the road to alignment: take the path forward to strategic alignment 

The Road To Alignment

Take the Path Forward

to Strategic

Alignment

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Today’s Presenters

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Kristyn Medeiros, PMP, ITIL, Certified Scrum Master, Six Sigma • Sr. Solutions Consultant, Innotas • Project Management for Johnson &

Johnson, Sandia National Labs, Others

Mark Mullaly, PhD, PMP • President & Chief Organizational Therapist,

Interthink Consulting Incorporated

• SME Strategy Development & Execution

Prioritization Is Theoretically Simple…

Identify

Projects

Rank

Results

Define

Criteria

Score

Opportunities

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…And Practically Complex

clarity agreement commitment

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Critical Challenge Of Making Choices

• Any Planning Process Will Identify More Opportunities Than Capacity Exists To Manage – Finances

– People

– Capacity to change

• Making Choices Is About Operationalizing Strategy – Being clear about desired outcomes

– Thoroughly testing commitment to core principles

– Assessing intention to realize desired future state

– Defining what will not be done in favour of what will

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Principles Of Prioritization Criteria

• Well Designed Prioritization Criteria Should:

– Emphasize what is most important for the future of the organization

– Reinforce what most needs to change

– Identify those attributes that are most important for work being considered

– Provide sufficient guidance and detail to choose what to do and what not to do

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Why Prioritization Sometimes Fails

• Ineffective criteria – Inappropriate level of detail – Focus of criteria is on the wrong priorities – Lack of clarity on what the criteria mean – Lack of relevance of the criteria to what is important

• Politics – Political imperatives not aligned with vision/desired future state

• Agendas – Individual priorities are different from organizational ones

• Expectations – There are too many expectations defined – There is an unwillingness to make hard choices about what won’t get done

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Establishing Prioritization Criteria

• Prioritization Criteria: – The key factors that influence the relative value of a project – The attributes a project must demonstrate currently

• Developed Based On Current Strategies – As strategies change, criteria need to also change – Requires business agility

• Different Categories Will Require Different Criteria

– You cannot prioritize all projects using the same criteria

• Not All Criteria May Have Equal Influence

– Weighting determine overall impact of factor – Multiplier of score for each project

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Evaluating Priorities

• Objective Evaluation – Ranking based upon prioritization criteria/scorecard – Separate ranking for each category of projects – Identification of priorities within funding thresholds

• Subjective Evaluation – Follow-up validation of scorecard results

• Group review to confirm understanding/agreement

– Confirm interdependencies/enabling projects are captured – Means of focusing discussions

• Recognize political imperatives • Identify and resolve differences of opinion

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Evaluating Priorities - Objective

• Each Opportunity Is Categorized

• Each Opportunity Is Ranked By Each Team Member

• Individual Scores Are Summarized

• Review Of Summary Results – Minimum – Maximum – Average – Standard Deviation

• Key Variances Are Discussed – Establish consensus scoring

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Evaluating Priorities - Subjective

• Recognition Of Delivery Challenges – Capacity to deliver – Focus of effort – Impact on the organization

• Recognition Of Political Priorities – Initiatives that may be politically a priority – Even if not objectively a priority based upon criteria

• Recognition Of Necessary Investment – Consideration of risk of prolonged neglect/lack of focus in

some areas

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Seeking Alternatives

• How Could You Do The Project Differently? – Pushing the boundaries of the organization – Pushing the boundaries of the solution

• We Tend To Define Opportunities In The Extremes – Do nothing – Do everything

• What Could We Do If We Had To?

• How Would We Do It? 12

The Challenges Of Moving Forward

• Ensuring Alignment Of Projects & Strategy Is Critical – It is also hard work

• Critical Requirements Include: – Commitment to adhere to a process

– An understanding of capacity (financial and people)

– Mechanisms to track and manage through the process • Identifying opportunities

• Managing prioritization

• Assessment of capacity

• Determination of commitments

– Robust way of managing changes and testing alternatives

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Cloud Portfolio Management For Visibility & Alignment

Project Portfolio Management (PPM)

Application Portfolio Management (APM)

Agile Portfolio Management

Resource Management

Predictive Portfolio Analysis

Innotas Overview

“Leader” in Cloud PPM –

Three Years Running

“Leader” “Winner” in Project

Management Software “Top 10” - Three

Years Running

400+ Customers – Healthcare, Education, Technology, Retail, Government, and Financial Services

Contact Us

Innotas

• Phone: +1 866-692-7362

• For questions or a Demo, send an email to: info@innotas.com

• Twitter: @innotas

Mark Mullaly

• Phone: +1 416-971-3335

• mark.mullaly@interthink.ca

• Twitter: @markmullaly

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