 Dr. Henry Franken, the CEO of BizDesign and Chair of the Open Group Archymate Forum, he's going to take us through the results of the survey I mentioned earlier and this has been quite widespread throughout the Open Group and the AEA members. In BizDesign, Henry is responsible for research and innovation in which alignment within contribution to open standards are key. They've done a lot of work on Archymate, obviously the specification is involved in the work group, not only for Archymate but also the evolution of TOGAP. BizDesign have taken advantage of the webinars of the Open Group and in fact got many hundreds of registered people attending, not just registered but attending. I think we had 900 plus on one of them which nearly broke the system. So he's going to take us through a detailed summary of the results of this survey so please give a big warm-up group welcome to Henry Franken. Can everybody hear me okay? And I don't need a microphone. Okay so thank you for this opportunity to present results to which many of you have contributed and it will be about strategy. And I'd like to make it a bit more interactive so I assume almost everybody has internet either on their laptop or on their mobile. Can you please go to this URL sli.do and you'll be asked some questions and we'll use them for checking whether the findings which we present represent the opinion in the group. Okay so yesterday we had a presentation by Magnus which was inspiring I would say and there were a couple of things which I remembered. R&D is for rip off and duplicate and if you want to create a movement we should all be dancing in the street and you're either a creepy engineer or a fancy dressed salesperson. Well let me introduce the people who contributed to this presentation. First of all it's Melissa Rulsma she's in the back. I consider her young and talented. I think she's beautiful she's not an engineer so but she contributed to this work and got a good grade for that. I was already introduced by Ellen so thank you very much for that. Besides the factual things I consider myself happy in life so let me add that to the list. So BizDesign has been a sponsor of the open group for I think some like eight years approximately like that and just a small recap on that we deliver tools training consultancy for business design based on open standards and we contribute a lot to the open standards because we believe in this in this fact. So I'm going to provide some context to this presentation and then go into the findings. So I'd like to check who's in the room how many sea level people do we have in the room who consider themselves the CEO or sea level. We have a couple of them okay. How many are managers managers that transform or help change a little bit more. IT consultants even more. How many consider themselves architects. That's the majority there you are so I figured that of course. So I have a question to you or maybe I could ask this question to myself as well like why does sea level invest in us and the answer that I used to give is that well we help you manage complexity because your organization is so complex. Well sea level doesn't care about complexity it bothers them and this survey shows it as well. When I was in the United States it was a couple of weeks back well you can go to the internet as well if you turn on to the Wall Street Journal most of the times CEOs are under pressure and they will be in the papers and if you look at it in a bit more detail they will be pressured to turn around their organization because their stakeholders want to earn more money or they want to have a better view on the further going of the shares. So sea level doesn't care about complexity it bothers them and it bothers them in a way in which they can deliver business value for shareholders. They want to get the turnaround demands into an effective strategy execution thus enable business transformation and with the upcoming platforms everything needs to be agile and the improvements in the business need to be fast. So organizations need capabilities to become agile and they want to become capable to transform and change. So what else is happening in the market space well I see that most of you use an Apple or an iPhone so Apple has spoilers and I think Amazon has spoilers as well and how have they spoiled us because we expect everything to work as seamlessly and swiftly like ordering a book at Amazon or working with your iPhone and you as organizations get the same demands. Customers the B2B customers are C2B customers expect your services and products to be delivered swiftly seamlessly. So a recent article in the financial telegraph says that CEOs and entrepreneurs expect to have to change their business model in the upcoming year to answer to these demands and Gardner says in 2017 every company will be a digital company. It doesn't mean that you'll go to the bakery and buy a digital bread but platform three will be all around us by that time. So what are you as architects I would say how can you be a value to the organizations or clients that you work for organizations want to design and implement new business models they want to streamline processes to significantly reduced costs they want to standardize their operating model improve agility and swiftly use the big external platforms that are upcoming and so in this way you or me as an architect can add business value to organizations and yes of course we need this tool set which will help to give an integral view on the complexity of this organization so of course we need Togaf of course we need Archimade of course we need fair and of course we need the other standards in which we approach this problem but if we do not focus on the business value that we can deliver to the organization the enterprise architecture department will