Harvard Business School Executing Your Strategy: How to Break It Down and Get It Done

Why do businesses consistently fail to execute their competitive strategies? Because leaders don't identify and invest in the full range of projects and programs required to align the organization with its strategy. Moreover, even when strategy makers do break their plans down into doable chunks, they seldom work with project leaders to prioritize strategic investments and assure that needed resources are applied in priority order. And they often neglect to revise the strategic portfolio to fit the demands of a dynamic environment, or to stay connected to strategic projects through completion, as new products, services, skills and capabilities are transferred into operations.

In Executing Your Strategy, Mark Morgan, Raymond Levitt, and William Malek present six imperatives that enable you to do the right strategic projects—and do those projects right. And it is no accident that the six imperatives combine to create the acronym INVEST: Ideation—Clarify and communicate purpose, identity and long range intention; Nature—Develop alignment between strategy, structure and culture based on ideation; Vision—Create clear goals and metrics aligned to strategy and guided by ideation—Engagement—Do the right projects based on the strategy through portfolio management; Synthesis: Do projects and programs right, in alignment with portfolio; and Transition: Move the project and program outputs into operations where benefit is realized. Full of intriguing company examples and practical advice, this crucial new resource shows you how to make strategy happen in your organization.