How to refactor application APIs into containerized microservices

Getting some geek on. These tools, which sound complicated but aren't, are changing the way we build solutions. Build in what works best for your solution and then use the deployment tools to manage it. The need to "standardize" has changed. What the Cloud really means for IT executives? A completely different approach. We have all been talking about the cloud and DevOps but I guarantee you that not many truly understand. We are building our solutions in a "greenfield" where everything is Azure-based, Microservices, PaaS where we can. Why I think we don't really understand is that this architectural approach is changing how we identify business services, how we process map, how we build our application strategies. In other words, it is evolving the business of IT alignment and business value. More on this over the next few months. For now, back to the build...

KPI's - Ushering in the year of ANALYSIS

Welcome to 2018! I have been collaborating on an opportunity to reassess the current state of technology and that has led me to declare that 2018 will be the year of ANALYSIS.  This topic came up when I was reading The Hutchins Center Explains: The framework for monetary policy this morning. The article talks extensively about the 2% target rate set by the Fed and the idea that in today's economic reality, it might be out of date and needs to be replaced by a different model, especially with the talk in economic circles about the natural rate of inflation which I believe perfectly represents, economically, the behaviors that Gen Z is driving into our culture of spending and saving. But that's another post for another day.  Evaluating the Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) and identifying when the underlying data is driving you to a different measure is a real problem beyond monetary control policies. It impacts every industry, every business function, every dashboard, human interactions. Analysis of data is woven into the fabric used to design the structure of business and entire economies. 

In reading the entire article though, it seemed as if it was all about setting the right target and what target is the right one. But there were no points targeted at understanding the tools needed to do that and about what is needed to change the underlying behaviors that are driving the controls. In other words, there were a lot of great points about what and how to change the measure, but no explanation or exploration as to whether or not the underlying process for earning (employment) and spending align to the current method of controlling monetary policy (which is what the central banks do) while governments control fiscal policy. Fiscal policy has a lot more opportunity to be politically driven and may be at odds with the current tools used to control the inflation rates. We know economists understand the impact of behavioral economics, just read this speech given by Janet Yellen in 2007 but it is not yet driving the context for discussion. And that just seems like an inefficient use of really smart economic analysts by not focusing on the whole opportunity.

The real point is that the discourse relates to challenges with my current role in driving process and system improvements for a small medical device manufacturing company.  There has been significant opportunity discovery due to many facilitated work sessions to document the company's "AS IS" and "TO BE" ERP processes. This in itself is a great advancement! However, the discussions related to the development and use of  KPI's to drive performance did not go nearly as well. Many of the identified KPI's measure results in a process being performed outside of the desired process or functional area because we are still defining our functional process models and aligning them appropriately. However, this identified a great opportunity to drive data and analytics on the processes that they have defined into their hands so that they can see for themselves  that there is a real need for the business managers to modify the execution behaviors driving the processes and results before we can really define KPI's that will support scaling to the next level.

The model here simply shows a deployment model for KPI's that can be explored later, but want to point out that it requires KPI's to be examined for complexity and sources. This really understates the analysis that occurs. This is a great topic to visit in 2018 as IT begins to use the tools to deliver data-based solutions to our business partners.

I challenge you to identify at least one area in 2018 that can be transformed by defining the data and analyzing it to define differentiating KPI's that help your business in ways that 2017 seemed impossible!  Welcome to 2018!!!

Strategic Planning Part 3: Build your Operational Plans

Identify a Vision? ✅

Develop the Strategy?  ✅

Build an Operational Plan? 🚧

We find too often that organizations and companies will make the investment in time and funding to identify a vision and even build a Strategic Plan with a dedicated team and then NOT integrate the operational or annual planning effort to the outcomes from those activities. But who needs a Strategy to know what you need to do today? Acknowledgement of this potential gap, setting into motion activities and initiatives that are disconnected from your strategy, is where many organizations first recognize the need for a strategy. 

If you followed the approach to use your vision to develop your strategy, then using your strategies to build your operational plans will simply be a matter determining not just priority, but sequence in which you should develop your strategies. 

If Vision sets the WHY, and strategies set the WHAT and WHO, then operational plans help define the WHEN

While developing strategies, you should have identified gaps and the investments that would be needed to fill those gaps. Those investment opportunities are the road map for the initiatives needed to meet future business requirements. However, your strategic initiatives have to be broken down into a sequence of smaller initiatives and programs which allow a business to evolve and validate. 

Enabling your Vision

You may ask why breaking down those investments is required. Why not just fund and start all of those strategic initiatives and achieve everything desired? You might be a part of company or organization where the cash flow to fund that level of investment actually exists. So why not just take advantage of all the effort put into the vision and strategies and get it all? The answer is actually quite simple: you cannot achieve it all operationally because your operational plan is where the rationalization occurs and evaluation of portions of your vision that were transformed into strategies gets tested in the real world and assumptions you used build that vision. You purposefully allowed for only loosely validating vision components, and your strategies integrated those components to set direction. However, your operational plans is the first time you get to see what happens when you introduce those visionary and innovative strategies into the world. It is likely that the real world will introduce some reactions that were not anticipated. Don't be afraid of that happening, instead plan for it. It is exactly what you want to happen! Use your operational plan to help guide refinements to vision and strategies. It is a wonderful cycle.