be in big danger so that about the context let's go to the strategy survey how about strategy well strategy is a plan or a guide to achieve a new situation for your organization in which you can compete better in which you can adjust yourself to the competitive environment and what our findings show is that developing a strategy to get to that situation is difficult implementing it is even more difficult and we'll find out why this is so difficult and so the topic of the survey was strategic alignment and strategic alignment can be defined by the fit by the I would say intended market position and the way the organization is structured by business and IT and if you have this in grip you will be much more successful in achieving this intended situation so the question is why do organizations often feel at developing and implementing their strategies to well to reach this strategic alignment objective that they have this survey was made possible by you a big group of people contributed to it so I would like to thank the open group the association of enterprise architects and also the Dutch architecture forum for contributing to this to this survey in more detail when making up this presentation 177 but it turned out to be a bit more um people from around the globe contributed to this survey most of most organizations by which they were employed were organizations larger than 500 employees and it was quite an equal spread among industries and if you look at where they were located 70 percent in west europe so we didn't get that much from asia or australia to that we could do that in the next in an in the next tribe um we had about 25 percent from north america so let's go to some of the findings and I would like to get your um interaction and clear so please go to the to the site now and um answer the question uh what percentage do you think um experience problems with implementing the strategies and the technique behind this will be managed by melissa is asking for an event called melissa there we are at alignment so i'm going to wait a minute to to show some results because otherwise well we have the tendency to follow the the crowd right so let's just wait for a second i might go dancing here to create a movement but then maybe that's for tonight so people are ready great so we have yeah we have about 60 votes now 61 votes i counted 98 people in the room so you can still contribute but i think the percentage is um is um evident you think that between 70 and 80 percent of organizations experience problems with implementing their strategies that's a huge number it's a huge percentage so let's see what our findings say so 57 percent experience problems with developing or designing their strategies and 75 percent experience problems with implementing the strategy so the representation in the group is exactly on spot many organizations experience problems with implementing their strategies and that's that's a hazard as an organization if you want to be competitive want to use platform three want to be in this digital area you need to be able to implement these strategies and more than half of the interviewed organizations have problems with both designing the strategy and implementing it and um you see that uh the way to develop a strategy is crucial but the strategy by itself is useless if it cannot be implemented so who's involved in uh designing and implementing the strategy well of course a higher number of people are involved in implementing the strategy than in designing the strategy and you see that managers who are involved in designing the strategies are often not involved in implementing the strategy so there is there is a there's quite a gap there's quite a gap between the people and departments involved in designing the strategy and implementing this strategy so let's have a look at it in a more detail like if you look at the departments within organizations you see that finance is much more involved in designing the strategy than in implementing the strategy and so was marketing they want to achieve something they want to be out there so they say well this is what we have to do and then in most organizations they leave it up to the program and project management department or the IT departments to really do truly do the work so there's a distinction between the group or the representation of the organization which is involved in the design of the strategy and which is involved in the implementation of the strategy and um one of the other findings is that in comparison to for example you as an architect or as an as an IT involved person manages experienced less problems they experience less problems in developing the strategy and also in implementing the strategy but i would say that's a necessary opportunistic character of managers okay next next point the use of strategy techniques you as an architect were involved in architecture techniques like TOGF and what we have in there and we use ARC made for that but before we start to transform there's something like the business architecture part and the strategy part and so what type of techniques are being used within organizations to come up and to articulate the strategy so about 45 percent of organizations say that they do use strategy techniques still it says that about more than half never use or very often use strategy techniques so that would mean they work with brown paper sessions write it up in powerpoint slides and then give to the group of people go ahead and implement this so short saying is like garbage in garbage out it's a difficulty so on the other hand the survey shows that about 90 percent of organizations is willing to consider to use a software tool for strategy modeling so i'll say that's that's that's quite remarkable on the on the one hand there's just a small group that