Written By: Marc Hadd
Leadership has carefully considered the marketplace challenges and opportunities and updated the firm’s strategic vision, including clearly articulated business objectives. The Leadership Team agrees that a solid performance management architecture is vital to achieving its objectives. They ask, “How can we rally the employees around the vision and build consensus?” And “How can we clearly describe the steps needed to reach the vision while keeping the organization engaged?”
A Strategic Roadmap is just the tool to create alignment around management’s vision. The Roadmap illustrates the needed projects to deliver the firm’s business objectives. Notably, the Roadmap shows a cross-functional picture of how the organization must collaboratively work to deliver each project. Strategic Roadmaps tell a compelling story the people remember.
HollandParker is uniquely qualified to guide customers in creating a Strategic Roadmap. We apply our strategy execution, business process, technology, and performance management expertise to help customers deliver on the business vision promise.
The Management Cycle
The value proposition of all corporate performance management technology is improving the customer organization’s ability to move faster and smarter through the management cycle. This is the Deming Wheel or Deming Cycle – the integrated learning and continuous improvement model. Credit goes to Dr. Deming and his mentor, Walter Shewhart, of the famous Bell Laboratories in New York.
PLAN: Design or revise business process components to improve results.
DO: Implement the plan and measure its performance.
CHECK: Assess the measurements and report the results to decision-makers.
ACT: Decide on changes needed to improve the process.
This is the framework or platform for rational decision making. The management cycle is not specific to a business discipline, e.g., Finance, or particular to a technology process, e.g., Consolidations. It encompasses all business functions. It is the essence of executing the business’ strategy.
OneStream Software is a platform. While recognized for financial consolidations, it is equally capable of addressing planning (OpEx, CapEx, Strategic Planning) plus operational analytics, e.g., customer buying habits or product sales. The platform concept is vital as its architecture supports applying the same foundational data and metadata to various performance management solutions.
The Strategic Roadmap
Here is where the assessment is a value-add complement to your OneStream investment.
The Strategic Roadmap addresses four critical topics:
- Where are we now?
- Where are we going?
- How will we get there?
- What obstacles are in our way?
The roadmap’s value proposition is that projects are grounded in the firm’s strategy. Projects are placed on the roadmap because they demonstrably help the organization achieve its goals. In other words, the roadmap takes a business process, defines the future state (Where are we going?), and considering the Plan-Do-Check-Act steps, identifies the people, process, and technology/data improvement workstreams. While the roadmap is tactical, it never loses sight of achieving strategic objectives and long-term value.
Through the future state lens, the Roadmap examines each possible project for its contribution towards the future state business objectives. Additionally, each project is reviewed through the technology lens. Two key questions: (1) how does the OneStream platform support the project (e.g., How can the current architecture be extended? What new functionality must be included?) and (2) what is the impact of similar technology or architecture decisions on OneStream?
OneStream’s extensible platform approach allows us to consider each project as a building block, expanding the organization’s business and IT architecture performance management capabilities. As economic or internal management priorities change – the Roadmap can be re-aligned. Leveraging OneStream’s platform approach and analytical functionality may be prioritized (delivered sooner or pushed to a later phase), but there is no need to invest in additional CPM technologies.
The Strategic Roadmap provides valuable input to the firm’s strategic planning process and IT architecture planning process.
HollandParker provides this service to position our clients for success and ensure they extend the value of their OneStream investment. Our Strategic Roadmap Assessment provides two critical pieces of information:
- Change Agenda: the big themes (topic areas) where a change in people, process, or technology will occur
- Roadmap: a visual presentation of the project portfolio to achieve the organization’s future state. It illustrates how the organization must change to achieve the vision.
Example Strategic Roadmap:
The Value of the Roadmap
The roadmap provides value in five ways:
- Communications – A Roadmap shares the organization’s vision and key priorities. It builds the culture of a common goal and is a rallying point focusing on success. Unequivocally states how the organization will achieve its vision.
- Priorities – A Roadmap shares the organization’s priorities. It provides a framework to foster collaboration and consider trade-offs across stakeholders.
- Architecture – A Roadmap calls out the solution level architecture; it illustrates how the projects leverage the OneStream platform to deliver a complete management cycle (Deming Cycle).
- Accountability – A Roadmap identifies organization accountability and provides stakeholders clear insight to progress. Drives stakeholder commitment and clears roadblocks to ensure projects have the necessary resources,
- Economics – A Roadmap is the framework for resource allocation – strategic investment vs. operational spending. Capital funding and workforce planning are viewed through the lens of what is essential to achieve the strategy.
Wrap Up Thoughts
Taken together, the Strategic Roadmap and OneStream software provide your firm with a complete corporate performance management solution that is aligned with your firm’s business objectives.
The HollandParker Strategic Roadmap Assessment crystalizes a single concept – apply your investment in technology and people to projects that deliver tangible business value. Champion projects that move the business forward and realize the strategic goals.