{"id":6910,"date":"2020-03-30T11:42:01","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T10:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ee.yelkdev.site\/?p=6910"},"modified":"2023-09-22T16:00:39","modified_gmt":"2023-09-22T15:00:39","slug":"continuous-evolution-part-1-an-agile-strategy-for-an-unpredictable-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/our-thinking\/continuous-evolution-part-1-an-agile-strategy-for-an-unpredictable-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Continuous Evolution, Part 1: An agile strategy for an unpredictable world"},"content":{"rendered":"

To evolve is to survive, and to plan is to succeed, but all too often, plans are static whilst the world is ever changing. In this four part series, we propose a tried and tested approach that introduces quarterly agility into your organisation without losing sight of your long term goals.<\/p>\n

Iceberg! Right ahead!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cNo plan survives contact with the enemy.\u201d – Helmuth von Moltke the Elder<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Here at the Equal Experts Strategic Advisory Practice, we recognise that stability is an illusion, and steady state is a temporary luxury. Any attempts to create and stick to long term plans are inevitably doomed as they fail to adapt to the world around them, or take account of the discoveries made once the journey has begun.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t have long term goals; quite the opposite, but to assume you can decide today all the actions necessary to get there is folly. It is no more realistic than standing in Liverpool, pointing a ship at New York, setting its course, and hoping it will arrive at its destination unharmed with no intervention from the captain. Decisions have to be made, events adapted to, and courses changed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, you might think of strategy as being a sailing boat in high winds, crewed by a group of people with different but complementary skills, who have the autonomy to make adjustments quickly, in coordination with others, according to the conditions.<\/span><\/p>\n

After all, sometimes there are icebergs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seasons come, seasons go<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cIn the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.\u201d – Albert Camus<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Of course, we acknowledge that businesses need a plan, but the duration of such plans is shorter than you might think. Consider those 2020 vision documents produced by most organisations, some as long ago as 2015. We have seen very few of those plans that made it past the first year without becoming irrelevant, and not surprisingly, none included the impacts of a global pandemic followed by a recession.<\/span><\/p>\n

In our experience, the most effective cadence for planning is quarterly. It fits well with company funding cycles, and is short enough to allow course corrections within the financial year. It also fits well with a more fundamental cycle that affects human motivation in a way that few people recognise. There are, of course, the recognised impacts of season – the January blues, flu season, holiday seasons and so on – but there is something more fundamental.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We humans work in seasons, measuring the end of one and the start of another. Traditionally, we had to align tasks to these seasons to ensure our crops were properly planted, tended and harvested, and our hunting behaviours adapted to the migratory patterns of animals.\u00a0 Even now, in our sanitised world, we see the seasons as natural start and end points, and yet at work our projects often continue on unbroken throughout the year. As the weeks turn into months, and the end seems far away, it can be hard for us to remain motivated, and productivity starts to fall. People lose focus.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have found that moving to a quarterly cadence, where outcomes are achieved and teams move on to the next challenge every three months, can avoid this slump. A clear break every three months give teams a fresh boost and renewed focus. This doesn\u2019t mean you have to abandon what you\u2019re doing; just create a clear \u201ccake and candles\u201d moment to celebrate success. Then you can reset direction and go again based on what you\u2019ve learned and what has changed in your business landscape.<\/span><\/p>\n

Switching to a quarterly cadence means you are discovering all the time and are giving yourself the space to continuously adapt your plans. That\u2019s why we follow an approach we call Continuous Evolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ninety days to done<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cLearning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.\u201d – Abigail Adams<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Breaking out of a tightly planned and predictable way of working can be very challenging. Our Continuous Evolution framework helps guide an organisation through the unknown, no matter what factors are driving the need to change, or the kind of transformation required. The aim is to build an agile and iterative strategy, in pursuit of the surest and quickest path to business value. Making well-planned interventions and measuring their impact is the key to creating the right mindset and high performance culture capable of rapidly delivering sustainable change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Working in 90 day cycles, this three stage framework exists to:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Shape – Establish the goals & objectives of the organisation, as well as the best ways to measure progress towards them (Objectives & Key Results)<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Plan – Visualise how time-bound activities are aligned to the strategic priorities of the organisation, indicating clusters and gaps (Roadmap Radar)<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Execute – Gather, prioritise and place \u2018bets\u2019 that are designed to realise business value through experimentation, maximising returns whilst minimising the exposure to risk (Bet Canvas)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    At the end of each 90 day cycle, leadership should reflect on the progress achieved, and lessons learned.\u00a0 That allows the organisation to revise to their OKRs and Roadmap Radar as required, before deciding (a) which bets to evolve or stop; and (b) which new bets should be placed during the next cycle.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Stage 1: Shaping the vision<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    \u201cThe only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/i> – Franklin D. Roosevelt<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

    There\u2019s a lot more to strategy than simply feeling your way through experimentation, and we have discussed this in previous blog posts. However, there\u2019s also a lot more to strategy than thinking and talking – effective strategy arises from situational awareness and insight, and these can best be discovered through hands-on experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Not great fans of reinventing the wheel, we use OKRs (objective and key results) as the first step in the Continuous Delivery framework. However, we did strip that particular wheel back to its basics so that it could be easier for organisations to adopt and adapt it to their own needs. We find that OKRs provide a<\/span> flexible, collaborative method that ensures activities are aligned to the strategy, across the organisation, whilst optimising the time spent on this activity.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The advantages of the OKR method are:\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n