is using techniques but a much larger group is willing to use a software tool for that that might have something to say with the applicability of these techniques or that people will be willing to use a tool because then they can design a strategy much faster so we're gonna we're gonna pull you again what do you think you go to the site and then the question is what which strategy techniques or methods are most often used in your opinion okay let's see if the questions the answers are there okay so there's a bunch of techniques on which you get on which you could answer and 70 percent of you think that the SWAT analysis is being used the most as a technique to develop a strategy a business case and the balance scorecard well they compete for second place and then critical success factors and the rest is well business cases is gaining momentum now we see strategy maps so all the rest is like well very few so i would say it's a SWAT analysis the business case and the balance scorecard business case got second place silver medal let's see what the results say well it's a perfect representation of what we see in the group and what we saw in the findings the SWAT analysis being used the most i would and if you look on the literature on the usage of the of this technique it also says that it's being used the most because it's the most easy to use it gives high level information to design the strategy that's being used the most i would say it's not precise enough to really get the business requirements or the business architecture to go towards strategy implementation the business case is being used a lot also by the financial department well to calculate whether there is a return on investment on the intended strategic move of the organization and the balance scorecard has been used it's been used a lot also to measure the progress of the strategy implementation and the intended effects or there are many more techniques i would say it's it's exciting to see that for example a strategy map which is closer to modeling and i expect most of you are into modeling as well or the business model canvas which has been around with only for five years already is in sixth place so but then a SWAT analysis or a business case that together is that sufficient to develop but more importantly to manage the strategic change as i said garbage in garbage out or you can high level you can have very high level garbage which you are which is more difficult to interpret so let's have a look into the variables influencing the strategy process and i forgot to mention in the beginning but this is a a sneak preview of the results and the results will be published in a white paper and then you'll have the time to read all the way that we did the survey and the more detailed results of that so what are the variables that influence the strategy process we try we've tried to categorize that into the strategic alignment indicators culture and shared beliefs organizational capabilities of really being able to change their their organization towards the intended situation and the communication aspect of change okay organization struggle with the strategy process that's evident you see what we find is that most organizations do not see strategy development and strategy implementation as an intertwined process separate groups separate documents are going to work on strategic change and many do not involve a representation of the majority of their organization during strategy development there are also positive signs most organizations do consider their organizational resources and capabilities during the development so what are our core competences and what are we able to achieve and also the actions that you put into place to achieve something have been put in alignment with these strategic goals or strategic plans so famous saying culture each strategy for breakfast not sure what you had for breakfast this morning might have been strategy um the thing that we that we picked up out of the survey is that 64 percent indicates that conflicting priorities are a main inhibitor for reaching strategic goals so shareholders or stakeholders or people involved in the turnaround have conflicting interests it's very difficult to create shared momentum if there are conflicting priorities on the other hand the organizations say that they have little difficulty with uh with culture management is there to coordinate the change individual contribution is being recognized also by targets and bonuses and stuff like that um and there is apparently willingness to change within the organization to get to the intended situation and well to remain um vivid and profitable as an organization so except for the conflicting priorities that the culture and share beliefs are not seen as a problem for the strategy process as the results from the survey organizational capabilities we're talking a lot about capability-based planning these days also within the business architecture forum are organizations capable to change can they reach their intended situation well i would say not surprisingly i would 50 percent say that their information systems do not support the position that they want to go and they find changing their information systems very difficult what we also picked up is that a large part of the organization indicate that their long-term strategic goals were not really translated into short-term goals so we have a high-end vision and we want to get there in steps but the intermediate steps are not very well communicated so it will be difficult for groups of people to really get to where you want to go you can be thrilled to go there which you also need guidance to get there okay so the findings also say that certain capabilities are there our organization put in a balanced scorecard to measure progress and performance