Strategy Mapping

This installment of StraightTalk explores how business architecture can be leveraged to translate strategy into initiatives, including the how-to and the benefits.

This installment of StraightTalk is the first in a series that focuses on how business architecture can be used to catalyze, embed and enforce key sustainability, legal and ethical considerations into an organization’s DNA. Using business architecture in this way truly unlocks its value and power. First up in our series: how business architecture can enable organizational sustainability, so here goes.

This marks the 50th installment of StraightTalk, and we’re returning to our roots. Waaay back in Post No. 3, we introduced a new vision for strategy execution and explored how business architecture could help to enable it. We called it the Strategy Execution Metanoia, because a metanoia is a transformational moment – when you see the world in a different way and can’t go back.

This post will focus on how to deal with strategy challenges. While there are many common challenges in this space, since we are StraighTalkin’ here, we’ll just lay out some of biggies and then get right to the point on how to deal.

Back to business architecture school one more time. In our last installment, we talked about how to map out (a.k.a write down) the “core” business architecture that included capabilities, value streams, organization and information. Here in this installment, we’re going to talk about mapping the “extended” business architecture domains.

“Houston, we have a problem.” “Uh, this is Houston. Uh, say again please.” We have a strategy execution problem. Remember that whole deal in Post No. 2 about how constant change is the new normal as customer expectations increase and the external environment evolves at an escalating pace? That means the ability for organizations to get their ideas—things like strategies, transformations, innovations and regulatory changes—into action has never been more important than it is right now.