The budgeting season is upon us— a time when the vision of the organization is translated into operational plans and programs. As top leadership considers how best to gain competitive advantage, build shareholder value, and win the hearts and minds of customers, new strategies are defined. There’s no doubt that strategy development is critical, but what is strategy really except a series of programs and projects that must be implemented? Implementation success requires a predictable set of activities that must be accounted for from a budgeting perspective. Organizations can either fully budget for these activities now, or pay the price later.
Investing in the Human Aspects of Strategy Implementation
It’s common for organizations to focus on the budgets for the technology and business aspects of strategic implementation. Less emphasis is put on the resource requirements and deliverables for the human elements of the implementation. This includes activities that are often overlooked, including building change agent capacity, readiness for the change, securing full sponsorship, developing a reinforcement strategy, and building a communication plan.
Unfortunately, this can leave a project team woefully short of the budget needed in terms of the size of the project team, the number of change agents across the affected areas, and the time allocated to complete the project—meaning the budget is developed based on the premise that the project will be complete at the point of “go live”, rather than at the point that Return on Investment is achieved. This creates a major barrier to success right from the start, because the budgeted goal and the true goal are not the same.
Three Ways to Improve the Odds for Implementation Success
As strategy development becomes translated into operational budgets and plans, here are three actions that you can take to improve the odds for implementation success:
- Budget for Implementation Capability Development
If the organization is investing in a new strategy, it’s common sense to make certain that the players have the knowledge and skills needed to implement the strategy.
For example, this means ensuring that Sponsors must understand the behaviors they will need to express, model, and reinforce. It means that Change Agents will need to have an understanding of the principles and tactics for building commitment (or compliance) to the strategy. It means the project team must have the skills and knowledge to effectively contract with Sponsors. IMA’s Action Learning Programs provide the knowledge and skills needed by individuals in these key roles.
- Budget for Sufficient Resources for the Project Team and Change Agents
If the organization is investing in large-scale, complex transformation initiatives, make certain that there are sufficient resources committed to the implementation success of that initiative. Implementation is a ferocious, resource-consuming activity. Teams consisting of large numbers of “partial resources” are inefficient. At the same time, the project team is limited in what it can accomplish without a strong network of Change Agents who are strategically located across the enterprise. No amount of technology or business process design can substitute for the “human side” of the strategy implementation.
- Build a Timeline that Reflects the Implementation Activities and Deliverables Required for Success
As the budget is built, consider that the project team infrastructure will need to remain in place until the goal of full implementation is achieved. By our definition, implementation is on time, on budget, all business, technical and human objectives met. If you stop short and disband the project infrastructure at the point of “Go Live”, you are risking achieving the full Return on Investment on the strategy implementation.
By budgeting with the goal of Return on Investment in mind, your organization is far more likely to achieve the desired results.