they say their employees have the right competencies and strategy is in line with the overall organizational capabilities or core competencies organizations also say that they have managers involved in both development and implementation but the other findings say that it's usually not the same managers so management is involved but there's a distinction between the development and the implementation okay communication as another aspect communication is a very very important obstacle the findings say that no knowledge of your individual responsibilities to contribute to these strategic goals is a main inhibitor to reach to reach strategy implementation and organizations often fail also to communicate the impact of this strategy on their employees and information systems are hard to change but you as people are we as employees can only change ourselves there should be a willingness to change so we should communicate what the impact will be and create willingness to change and this willingness to change is also influenced by their understanding of the strategy many organizations fail at clearly communicating the strategy and with that you cannot create understanding about intended actions of individuals or groups or departments and what we also find is that it was still not easy to get access to the information about the strategy nevertheless 56 percent of organizations say they have a formalized strategy and it's official apparently they lack to communicate it well so organizations should focus on creating understanding of their strategy responsibilities and the impact of change not only for their IT but also for their people so most significant problems identified during the strategy process let me just pick the the top ones conflicting priorities in different levels of the organizations if you do want to achieve something together but you have conflicting priorities it's very difficult to change or to reach a certain goal so that's a change management topic development implementation of strategy are not seen as intertwined processes and the strategy is unsupported by existing information systems well i would say that's not a real surprise to us in all the engagements that we're in and the majority of the organization is not represented during the development if we have a majority of the organization represented in the development of the strategy feasibility impact of change costs etc will become apparent on the table of course strategy means that you want to reach something new so that you should not create inhabitants straight off but if you do not have the information which will affect your estimation whether change will be feasible then designing a strategy is like being in a blue cloud okay constraints to strategic alignment last question to you which variables have the most significant negative impact on the maturity of strategic alignment it's hot in here isn't it it's a hot topic yeah you're quite right yeah okay let's let's get to the let's get to the answers and then we can get go for a drink as well okay so we have fewer respondents this time but still yeah it's still changing it's still changing so conflicting priorities has won the gold medal no understanding of strategy gains the silver medal and development and implementation seen as separate processes gets a bronze one which is still competing with no understanding of expectation on your actions or individual actions so i give it 20 more seconds to come up with the the final the final medals take a sip of water okay this is it conflicting priorities number one no understanding of strategy number two development and implementation scene is not intertwined processes let's see what the findings say okay so number one unknown impact of the strategy on the employees that scene as number one the majority of the organization does not understand the strategy and no long no long-term goals into short-term goals so it's impossible to have proper strategy implementation when there is no idea of the impact of the strategy and no understanding of the strategy in general if these things are not in place there will be killers for the strategy implementation or the strategic alignment so a couple of additional findings and then we can go for coffee 60 of organizations do not have a controlled language or a dedicated channel to communicate about strategies it's everywhere and there the people are not able to find it and they don't know how to read it 60 of organizations do not critically define the boundaries of their strategic plans boundaries are defined by budgets or the scope of the strategy what you want to achieve or in which time you want to achieve it so huge ambition but not a budget or not the people 58 percent recognize the importance of the collaboration between stakeholders still during the development and implementation only a few organizations are able to trace the interdependency between these stakeholders not being able to trace the interdependencies between these stakeholders means that you cannot trace conflicting interests in the design and implementation of for example systems or processes or the organization 60 percent of the organizations do not clearly trace the translation strategic goals into operations so you want the organization to operate in a certain way according to a certain strategy which do not trace it so that that's difficult I would say and also in the feedback the communication of goals the the contribution of projects to strategic goals are not being fed back to the organization so there's a lot of detailed findings that have to do with the development of a strategy the implementation of a strategy and not being intertwined not being well communicated etc from which we as architects on many other organizations can contribute so with that I'd like to thank you