Can the Title/Function of the Owner of Strategy Management Affect the Outcome? Transcript

Ross Martin:

Absolutely. So thanks a lot. Uh, welcome to, uh, future of work 2.0. For our next topic, the question is, can the title or function of the person as the owner of the strategy management function affect the outcome? Idris, would you like to take first swing at that one?

Idris Manley:

Sure. Sure. No, absolutely. You know, I think it definitely can make a difference. You know, over the course of my career, I've seen oftentimes COOs take the mantle of leading strategy management, strategy planning sort of sessions. I've seen presidents and CEOs as well take that responsibility. I've also seen it being co-managed with, you know, PMO leaders helping support or some third party helping to support perhaps a facilitation while the other executive was responsible more for the actual sort of discussions and objectives that they were trying to accomplish. And so I've seen it done in various ways, but I think what works best is tends to be someone who has oversight and responsibility for not just the planning, but the execution itself as well. And I think where it fails is when that person that's involved in the planning doesn't have oversight or some level of responsibility for execution, then it's just a handoff.

Ross Martin:

Well, and that's actually what I've experienced is it is a handoff. So in a global media company that I worked at, we had a strategy, you know, senior SVP, EVP, actually. And so this whole function was responsible for figuring out the strategy. And they drove the strategy planning function where we would get together for a three year refresh of our strategy led by a VP within the strategy management function. And that person would make sure that everyone followed the right template and were presented with market data and other things to help them along the way and manage the process. But it was around strategy planning. Once the strategy was delivered, the next step was to take the first year of that strategy and create the next year's annual budget. And then all the different groups executed upon it.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. You know, I think also, you know, it's really important to understand those roles to really begin to surface what are the strengths of the leader that's responsible for that. You know, some leaders may be really good visionaries or strategists, but they're not really good at facilitation, you know, or perhaps they don't have the capacity while they're great strategists. And so I think it's really important to understand what are those sort of critical characteristics that you need in the person that is going to take overall responsibility for your strategic management activities and to make sure that if that person does not have all of those sort of skill sets, that at least you find a team of people that can work together and collaborate to be able to bring all of that to the table.

Ross Martin:

And I found that the key quality that was looked for in people in the strategy management function a lot of times were that they had a lot of experience with strategy. Which makes sense, but whether you got somebody who knew how to facilitate and work across groups and help the process along and all that kind of stuff was just really more of a side bonus if that person had it. What I never saw was the execution leadership, which in many cases might have been like an enterprise PMO or something like that, really brought in early on into the planning process, or even managing the planning process, so that once the planning was done, there was a really smooth handoff to not just the business leaders to manage their own execution, but to also the execution arm of the company.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, no, I've seen similar. Certainly one of the biggest challenges is when an executive team believes that certain functions or certain leadership groups aren't necessarily required as part of that initial planning. And so then, you know, they plan and then they hand off the sort of the annual plan. sort of objectives and commitments that have been made on their behalf and they're being asked to fulfill it, particularly like around sales and marketing and some other departments. And that's created a lot of conflict, a lot of challenges. And so I think it is important that the leader that's responsible understands the importance of bringing in the right people that can buy in and contribute to those plans so that at the time of handoff, there's already alignment, there's already agreement, and it'll help the execution become much more effective.

Ross Martin:

At my most recent company, we had a situation where there was a lot of time spent thinking about the strategy and changing the strategy for, you know, and then rolling it out and letting everyone know the strategy at a high level, which is great. But early on, even after the rollout, there was a thought of, Hmm, we're going to need some people to help drive this and actually make the strategy happen. And not just leave it to each individual VP of different parts of the business to do their part without any coordination. But it was still a bit of an afterthought.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. I think that historically, for example, PMO leaders have have are oftentimes not invited to the party. Right. Yeah. Oftentimes we're not necessarily asked to contribute with other C-level executives when it comes to strategic planning. I think that's that's create a whole host of problems and challenges, you know, because then that individual one, that individual is not sort of contributing to the discussion around are, you know, the capacity or the feasibility of being able to deliver on some of the execution based on their experience, but also that individuals then being asked to support and drive execution and not necessarily having full context. And so I think it's really important to understand, you know, and it's kind of gets into the sort of value delivery leader role as well, but to really understand how PMO and how execution functions should really contribute to the planning stage.