Reach and Range

One method of breaking down the strategic initiatives into operational plans is to use a concept such as "Reach and Range" of those initiatives. Describe the strategy and priority for the logical progression of building out the features/changes for your business area. Consider how you would see the strategy deployed geographically or by business market or by product.  For example, if you are attempting to grow into markets where you have never been, then which markets have the lowest barriers to entry and can be entered first? Which take longer to enter and have longer timelines? Which markets are even open now or are some closed for the next few years? Evaluate the related opportunities, business value, and consider documenting reason that drive the priority of functionality or deployment by audience, geography, or whatever drivers are in play. 

Once you have your road map for the initiative, you can focus on the operational scoping required to achieve. 

Who uses the function?
Who has accountability for the business results?
Where is the function performed?
When (how often) is the function performed?

The operational plan then simply focuses on the scope for the year, funding, people, investment in infrastructure required to achieve. Evaluating results against that plan is key to validating those strategies. 

Simple? Maybe. If the effort is planning (remember, it's an action verb!) then the operational plan is obviously the output from those efforts. It will make sense to focus on the tactical efforts required to move the strategies forward. It is fine for there be to tactical efforts in your strategic plan that are not necessarily strategic. For example, work to exit a market that may have resulted from a strategic initiative several years ago, may be required to continue until the results are achieved. It is always worth scrutinizing those efforts to evaluate need, but that scrutiny is a part of the process and should not be ignored. Finally, ensure that your operational results and especially factors which impacted your success or impeded progress, are incorporated back into your visioning and strategy. 

This is the final post in this series and hopefully it provided some basic structure and process ideas for establishing you plans. Key takeaways include:

• Planning is a VERB and it is the Planning JOURNEY that drives the value of these efforts
• Vision is about the WHY, Strategies are about the WHAT and HOW, Operational Plan define WHEN
• Use DATA to derive your strategies
• Strategies are delivered operationally through a road maps which set the course of actions and decisions

Strategic Planning Part 2: Determine Your Strategy

You have your Vision, your team is engaged, but how do you determine the appropriate focus for the next few years?  More importantly, how do you start down a path that leads to building out that Vision? Most companies and organizations understand the business value of producing a Strategic Plan, and that is the core deliverable of your strategy. They do this annually, as a part of a formal function, and produce a document outlining their plans for the next 3-5 years. However, many lose sight of the fact that the emphasis on the process to create the deliverable is where you differentiate your plans. You are seeing in a theme in the recommendations for all of these efforts:

Approach with DATA

Your vision helps with establishing the direction and engaging your company's or organization's leadership. As you embark on the development of your specific strategies, you want to use as much data as possible to truly transform those visions components into plans. Data is the basis for informing the development of the plans that have the biggest impact and highest opportunity for success. Let's look at the type of data that is helpful for this type of effort.

Current Environment 

What are the current business process flows, applications, data records, and user points of interaction? Utilizing your existing operational documentation and data is key to understanding how to lay out a course for the future. It is highly likely that your existing GAPS in supporting your business today will still be there in the future if you do not explicitly understand and address them.

Business Drivers

The vision was developed using a process that ensured appropriate business input. Use that to distill down into specific drivers so that as your operationalize into a plan, you can consider the time and relative impact. External impacts that are occurring soon MUST be understood in more detail than impacts that are forecast for farther in the future. Getting your business stakeholders to distill their business vision forms the basis for this part of the data.

Build Your Strategies

You have a vision. You understand your starting point. And you have a direction the business heading. Now you lay out your plans. Keeping in mind that that the Strategic Planning effort emphasizes the process and also takes different perspectives to ensure it is as real as strategy can be. Focus on gathering information and facts, and documenting as you go.

Example of Building Strategies

Business Goals - A statement of WHAT will be achieved
Business Strategy - The HOW or choice to achieve that goal
Business Critical Success Factor - Capability or condition that must exist for strategy to be successful
Business Value of the CSF - What is the business value of the specific CSF?

After defining the CSFs and Business Requirements, leverage your analysis to begin to describe the gap between the existing  environment and the vision for the functional area. Once you describe the vision and the current environment, the gap between the two should naturally fall out.

The last step is to document any know business value associated with filling the gap between the current state and the vision as well as the investment expected to achieve the business value described. Note that is possible, in fact likely, that your strategy will include investment that is not a part of your vision. There will be critical success factors you need to operationalize before a vision state can be achieved. That is why the process and action of developing is so valuable, you uncover details that were not available to you before!

Developing the Specifics

Keep in mind that this effort is iterative and can take time. Months if you are developing a Strategic Plan for the first time. But once your strategies are developed, maintaining them, even if business direction and vision evolves, is not onerous. Do not shortcut these steps and know you are the right path when it feels like all you are doing is talking about what will be. Most companies and organizations do not spend enough time on this part of the process because the payback is not immediate. However, you can be sure that this time is some of the most valuable your organization or company will spend. That will be more clear when we talk about how to develop your Operational Plan from your Strategy.

