured data.  To tackle the challenge of unstructured data, DRM Data Description section was revised to focus on Metadata.

Metadata is broadly classified into 2 types, business or technical.

Data Context

Data Context is any information that gives added sense to data and a perception of the reason for which it was created.  Data Context permits Data Governance and forms the basis for exhaustive Data Description.  Data categorization methods such as Data Asset Catalog and Information Discovery and Search portray common data architecture artifacts.

Data Sharing

Data Sharing concentrates on architectural patterns for sharing and exchanging data.  Data Sharing assists in retrieving and swapping of data, where access involves supplementary requests and exchange involves permanent, repeating transactions between interest groups.

Interested in learning more about the Data Reference Model?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on FEAF: Data Reference Model (DRM) here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd

Although organizations invest heavily in Learning and Talent Development, most CEOs when interviewed complain about the shortage of learned managers, leaders, and skilled workforce.

The capabilities of knowledge workers, not technology or capital, is often a key constraint for organizational growth.  Research reveals that a number of managers consider employee performance to remain the same even if their organization’s learning function is totally abolished.  Studies further indicate:

• Ineffectiveness of Corporate Learning.
• Wrong investments in Learning and Development.
• Lack of linkage of learning with strategic goals.
• Focus on learning but not on employees’ development.

Investments and efforts on learning are concentrated towards wrong things.  Abundance of online courses and mobile knowledge apps are triggering organizations to revisit their Corporate Learning Strategies.  Utilization of innovative learning techniques—and modes—for leadership development has become the top agenda for senior learning leaders.

Learning and Development is important for organizations as:

• Employee engagement and leadership sets the right impetus for the organization.
• Competencies of knowledge workers makes the difference in achieving organizational growth.
• It delivers value, critical to survive—and outperform—competition.
• Effective learning experiences engage the emotional and cognitive centers of human brains, making employees appreciative of their organizational learning efforts.

Leadership, today, is more aware of the significance of Corporate Learning in Organizational Development and profitability.  Leaders are now proactively striving to align their Corporate Learning objectives with demands of knowledge workers and strategic organizational goals.

The following learning practices represent 4 key phases of the process for defining and executing a research-substantiated Corporate Learning Strategy:

1. Formulate the CEO Agenda
2. Align Learning & Development (L&D) Resources
3. Gain Buy-in from Key Stakeholders
4. Activate the Learning Agenda

These learning practices have been grounded on senior leadership interviews and surveys on company strategy and decision-making rationale to develop corporate learning initiatives.

Let’s dive deeper into these 4 phases of Corporate Learning Strategy.

Formulate the CEO Agenda

Corporate Learning Strategy is much more than top management attending training events.  It warrants making the corporate learning agenda an extension of the CEO agenda.  Learning programs typically entail doing a Training Needs Assessment by interviewing mid-level management, who aren’t part of the organization’s strategic management, which makes the assessment flawed.  Outsourcing the training function further compounds the problem.

The first phase of the Corporate Learning Strategy warrants gathering data from company reports, websites, and leadership interviews to enable documentation of senior leadership’s pain points, key issues, and strategic priorities.  Mapping the CEO Agenda—uncovering the leadership priorities—should be the foremost element of aligning learning with strategy.

The step necessitates extensive meetings to identify leadership needs and attributes essential for future leaders and incorporating feedback of business leaders to develop new corporate learning initiatives.  Chief Learning Officer reporting directly to the CEO facilitates the process.

Align Learning & Development (L&D) Resources

The matter as important as creation of a learning inventory is typically skipped at companies.  The executives, there, find it difficult to track expenditure on learning programs carried out by scores of external consultants.  Preparation of a repository of current Learning and Development resources has to be done regularly to make sure that the learning portfolio aligns with the organizational learning strategy.

Business units should align priorities and investment with top-level strategy.  L&D leadership has to ensure that their interventions are tailored to the needs of the business.  There should be regular reviews and calculated reorganization of the development infrastructure and processes (e.g., promotion and succession planning).  The approach should focus towards strengthening the on-the-job learning experience, busting silos, and developing collaboration.

Gain Stakeholders Buy-in

Reorganization of Corporate Learning initiatives necessitates gathering input and support from all levels of the organization.

Interested in learning more about the other phases of Corporate Learning Strategy?  You can download an editable PowerPoint on Corporate Learning Strategy here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

Do You Find Value in This Framework?

You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library.  FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.  Here’s what some have to say:

“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market.  They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions.  I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.

– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects

“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power.  For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”

– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting

“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients.  In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over!  The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”

– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd