Using OKRs (or your other preferred strategy execution framework) is a powerful way of achieving progress in your organisation. The clarity and accountability they provide you and your team generates a beautiful velocity (speed and direction). Use OKRs in your personal life for the same reasons So why not use OKRs in your personal life? …
Author Archives: David White
If you’re not already using OKRs, start asap
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and other strategy execution tools* are excellent mechanisms for getting traction in business and really getting results. Why are they effective? Because they require you to decide specifically what is important to achieve in the next month/quarter/year. And so they help you know what to focus on (feel free to …
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Is your proposal really viable?
We use the lenses of Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility (DVF) to make our strategy, operating model, service design good – even exciting! It needs to be all three of these things or it won’t work. Traditionally viability has been all about the finance: will we make enough money out of this thing, or can we …
How to automate strategy execution
A strategy is a set of good ideas but is essentially useless and wasted if it isn’t executed well. The process of Business Design changes the shape of your organisation so that execution happens as a function of time. Just like if you adjust your environment to make junk food and soda hard to get, …
The possibility of doing something amazing exists
It’s the start of 2023 and I’m feeling inspired.. 🙂 As enterprise architects, business architects, strategy and transformation leaders, each time we design a change, we have an opportunity to do something amazing. It might seem that the norms, expectations, and constraints of the organisation, government, and industry say otherwise. But the *possibility* of doing …
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The work environment is like a garden
The success of your organisation is dependent on the performance of your people. There is no success or organisation without the people. The performance of your people is dependent on the environment you ongoingly create for them. And the work environment is like a garden. You have to plan it,tend it, nudge and fertilise, remove encumbrances, be patient …
How the work happens is as important as What work happens.
How you interact with your team is as important as what you’re asking from them. In the same way that how you drive your car is as important as the drive itself. If I want to drive from Marseille to Paris—a trip of 770 km—there’s more to it than simply driving for 8 hours. I need …
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The problem with accountability
I have been a disciple of accountability for years, believing it is the answer to higher performance. But lately I’ve been paying more attention to that not-so-good feeling I get when I think about or ‘do’ accountability.
We tend to back away from applying accountability because Accountability = potential for getting into trouble, and neuro-psychologically, we are both in threat/defensive mode and therefore unable to a state of higher performance.
Are there other non-threatening models we can use instead of accountability?
Change management is not a mystical art
Change Management done well is not some vague mystical art. It doesn’t depend on the hypnotic influence of a Jedi knight change manager to sway a crowd. It doesn’t depend on the martial power of an authoritarian leader to force people’s compliance. Sure – if you have a Jedi knight or a dictator, you’ll get the …