Strategist Flashcards
Direction
Leading, conducting, or guiding someone, or ordering something.
Planning
Arranging a method of achieving an end or creating a detailed program of action
Improvement
A deliberately introduced change that results in increased value for one or more stakeholders.
Operating Model
A conceptual or visual representation of how an organization co-creates value with its customers and other stakeholders, as well as how the organization runs itself.
Method
A way, technique, or process for doing something.
Scope of Control
The extent of the areas or activities over which the person has the authority to direct the actions of others or define the required outcomes.
Governance
The means by which an organization is directed and controlled.
Compliance
Both the act and result of ensuring that a standard or set of guidelines is followed, or that proper, consistent accounting or other practices are being employed.
Management
Coordinates activities to define, control, supervise, and improve something.
Value
The perceived benefits, usefulness, and importance of something.
Outcome
The result for a stakeholder enabled by one or more outputs.
Cost
The amount of money spent on a specific activity or resource.
Risk
A possible event that could cause harm or loss, or make it more difficult to achieve objectives.
Vision
The defined aspiration of what an organization would like to become in the future.
Mission
A short but complete description of the overall purpose and intentions of an organization.
Policy
A formally documented management expectation and intention which is used to direct decisions and activities.
Control
A means of managing a risk, ensuring that a business objective is achieved, or ensuring that a process is followed.
Guideline
A recommended practice that allows some discretion in its interpretation, implementation, or use.
Strategy
A broad approach or course of action defined by an organization for achieving its objectives.
Tactics
The specific methods by which a strategy is enacted.
Operations
The routine running and management of an activity, product, service, or other configuration item.
Cascading Goals
Ensure the organization’s strategy, tactics, and operations are aligned and allows the reporting through feedback loops. Purpose, Objectives, Indicators, Metrics
Purpose
Why are we doing this?
Objectives
What does success look like?
Indicators
A metric that is used to assess and manage something. What results indicate success?
Metrics
Measurement or calculation that is monitored or reported for management and improvement. What are the numbers?
Practice
A set of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing the objective.
Practices are the means by which an organization applies its specific resources to tasks along the way.
Value Stream
A series of steps an organization undertakes to create and deliver products and services to consumers.
Focus on the flow of activity from demand or opportunity to value.
A type of process, but not all processes are value streams.
Value streams are documented visually.
Process
Any set of interrelated activities that transform inputs into outputs.
Can be visually mapped or a series of written steps.
Process maps are used to find issues with how each step is performed in a value stream.
Risk Management
The practice of ensuring that an organization understands and effectively handles risk.
Continual Improvement Register
A prioritized list of improvement actions.
Improvement Outcomes have a positive impact on value in terms of time or cost savings, enhancing user experience, reducing risk, improving culture, or achieving regulatory compliance.
Improvement initiatives can be raised by anyone withing the organization.
Decision Making Authority
The person or role with the right, power, or obligation to make a decision and is then responsible for its success or failure.
Board of Directors
Responsible for the governance of the organization.
Shareholders
Responsible for appointing directors and auditors to ensure governance.
Audit Committee
Responsible for supporting the board of directors by providing an independent assessment of management performance and conformance.
Governance Controls
Financial Controls (cost) Risk Management Controls (risk) Operational Controls (Outcomes) Compliance Controls (regulators)
Measurements
A means of decreasing uncertainty based on one or more observations that are expressed in quantifiable units.
The most common control types. If measurements are used to assess people and their jobs, they will meet those numbers even if it breaks the organization.
Measurement and Reporting Practice
Used to support good decision-making and continual improvement by reducing uncertainty
Report
A detailed communication of information or knowledge about a topic or event.
Why Measure?
To validate, influence, justify, and or intervene.
Progress Measurements
Demonstrate the degree of achievement relative to defined milestones and or deliverables.
Compliance Measurements
Demonstrate the degree of adherence to governance and or regulatory requirements.
Effectiveness Measurements
Demonstrate the degree of fitness for purpose of any part of the SVS, a product, or service (utility).
Efficiency Measurements
Demonstrate the degree of fitness for use of any part of the SVS, a product, or service (warranty).
Productivity Measurements
Demonstrate the throughput of a system, value stream, process, service, or component over a given period of time.
Qualitative Assessment
Involves leveraging the assessor’s knowledge and experience, are opinion driven and subject to interpretation.
Quantitative Assessment
Involves evidence and are more objective as they rely on accurate data.
Hybrid Assessment
Involves experts analyzing evidence and providing their opinion. Most effective for improvement initiatives.
Gap Analysis
Used to compare a current state with a future state.
SWOT Analysis
Internal strengths and weaknesses, external opportunities and threats.
Change Readiness Assessment
Estimates an organization’s preparedness to transition to a new way of working.
Customer/User Satisfaction Analysis
Used to identify the current levels of customer and or user satisfaction with a service or product.
SLA Achievement Analysis
Used to determine if the service level agreements have been reached consistently.
Benchmarking
The act of measuring performance of an organization’s products, services, or practices against those of a similar organization.
Maturity Assessment
Used to evaluate the capability of something, usually a process or an organization, compared with a maturity framework, model, or scale.
Change Agent
A role that facilitates the development, application, and advocation of new ways of working.
