Strategy today is implemented by a series of ongoing projects – organization-wide, team-based, departmental, and individual. Successful implementation requires maintaining the threads of corporate strategy throughout all projects. Companies that automate their management processes and also ensure that these processes happen find a dramatic improvement in project completion timelines and quality – and ultimately greater business success.

There are several indicators that reveal when an organization is not strategically aligned and has disconnected management processes:

1.  Employees have little or no awareness of senior management’s priorities.

2.  Strategy is driven by vague or overly broad mission statements.

3.  Politically correct performance variables are in place.

4.  Planning, budgeting and control systems each have a life of their own.

Strategically aligned organizations with automated management processes, on the other hand, exhibit the following characteristics:

1.  Employees know what keeps the boss awake at night and make that their business.

2.  Clarity exists about focus, results, work and behaviors.

3.  Critical performance variables are selected, assigned, coached and monitored.

4.  Managerial paperwork and processes exist only where they add value to the bottom line.

Building a strategically aligned organization and the supporting management process automation involves documenting and inputting variables into dynamic collaboration software related to three areas: Organization Management, Project Management, and People Management.

The outcomes should include:

Organizational Management:
– Builds teamwork, trust and focused productivity through alignment of all chief executives.
– Clarifies and creates a culture of discipline around core strategies, metrics, values and goals at the organization and business unit / department levels.
– Uses collaborative dialog to confront the dynamic facts on business issues, resource allocation and priorities.
– Creates up-to-the-minute progress reports and meaningful company-wide communication.
– Improves company-wide flexibility, pride and performance.

Project Management:
– Simplifies project management.
– Clearly identifies the project scope and evaluation criteria.
– Defines accountability for project deliverables within realistic deadlines.
– Builds cross-functional cooperation through clear alignment.
– Dramatically increases team productivity, decision-making and learning through on-going dialog and follow-ups.
– Significantly cuts time spent in meetings.
– Speeds project completion time by minimizing waiting time and re-work.

People Management:
– Gives people the respect to run their areas of the business.
– Dramatically improves organization-wide productivity by simply aligning leaders and direct reports on expected contributions and critical priorities.
– Empowers employees with clearly delegated authorities. improving the speed and quality of decisions.
– Enhances employee motivation and builds active involvement through employee-driven dialogs.
– Supports leadership coaching, feedback, recognition and rewards.
– Builds leadership abilities and organizational impact at all levels.

Strategic alignment and management process automation can make the critical difference between success and frustration, between quality output and mediocrity, and between a productive work environment and high turnover – among the many benefits.

About Connections Online
Connections Online 4 is a fully-integrated software suite that helps leaders achieve targeted outcomes through organization-wide alignment and automation of management processes. Designed for Web deployment and including integration with Microsoft’s Project and Office Suite, Connections Online creates a virtual blueprint of an organization, showcasing its goals and strategic plans. It seamlessly aggregates the daily work performed by each employee with the individual desktop tools they use to do their work. It is a fast, easy and affordable solution that builds a culture of performance, teamwork and motivation. Designed with the Cardwell management processes and deployed in over 60 companies, Connections Online is quickly becoming the only mid-size company solution standard for management automation.

For more information contact Karla Norwood at knorwood@cardwellgroup.com or (800) 395-1410.