10 Steps to Successful Business Alignment

PREFACE

Are your programs aligned with the organization? Are they connected to the business? Are you helping to meet our business goals? Is this project necessary? What’s your contribution? These and other similar questions from project sponsors bring into focus the issue of creating business alignment. A key issue in almost any type of project, alignment appears elusive, but can be routinely achieved and sustained for long periods of time. This book takes a fresh perspective on this challenging issue and shows how alignment is positioned early in the creation of projects, programs, and functions. It illustrates how to sustain alignment over a period of time and validate projects routinely to make sure that business alignment has been achieved.

The Need for This Book

Business analysts, professionals, managers, and executives need an uncomplicated reference to learn how to make alignment work. In 10 easy steps, this book shows how to align a program at the beginning, how to establish and support objectives to keep the focus on specific business measures throughout the life of the program, and how to validate that alignment has occurred as the influences from other factors are separated from the effects of the program.

You don’t have to look far to find studies that reveal executive concern for business alignment. When the success or failure of projects or programs is explored, the results often boil down to the presence or lack of alignment. The authors recently conducted a study with Fortune 500 CEOs regarding measures of success desired by executives. The executives suggested that business contribution, notably business impact, was their number-one desired measure. The study showed that 96 percent of the CEOs wanted to see impact data, although only 8 percent stated that they currently see this type of data. In a search for key words for this study, executives provided written comments about the need for business alignment, business contributions, and business connections.

In our own work at the ROI Institute, we have examined the reasons why projects fail. Each year, we have the opportunity to be involved in approximately 800 ROI studies, and many of them lack the success desired by the project owners. In short, some 30 to 40 percent of the studies are negative. Another 30 to 40 percent are positive, but still disappointing to the client. The remainder of the studies has more room for success. The number one reason for this lack of success is a failure to align the project to the business in the beginning. This is a critical issue.

Business alignment is necessary now more than ever. The global recession has intensified the need for business results from projects and functions in organizations. At the same time, there is mystery surrounding this process. How do you connect to the business for projects, programs, or functions? For example, the leadership development function has been challenged by some executives to show its value. Is it aligned to the business? Does it help drive key business measures, such as productivity? Is it possible for leadership development to show the value? Are new leadership development projects aligned to the business when implemented?

What This Book Will Do

Project or program managers don’t always know how to connect the project to a business measure, let alone keep it focused on those measures throughout the project life cycle. While it is important to make the connection in the beginning, there is also a need to keep the focus on the business alignment through the project. At the same time, there is a need to verify that the alignment has occurred after the project is fully implemented. This is the validation that the project is indeed connected to the business and has improved one or more business measures. This particular issue, isolating the effects of the project, determines the precise contribution made by the project. This validation step is shrouded in even more mystery. This book attempts to unravel this alignment mystery in simple, rational terms, following a sequence of steps needed to generate a business connection that is CEO- and CFO-friendly.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge three groups of individuals who have helped us produce this book. The content of this book was developed with literally hundreds of clients over a period of two decades. We first published the alignment between needs assessment and evaluation in 1994 as a concept. Since then, we’ve refined this tool, currently labeled, the V-Model, which forms the basis for this book. Hundreds of clients have allowed us to work with them as we established the alignment of programs in the very beginning, kept the alignment through the process with impact objectives, and validated it on the follow-up.

We owe much appreciation to ASTD for their continued support of our work. This is our fortieth book with ASTD, our outstanding publishing partners. Our relationship with ASTD began with Nancy Olson’s efforts in the 1990s and continuing to the present with Justin Brusino. For a publishing partnership to endure 40 titles is amazing in these turbulent times of short-term and strained partner relationships. We appreciate the patience and professionalism of ASTD in their quest to always be the leading provider of content in the field of human resource development.

Finally, much appreciation goes to Rachel Robinson for her excellent editing in this book. Rachel has taken on the challenge with short notice and has done an outstanding job of making this manuscript readable, enjoyable, and interesting to the audience. Thanks Rachel, for a great job. We look forward to many more publications.

Jack and Patti Phillips, 2012

[email protected]

[email protected]

INTRODUCTION

Business Alignment Issues

It is difficult to have a conversation about a project, program, event, initiative, or system without discussing the subject of business alignment. Some classic questions that are often asked about business projects are:

How will this project help our business?

Is this aligned to our goals?

What is the business contribution?

How is this helping my key performance indicators?

What is the business value of this?

How do we know this program has contributed to the business?

Will the results of this project appear on my quarterly report?

These and similar questions focus on the issue of aligning projects and programs to the business. Programs must be aligned to the business early in their lives, throughout the implementation, and the business alignment must be validated after the program has been fully implemented and operational. Before we begin our discussion of the 10 steps to business alignment, this introduction focuses on several key issues about business alignment and why it is presently a critical topic.

