Table Of ContentDAVID WIRAEUS AND JAMES CREELMAN
foreword by dr david p. norton
AGILE STRATEGY
in
MANAGEMENT
the
DIGITAL AGE
How Dynamic Balanced Scorecards
Transform Decision Making,
Speed and Effectiveness
Agile Strategy Management in the Digital Age
David Wiraeus • James Creelman
Agile Strategy
Management in the
Digital Age
How Dynamic Balanced Scorecards
Transform Decision Making, Speed and
Effectiveness
David Wiraeus James Creelman
Stratecute Group Creelman Strategy Alliance
Gothenburg, Sweden London, UK
ISBN 978-3-319-76308-8 ISBN 978-3-319-76309-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76309-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018945201
© Te Editor(s) (if applicable) and Te Author(s) 2019
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I dedicate this book to my wife Vanja and our child Ella, as well as my sister
Frida and parents Ulla and Anders, with all my love.
David Wiraeus
For my great nephews Kian Creelman and Ezra French and my great niece
Arrabella French. Enjoy the long journey ahead.
James Creelman
Foreword
More than 25 years have passed since Bob Kaplan and I introduced the con-
cept of the Balanced Scorecard through a Harvard Business Review article.
Tis relayed the fndings from a research project we led in 1990 with 12 large
companies to fnd better ways to measure performance, rather than relying
solely on fnancial measures. At that time, we were transitioning into the
knowledge age, in which intangible assets were becoming more valuable than
tangible ones, and where the increasing speed of change in markets meant
that fnancial measures were no longer reliable predictors of future
performance.
Financial results would remain, and continue to be, important, at least for
commercial entities, but what were the non-fnancial drivers of those out-
comes? Tis was the question we grappled with.
Te answer proved simple and logical. Customers delivered fnancial
results; the organization had to ensure its internal processes delivered value to
the customer and that they possessed the required skills and capabilities to
deliver those processes efectively and efciently.
Tese observations were translated into the Balanced Scorecard framework,
which comprised Financial, Customer, Internal Process, and Learning and
Growth perspectives, each of which contained objectives (what we want to
achieve), measures and targets (how we will monitor progress), and initiatives
(how we will deliver to those targets).
A further question we wrestled with was why 90% of organizations failed
to deliver to their strategy, even when it was well thought-out and logical. We
found that the Balanced Scorecard could describe and operationalize strate-
gies that previously were generally restricted to a very detailed strategic plan,
vii
viii Foreword
which rarely left the boardroom shelf. Bob and I chronicled the successes of
the original tranche of scorecard users in our frst book, Te Balanced Scorecard:
Translating Strategy into Action.
In our continued research, we found that some of the early Balanced
Scorecard users, such as Mobil Oil’s North American Division, gained addi-
tional value when the strategic objectives were laid out separately to show the
causal efect from the learning and growth perspective, through internal pro-
cesses to customer and fnancial. Furthermore, although originally launched
to overcome strategic performance management and measurement challenges
in commercial organizations, government and not-for-proft entities, such as
the City of Charlotte, North Carolina, soon adopted the framework. However,
to meet their needs, such organizations reordered the perspectives, with stake-
holder at the top (typically replacing the term customer) and fnancial lower
down the Strategy Map.
Tese frst Strategy Maps proved as valuable to users as the original Balanced
Scorecard itself, as we explained in our second book, Te Strategy-Focused
Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Trive in the New Business
Environment and described fully in our third book, Strategy Maps: Converting
Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes.
Te story did not end there. We continued to learn from the experiences of
an ever-growing number of users. Our fourth book, Alignment: Using the
Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies, documented the value orga-
nizations gained from cascading the Balanced Scorecard from the corporate
level to business units and then to operating departments and support func-
tions, as well as being the basis for strategically aligning external
stakeholders.
Our fnal book. Te Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for
Competitive Advantage, set out to ofer a complete strategy management sys-
tem through a six-stage model: defning the strategy, translating the strategy,
aligning the organization, aligning operations, monitoring and learning, and
testing and adapting.
However, even completing the ffth and fnal book does not mean the end
of the story. On introducing the Balanced Scorecard framework and method-
ology, Bob Kaplan and I realized we were launching a revolution, not a static
system. We knew it would continue to evolve to meet the strategic require-
ments of organizations in ever-changing and fast-moving markets.
Our work, and most notably the fnal book, serves as the inspiration for
this book, Agile Strategy Management in the Digital Age – How Dynamic
Balanced Scorecards Transform Decision Making, Speed, and Efectiveness.
Forewor d ix
Just as Bob and I grappled with the challenges of transitioning from the
industrial age to the knowledge age, Wiraeus and Creelman turn their atten-
tion to the challenges of moving into the digital age.
Changing roles from Balanced Scorecard historian to Balanced Scorecard
futurist, the authors inventory the issues that must be integrated into the
management systems of the future – Tey are to be commended for the audac-
ity of their undertaking and for the reach of their results.
Te revolution continues.
Massachusetts David P. Norton
March, 2018
Acknowledgements
Tis book could not have been written without the advice, knowledge, and
support of many people, whom we here acknowledge.
Bill Barberg (Insightformation), James Bass (Certifed Scrum Professional),
Bjarte Bogsnes (Statoil), James Cofey (Beyond Scorecard), Deepanjan
Chakrabarty (previously Palladium), Marcello Coluccia (Imerys Graphite &
Carbon), Jade Evans (Palladium), Liam Fahey (Leadership Inc.), Elena Gómez
Domenech (Palladium) Mihai Ionescu (Strategys), Saliha Ismail (Ministry of
Works, Municipality Afairs & Urban Planning, Bahrain), Brett Knowles
(pm2Consulting), Stanley Labovitz (SurveyTelligence), Armen Mnatsakanyan
(ConconFM), Sandy Richardson (Collaborative Strategy), Hubert Saint-
Onge (Saint-Onge Alliance), Alistair Schneider (startupsinnovation.com),
Andreas de Vries (Oil & Gas Strategy Management Speuncialist expert), Iain
Wicking (Oyonix Group).
We also extend our gratitude to Dr. David Norton for providing the
Foreword to this book and to all our ex-colleagues in Palladium, who shared
their knowledge and experience with us over many years.
Tanks also to Palgrave Macmillan’s Stephen Partridge and Gabriel
Everington for their continued support and guidance.
Finally, James would like to thank Matt Sabbath Stark, Hugh Sturrock,
Hugh Macleod, and Anto Brownes for their many nights in the Earl of Derby,
Kilburn, London, patiently listening to his constant talking about the writing
of the book.
xi
Contents
1 Digital Age Strategy Management: From Planning to Dynamic
Decision Making 1
Introduction 1
No “Perfect” Management Solution 1
It’s All About Evolution 2
Common Challenges 5
Te Scourge of Silo-Based Working 6
Te Strategy Function and Process 8
Assumptions that Must Be Verifed in Execution 10
End-to-End Process Management 10
Strategic Innovation 12
Te Importance of Agility 13
An Agile and Adaptive Model for Strategy Execution
in the Digital Age 14
Parting Words: Shifting Paradigms 19
Self-Assessment Checklist 20
References 21
2 F rom Industrial- to Digital-Age-Based Strategies 23
Introduction 23
Challenging the Notion that “Strategy is dead!” 25
Defning Strategy 26
Defning the Sense of Purpose 28
Finance-Based Planning 34
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