Key Aspects of the Value Delivery Spine

Years of practical experience have led me to believe that we can establish a framework for operational improvements that supports the organization’s direction and optimize the delivered value of those improvements. That framework can be found in the Value Delivery Spine.

Value Spine Stages — The value delivery spine has six stages that, if managed effectively, can supercharge your efforts to operationally align your organization to your strategy, whether the change is incremental or radical. Those stages include:

• Directional Strategy — Establishing the strategy that will buoy the organization to new heights.

• Business Model Refresh — Define the business model that gives form to the organization and its efforts to pursue the strategy.

• Current Commitments — Creating the big organizational commitments that crystalize the activities and operational efforts required to support the strategy. [Generally refreshed annually]

• Proposed Solutions — These proposed solutions close the gap between current capability and capability needed to support the strategic directions.

• Solution Delivery Programs — These programs are the consolidated, focused efforts to deliver the selected solutions to a ready organization that meets the usage and performance targets.

• New State Performance — After the program delivery dust settles, this is the new operational normal that supports the strategic direction.

Operational Support Mechanisms — The value delivery spine is supported by a number of operational mechanisms that support completing the work in each phase. These mechanisms include:

• Strategy & Operations [S&O] Team[s] — The team responsible for crafting and refreshing the strategy, tweaking the business model, establishing, resourcing and tracking the strategic commitments.

• Program Management Office — The team that ensures that the highest priority and value portfolio of solutions are delivered to a ready organization, hitting adoption targets.

• Program Teams — The team tasked with crystalizing the solutions that bridge the operations gap created by the change in strategy and deploying those solutions into the organization.

• Functional Operations Teams — The teams that are tasked with managing the ongoing functional operations that support the functional mission. These operations include sales operations, product operations, supply chain operations, data center operations, HR operations, and so on.

This blog is dedicated to that value delivery spine and the operational support mechanisms that ensure the delivery of that strategic value.