Baseline
A report or metric that serves as a starting point against which progress or change can be assessed.
Continual Improvement
Aligns the organization’s practices and services with changing business needs through the ongoing identification and improvement of services, service components, practices, or any element involved in the efficient and effective management of products and services.
Improvement Review
An evaluation using metrics and other evidence to determine whether an improvement has achieved its desired outcomes and if not, what needs to be done to complete the work.
Continual Improvement Practice
Is unique in that it contributes to the value of every other practice and portion of the value stream.
Lessons Learned Analysis
The evaluation of an improvement, initiative, or iteration for the purpose of understanding what did or did not go well and what should have been done differently in similar circumstances in the future.
Business Case
A justification for the expenditure of organizational resources, that provide information about costs, benefits, options, risks, and issues. Must contain Introduction, methods and assumptions, business impacts/outcomes, risks and contingencies, and recommendations.
SLA
A documented agreement between a service provider and customer that identifies both the services required and the expected service levels.
Basic Service Relationship
Occurs when there is a contract for a service provided with a clear price, timeframe, and specification.
Cooperative Service Relationship
Occurs when a contract for service delivery such as platform as a service (PAAS) is given room for interpretation as to how delivery is performed.
Service Partnerships
Exist when both partners have a shared goal and will work together to deliver value to their customers.
Organizational Change Management
Is the practice that ensures that changes in an organization are implemented smoothly and successfully, and that lasting benefits are achieved by managing the human aspects of changes and improvement initiatives.
Defining a stakeholder communication plan
Plan the approach
Define what is needed from each stakeholder
Identify the message
Devise a practical plan to communicate with each stakeholder
Keep the initiative’s best supporters engaged
Consider how actions will affect stakeholders
Balanced Scorecard
A framework for planning and management using metrics. Provides executive visibility of measurements impacting strategy to identify opportunities for improvement. Focuses on:
Financial (how do we look to shareholders?)
Internal Business Processes (What must we excel at?)
Customers (what is important to our customers?)
Innovation (How can we continue to improve?)
Success Factors
Describe a characteristic that must be achieved for something to be called a success.
Practice Success Factor
A complex, functional component of a practice that is required for the practice to fulfill its intended purpose.
Key Performance Indicator
A success factor that needs to be measured. A metric that is used to indicate if success was obtained.
Planning and Evaluation Model
A simple model to help create connections when developing metrics to ensure alignment with higher-level requirements to drive decision making and improvement. Purpose, Objective, Indicator, Metric.
Organizational Improvement Cascade
Used to help measure performance at multiple levels in the organization.
Workflow
The sequence of steps in a process to convert an input into an output.
Cycle Time
The amount of time required to complete a discrete unit of work, converting inputs into outputs.
A measure of time between a work item starting and finishing (lagging).
Wait Time
The amount of time a discrete unit of work waits in a queue before work begins.
Lead Time
The total time required to complete a discrete unit of work from when it enters the process queue to when the process ends.
Process Queue
The number of discrete units of work waiting to be operated upon by a process.
Work In Progress
The number of discrete units of work currently being operated on and not yet completed.
Throughput
The rate which work enters/exits a system.
Little’s Law
Work in Progress = Throughput X Leadtime
Work Item Age
The measure of the amount of time active items have been in progress (leading indicator)
Constraint Theory
Provides a way of looking at process flows and determining where bottlenecks may be constraining the value produced by a process.
Waste
Any activity or step that does not produce anything of value
Muda
Waste, uselessness, or futility. Things being done that add no value.
Muri
Overburden, excessiveness, or unreasonableness. Caused by rigid service timeframes, release windows, and other such time constraints.
Mura
Variability, unevenness, non-uniformity or irregularity. Unacceptable variation or impediments in the ways of working or workflows.
Continual Improvement Model
What is the vision? Where are we now? Where do we want to be? How do we get there? Take Action Did we get there? How do we keep the momentum going?
Focus on Value
All activities conducted by the organization should link back, directly or indirectly, to value for itself, its customers, and other stakeholders.
Start Where you are
Do not start from scratch and build something new without considering what is already available to be leveraged. The current state should be investigated and observed directly to ensure it is well understood.
Progress Iteratively and with Feedback
Do not attempt to do everything at once. Organize the work into smaller manageable sections that can be executed and completed in a timely manner. The focus of each effort will be sharper and easier to maintain.
Collaborate and Promote Visibility
When initiatives initiatives involve the right people in the correct roles, your efforts will benefit from better buy-in, more relevance, and increased likelihood of long-term success.
Think and Work Holistically
No service, practice, process, department, or supplier stands alone. The outputs that an organization delivers to itself, its customers, and other stakeholders will suffer unless it works in an integrated way to handle activities as a whole, rather than as separate parts. All of the organization’s activities should be focused on the delivery of value.
Keep it Simple and Practical
If a process, service, action, or metric fails to provide value or produce a useful outcome, eliminate it. In a process or procedure, use the minimum number of steps necessary to accomplish the objective. Always use outcome-based thinking to produce practical solutions that deliver results.
Optimize and Automate
Before any activity can be effectively automated, it should be optimized to whatever degree is possible and reasonable. Consider the four dimensions when designing, managing, or operating an organization and its processes. Human intervention should only happen where it contributes value to the process.