Ross Martin:

Well, and that's your point about value delivery leader instead of just a project management leader, right, is I think I see it a bit of a chicken and egg situation, which is PMO leaders traditionally have not been invited into the C-suite to help with strategic planning and then carry it on through execution. Partly because they weren't operating at that strategic level. But they weren't operating at that strategic level because they were never invited into the room where the strategy was being planned.

Idris Manley:

So it's a bit of both. Yes and no. I mean, there are certainly individuals that weren't invited, but they had the capacity and the capability. But there are many PMO leaders that really they're strong at execution, but not necessarily contributing to some of the strategic sort of thinking as well.

Ross Martin:

Fair enough, but what, how did you learn strategy? Like one of the ways I learned strategy was getting involved with the strategy team and, and, and seeing how it works.

Idris Manley:

Getting involved and certainly being curious. Yes. But yeah, you know, everyone isn't going to be curious, but certainly, uh, if you have a desire and interest to really understand the why behind, uh, the decisions that are being made and just naturally continuing to ask why it will lead you to, you know, the C-suite and to those meetings and those conversations. But again, I don't expect every PMO leader to have that understanding or even that interest. And so you really do have to identify the skill sets and the strengths of your PMO leader to determine if they are the right fit for contributing to those kinds of conversations.

Ross Martin:

Good point. Good point. And the fact is, is that we actually believe that that leaders of value delivery, who are at this point are probably PMO leaders, do need to be able to do that. But it is your job to figure out whether you have the right person in that role.

Idris Manley:

You know, Ross, I just realized we didn't explain value delivery. Oh, very good point. Perhaps it might be.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, a traditional project management is telling the you know, the leaders and the various practitioners of project management have focused for decades now, actually, on on deliverables, delivering, you know, the output making sure the tasks are done, things like status reports, making sure that the plan as presented to them is executed as well as possible. But the value delivery is more about how do we make sure that the business outcomes that the entire project or initiative was started for in the first place are achieved and all throughout the project, We are constantly going back to those touch points to make sure that the value of what we're doing is being realized or will be realized. We don't take for granted that just delivering the project will do it anymore. And that's what value delivery is about.

Idris Manley:

In addition to that, it's also really being able to establish KPIs and metrics on how you're executing. So just executing and delivering value, which is critical, is important, but it's also understanding the how. Are we delivering on these capabilities faster than our competitors? How do we measure that? How do we know if we're moving at a velocity that's faster than the market? And so it's really sort of taking that meta layer, taking that step back as well and understanding how do you measure success when it comes to delivering value outside of just the value itself and making sure that there are people accountable for tracking, holding people accountable, and stretching the organization or the cross teams that are responsible for delivering to continue to deliver faster and more efficiently.

Ross Martin:

Yeah, that's a great point. And if you think back to a while ago, a lot of times I remember the focus was, okay, we've finished delivering the project and during the closing time, we're trying to look and see, did we achieve what we were trying to do? But it was only at the end. Right. And so I think what we're advocating for and what you're seeing as modern project delivery out there is you don't wait to the end. You measure and check constantly. Are we on track for the delivery of the value to the business? Not just that we're going to hit our milestones and deliver our delivery.

Idris Manley:

Yeah, no inspect and adapt, right? Because I mean, that's, that's, that's the foundation of agile. So being able to really get into the habit. And it's not just for software delivery, by the way, this is just for all businesses, just at all levels, being able to get into the behavior of inspecting and adapting, monitoring, analyzing what can improve and making the pivots where necessary, um, and being lightweight.