Defining Strategic Initiatives? Here’s 5 Tips to Keep in Mind
After finally finishing your strategy on a page and identifying the initiatives that will see you achieve your ambition, you might feel a surge of excitement and readiness to dive in. But before you take the leap, it’s crucial to properly define your initiatives to ensure they’re truly effective.
Think of it like a home renovation project: your ambition could be something like: complete a residential renovation project in 6 months to increase the value of the property by $200K. Your focus areas could include modernizing the kitchen and redesigning the bathrooms. You layer in initiative titles for each focus area, like “upgrade appliances” (as part of modernizing the kitchen) that you are certain will contribute to your ambition, and pass that information on to a contractor to bring your ambition to life.
But what does “upgrade appliances” mean? What criteria determines good vs. bad upgrades? Which appliances are we including here? Who is supposed to be involved? This and other information is defined in your initiative charters.
In a renovation, you wouldn’t start construction without clearly conveying your plans to contractors. Initiative charters are one-page summaries which allow you to define and convey this crucial initiative information, and include the problem statement, what is in scope vs. out of scope, specific deliverables, expected impact, team members, risks, and the initiative timeline.
What makes a good Initiative?
1. Alignment with strategic ambition. Every initiative should support the organization’s long-term objectives and fit within the overall strategy. Stukent founder Stuart Draper explains: “Good strategy gives guidance to your team. Whatever each department is working on, they better be able to say that they are doing work that fulfills one of the key initiatives.”
2. Strong problem statement. A good initiative starts with a strong problem statement; a concise question or statement that makes it clear why this particular initiative is so important. For instance, Our kitchen appliances are outdated and unreliable; how can we update them to modernize the kitchen and drive increased home value? The problem statement is a reminder of what question needs to be answered to ensure the initiative brings you closer to achieving your ambition.
3. Scope clarity. Being clear on what you are going to be doing (and equally as important, what you are not going to work on) helps to keep teams focused and avoids wasted time and resources on things that don’t matter. In our example, you may consider the oven, fridge, and dishwasher in scope, but not the washing machine since that was purchased only six months ago.
4. Expectations of impact. You should have a good idea of the impact you expect an initiative to deliver. For example, upgrading kitchen appliances isn’t just about installing a new oven; it could be about increasing the functionality and aesthetics of the space to make the kitchen more desirable by a potential buyer. In some cases you may be able to quantify the impact, such as adding $10K to the home value.
5. Acknowledgement of Risks. All initiatives come with risk – those risks need to be acknowledged and considered. You may want to develop specific mitigation plans for significant risks (and hope you never need to use them), and you may want to completely avoid initiatives where the risks are largest, but in most cases, simply acknowledging risks and sharing that information with others can help shape your approach and keep people alert to anything that may knock your initiative off course.
stratsuma helps you define the detail of your initiatives in charters, giving your team a fighting chance to bring your strategic ambition to life.