1. Scenario:
A FTSE 30 global engineering company wanted to look afresh at the way that it approached technology. It was operating in a space where the breadth of technologies that it needed to access and their pace of change were both increasing rapidly. In addition, the overall market environment was also changing drastically driven by major changes in customers’ procurement approaches.
The challenge was to develop and implement a fresh technology strategy for the board.
2. Describing the environment (The Why):
It became evident early on in the work that to deliver the desired outcome it would be necessary to challenge some ingrained bias’. To do this it would be necessary to create an evidence based ‘rich picture’ of the environment (past, present, and future). We created a simple yet factual set of rich pictures that brought together a wide number of evidence sets which explained the compelling need for change.
3. Developing a new approach (The What):
In parallel with the ‘rich picture’ we developed a small number of fundamentals that would have to change in order for the desired outcomes to be achieved. Each of the fundamentals was described on 1-2 slides in order to create a simple, easily understood, yet powerful set of strategic directions.
4. Creating a desire for change (The How):
Based on the strategic directions, we developed a route map based on three recommendations, each with three actions and measures. These were used to articulate the tangible steps that the organisation would take in order to start the journey along the strategic directions.
5. Outcomes:
– The approach created a simple yet powerful ‘rich picture’ that allowed us to take a wide variety of stakeholders at all levels in the organisation on an evidence based journey.
– The strategy articulated a revised balance of internally and externally developed technologies moving the organisation from a traditionally closed innovation approach to a more open innovation approach.
– The key stakeholders agreed a multi-year programme of action to implement the strategy which was embedded through the organisation’s annual planning cycle.