Strategic Planning Part 1: Visioning

There is nothing more energizing than a really good visioning session. The idea of laying out a vision for an organization or a business or even just a project without any boundaries hits my own personal sweet spot of purposeful creativity. I get that this may not be everyone's favorite work activity, but it should be the starting point for any significant planning effort your team or organization is taking on. Why you ask? Let me explain...

A good leader has a vision for what an organization or business has the potential to be. A good Strategic Plan is built on a foundation based on that vision. And what do we I always say? That's right, "what's good for the strategic plan is good for any plan".

Planning is a VERB

When you think about any long term planning effort, it is important to keep in mind it is about the PROCESS and JOURNEY, not necessarily the plan itself. The Vision allows you to appropriately define a Strategy which can then be transformed into an Operational Plan which drives your tactical organization and business efforts. We will explore all of these steps of the journey over the next few posts.

There are many ways to approach setting a vision and different methods might be more effective for different reasons. Some teams or leaders do best with a formal structure that asks specific questions and elicits answers and then probes for more detail. Other teams or leaders are good working with a whiteboard or sticky notes. Don't be afraid a combination of these efforts. Visioning for a business can be done by asking your key stakeholders and leaders the following types of questions:

What could they be without market barriers?
How would they change their industry? Why is the industry we are competing in limited? and what is the reason of the limit?
Are the regulatory limits/boundaries changing and how are we poised to take advantage?
What is your consumer going to be in 10 years? What external impacts are going to evolve that consumer from today to then?
Do we have the RIGHT levels of innovation? Why not?

Vision versus Innovation

The differences between these two key terms are pretty simple: a Vision is an unbounded view of what could be but Innovation is the means to the Vision and therefore will have some boundaries and specific outcomes that are intended to be achieved. Alignment of appropriate Innovation strategies is the key. Utilizing your key stakeholders to think beyond their day to day and year to year horizon is what supports the innovation when needed. Innovation is best delivered in a targeted, deliberate manner with a goal of specific outcomes, but successful visioning can engage many in the process without having to deliver specific outcomes.

Just Do It

Answer the questions above with your key business leads, use tools such as SWOT, Value Chain assessments, or whatever tools help you vet and prioritize statements made. You do NOT have to spend a significant time researching validating statements made in visioning sessions.

There are no wrong or right answers when working on your vision! 

Loosely validating that the vision components truly reflect the future is sufficient. You will spend more time on that research and validation process during the development of the actual strategies. Your organization is going to be an interesting mix of pragmatists and futurists. The trick is to engage a mix of views but also to reflect the culture and the mission of the company. Not always easy, but very energizing if led and facilitated appropriately. There are many examples of this type of effort resulting in significant employment engagement, look at Zappos or Disney if you want see a visioning culture.

So get out there and create a vision. Let yourself thing beyond what you know for sure. All perfectionists, detail oriented individuals, and control freaks can relax. The next step is the development of your Strategic Plan, and your Strategies will help ensure you still in control. 😀

Particular Purpose

or·gan·i·za·tion

ˌôrɡənəˈzāSH(ə)n/

noun

1.

an organized body of people with a particular purpose, especially a business, society, association, etc.

Organizations can be complex. And they can be simple. Sometimes they are effective. And sometimes they are inefficient. As a leader, one of the biggest challenges is transforming your organization to support your business strategy and committing to that particular purpose.

Too many companies ignore the need to include organizational strategies when they define their overall strategies. Which is crazy, because if your organization doesn't also have a plan to achieve the culture needed to build and sustain those strategies, it will not be successful. Think of all the work that you are putting into the vision for your products or services, establishing the market goals and defining the differentiation needed to achieve those goals. Translating from the strategic vision and into tactical plans is the most important step if success is to be achieved. If your management team responsible for translating does not understand the critical success factors, have the key roles to operate, or appropriate performance levers to drive to that future state, how will you get there?

You have probably worked in companies that do not seem to have a common "Particular Purpose". Where achieving the documented company objectives seems impossible because the "culture" of how the work is defined and implemented does not seem in alignment. Companies trying to grab market share through rapid growth might require quick spending decisions and speedy design efforts to attain that growth, However, if they have established formal decision governance in the past to ensure financial and product design supports a low-cost strategy to maintain markets, there is a misalignment between the business strategy (establish market growth) and organizational strategy (ensure lowest cost). 

So what can be done to prevent this misalignment? it is quite simple actually. You place the same importance on the strategies of your organization as you do on the rest of your business areas. Transforming your organization to establish the foundation for executing cannot be an afterthought.

Is leadership on board and acting as change agents?

Are your processes aligned? 

Do your reward and performance processes and systems drive the behaviors to enable success?

What skills and competencies does the organization need to acquire that don't exist today?

Is your current culture an enabler or is there work required to redefine?

Are you communicating that a new Particular Purpose is coming or is fear of the change paralyzing your teams?

Ensure you build this concept into your overall Strategic Planning efforts.  Be realistic about the time it might take for organizations with significant culture gaps between the purpose today and the purpose you need in the future. It may take some time and concerted effort to ensure your achievements are both obtained and sustained.