WILL YOUR STRATEGY SUCCEED?

by Paul Cormier, President, Cormier Strategy Advisors Inc.

March 2008

The time and effort that is devoted to developing a strategy for a new initiative can be enormous. Perhaps there is nothing more demoralizing to a company management than to see that time and effort wasted when the strategy fails. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to assess whether an initiative might succeed or fail prior to its implementation? I have identified five crucial elements that determine whether a strategy will be successful. These elements should be critically assessed after the development of a strategy but prior to its implementation. It is very important that this assessment be done critically and unemotionally. This is absolutely no time to assume the best. Every organization has a devil’s advocate and this is the time that they show their value.

What are the five crucial elements that will determine whether a strategy is a success? I remember them through the acronym “TRAPE”. These stand for:

Timing

Resource Allocation

Alignment

Preparation

Empowerment

Timing is perhaps the most critical element of whether a strategy will succeed and in many respects the most difficult to assess. We all know there are right and wrong times to launch new products or strategies. External market analysis is obviously critical here, and the external analysis should be reassessed prior to implementation, but as important is a rigorous internal analysis. Does the organization have any ability to execute in the context of its other priorities? Does the organization have the capabilities to implement the plan and if not can it acquire them or develop them? Timing is in control of the organization and the organization must make every effort to get this timing decision right.

Resource Allocation is also critical. There are two critical elements to the resource allocation assessment (and by resources I am referring to both human and financial resources): Do you have the right level of resources and do you have the right type of resources. Having the right level of resources is always a tough call. It is ultimately a weighing of risk and return that should determine the correct levels. Companies often under-allocate resources to the planning and initial implementation stages for a new initiative. However, proper investment in resources upfront often pays long-term dividends. It is also important that the right types of resources are allocated. Should an organization that is launching a new and innovative initiative rely on individuals who have become comfortable doing things the old way? Many organizations do just that to their peril. A proper assessment of the skill sets required is critical to a successfully implemented strategy.

Alignment means that senior and operational management are on the same page. This is not always the case. Has everyone bought into the goals and objectives of the initiative? The key to ensuring that the various layers of management are aligned is strong communication. A secondary means to that end is compensation. Financial incentive can be a strong motivating factor to get people aligned.

Preparation seems like an obvious necessity, but many people would be surprised how many strategies are carried out without proper analysis. Have reasonable contingencies been planned for? Have operational plans been put in place to support the overall strategy? This is where attention to detail becomes critical. This is where the big picture thinkers must work with the operational experts to ensure that no stone is left unturned. If this hasn’t happened there will be problems.

Empowerment is absolutely critical to successful implementation. Once senior leadership has made a decision to proceed with implementation of a strategy, operational management must be empowered to make decisions to carry out the plan. They generally know far better than senior management where the rub points will be. Most organizations are not structured in a way that allows senior management to be nimble so operational management must be trusted to be. If you want to put out a fire and have to ask your boss’ boss to do so, there will be little left but ashes by the time you get the word back to get out the hose.

A TRAPE analysis can be done fairly quickly and is worth the investment. Organizations face two significant hurdles in getting buy-in for such analysis. The first one is organizational inertia. Often by the time a strategy gets to a stage where implementation is being discussed, there is so much time invested into the strategy that nobody is willing to abandon or re-visit it so there is no desire to find out what might be wrong. The second one is time. Generally once a project begins to get close to the implementation stage, few people involved in the project have the time to undertake a critical review. However, a TRAPE analysis can allow management to correct issues while they are still cheap to fix.

In my view, all organizations would be well served to make a TRAPE analysis part of their planning process.

Paul Cormier is President of Cormier Strategy Advisors Inc., a firm which provides clients with strategic consulting, project management and short-term management services.