Turning strategy into action
Turning strategy into action requires more than a slide deck and good intentions. We believe it is essential to translate strategic vision into capabilities that organisations can actually build and effectively utilise over time.
An actionable strategy must include defining the required roles, establishing the operating structures and aligning processes with outcomes. This is exactly where many organizations struggle. They know what they want to achieve but they lack a clear definition of how people, ways of working and technology must change in order to support it.
Strategy only becomes real when it is translated to day-to-day behaviours, responsibilities, and systems. Let’s explore how to do that.
What we must be capable of doing
Our first step would be to express strategy in terms of business capabilities. These are repeatable functions the organisation must be able to perform in order to achieve its strategic objectives. Taking a relevant (to us) example, wanting to “scale our consulting business” is a strategic intent: turning it into action requires defining, building and maturing capabilities, such as lead generation, client onboarding, change management and excellent delivery capabilities.
Each defined business capability should have an acting owner, clearly defined processes and easy to measure and understand success metrics. One pitfall we regularly see organizations running into is assigning an owner, giving them a budget and asking them to start building such a capability without a plan or way to measure what success looks like.
By ensuring the aforementioned key elements exist, and are frequently monitored and iterated on, the strategy shifts from an ambition to something concrete and actionable.
Ensuring that Technology enables these capabilities
Now that we’ve established business capabilities, the next step means that corresponding technology functions and tools are shaped to support those business capabilities. This is where capabilities such as enterprise architecture, software engineering, data management and automation come into play. It is also the moment to determine which tools are fit for purpose, such as collaboration tools, flow/process management platforms and other relevant systems.
That being said, it is not enough to simply implement tools. These systems must reinforce the desired behaviors as determined by the strategy. For example, if the objective is to improve delivery consistency across projects at Delta Squared, then tools that support standardized templates, automated reporting, and shared documentation repositories become essential. In that way, we take another step closer to aligning strategy with its corresponding business and technological capabilities.
It’s important to remember that technology is not the strategy itself. It is the enabler that reduces friction, improves visibility, and allows teams to operate at scale.
Who will do what, and how
Capabilities and technology are set, but are nothing without Process and people alignment. This is the bridge that holds this all together, but it also invokes another very common pitfall that has to be avoided. When it comes to large scale transformation, organizations must first determine the appropriate roles that correspond to the aforementioned capabilities. Once that’s done, figuring out how to upskill existing employees or hire people required for the first steps of the process must start immediately. Starting change without making sure the right people are in place significantly increases the risk of failure, delays and frustration. Moreover, it is imperative that everyone’s role is clearly defined and understood by everyone involved. This goes well beyond just defining tasks, it must include decision rights and accountability for key processes.
Processes should be simple, documented, and repeatable, especially for functions that are performed frequently (e.g. project intake, estimation, or client reporting). This is where maturity models become essential. By evaluating one’s maturity in a specific area, one can quickly identify what is missing and prioritize improvements in areas that matter the most and have the biggest gaps, without overwhelming the organization and creating change fatigue.
Making it stick
Let’s bring it all together. Leaders must continuously communicate not only what the strategy is, but why it matters and how success will be measured. Regular retrospectives, dashboards tied to value metrics, and iterative improvements ensure that momentum is kept and doesn’t fizzle out. People act as they’re measured, making frequent and data-driven evaluation of KPIs per capability and strategic domain an invaluabble tool in steering the organization.
Last but not least, it is only when strategy gets meaningfully reflected in every aspect of our the way of working such as the hiring process, budget allocation and daily routines that it truly becomes part of the organization’s DNA as opposed to a one-time deliverable.
In this way, strategy turns into capability, capability turns into action, and action fuels sustainable growth.