Definition

Business alignment is defined in a variety of ways. One definition from Business Dictionary is: the linking of organizational goals with the employees' personal goals.

The term business alignment is also used in regards to information technology, in which case it is defined by Wikipedia as: a desired state in which a business organization is able to use technology effectively to achieve business objectives—typically improved financial performance or marketplace competitiveness.

For this book we will define business alignment as: ensuring that a new project, program, or process is connected directly to business impact measures, usually expressed in terms such as output, quality, cost, or time. It is important for alignment to be verified in the beginning of the project; during the life of the project, there should be constant focus on the business measures to maintain the alignment. Steps are usually taken to validate the business alignment, confirming that the project contributed to improvements in one or more important business measures. While this definition is comprehensive, it clearly describes the focus of this book.

Types of Solutions That Need Business Alignment

Business alignment can be developed for almost every type of project. Inside the typical business organization, alignment will often be required or suggested in four major market areas: technology, quality, marketing, and human resources. In addition, projects in other support areas such as procurement, research and development, engineering, risk management, logistics, public relations, compliance, and legal should also focus on business alignment as projects are developed and implemented. The softer the process, the more mysterious the alignment issue, and this often leads to more requirements for business connection. For example, projects in human resources, public relations, and corporate communications are soft in nature and often spark an interest from top executives to ensure that new projects, programs, and various activities and functions in these areas are aligned to the business. Table A shows some typical programs and projects where alignment is a critical issue. This is only a starting point; alignment can occur in almost any area.

TABLE A

Projects Where Business Alignment Is Needed

The Importance of Business Alignment

The issue of business alignment is reaching critical importance in organizations. When a project is properly aligned to the business, you and your organization will notice a huge difference. When it is not aligned, the results can be very disappointing and sometimes disastrous.

The Value of the Project

Sometimes the value of the project is reflected in the extent of the business alignment. Projects should be connected to the organization in terms of key business measures. When this is achieved, the value of the project is increased, particularly for those who fund and support it. Table B shows the new definition of value. An important part of this definition is the connection to business and sometimes the financial outcomes.

TABLE B

The New Definition of Value

Image of the Project

Projects that are not connected to business often suffer from an image perspective, while projects that are clearly connected have a more positive image. A business-aligned project earns executive respect and enhances the reputation of those who organize, control, implement, and even own these projects. This concept has evolved from the line versus staff distinction that permeated businesses decades ago. The line organization is the part of the business that produces and sells the project. In some cases the line focused on just those who produced the product. The other work was called staff, as they supported the line organization. The line was considered to be important, valuable, and essential, and often earned the full respect of the executive team. Staff, on the other hand, was often perceived as a necessary evil, not fully respected by the rest of the organization. From this concept, projects that are clearly aligned to important outcome measures such as output, quality, cost, and time have a very positive image, particularly if the measures are closely related to the principal mission of the organization.

Investing in the Project

Sometimes business alignment can determine whether or not a project is funded. Investment or funding decisions are usually made before a project is implemented. Also, investment decisions are made during a project to provide needed resources to keep the project going. After a project is completed, a decision is often made to invest in the same or similar projects in the future, based on the success of the project. In today’s economy, lack of business alignment often results in lack of investment.

Supporting the Project

To be successful, projects must be supported by managers. Support is provided in a variety of ways, such as allocating resources for the projects, allowing people to be involved in them, giving time to make them successful, and verbally endorsing the projects. Managers and administrators will support projects when they view them as important, and aligning projects to the business increases the perceived importance of a project. If the projects are not aligned, importance—and thus support—will diminish quickly.

Project Approval

In some organizations, projects are only implemented if they are properly aligned to the business; otherwise they are not approved. By policy, procedure, or practice, some organizations will not approve the project unless there is a clear connection to the business, defined prior to the implementation of the project. Additionally, in these organizations, projects will not be continued unless the alignment is maintained. The alignment is a critical part of the projected success.

Collectively, these issues make alignment a critical topic that cannot be ignored, regardless of the particular function in the organization.

Who Needs Business Alignment?

The individuals who need business alignment are those who fund, support, and own the projects. To them, business alignment is essential, but there are many others who must be made aware of the connection to the business. Table C defines the stakeholders for typical projects and programs. While every one of these stakeholders can benefit from alignment, it is crucial to some more than others. The critical stakeholders are described in further detail below.

Figure A shows the interest in alignment with the different stakeholders, ranging from the highest level to the lowest level.

Drivers for Business Alignment

So what has happened to cause so much focus on business alignment these days? Hasn’t it always been an issue? If not, what is causing it? Five major influences are driving this issue.

Trend toward Accountability

For the last two decades, there has been an obvious trend for more accountability in organizations. Executives have encouraged, supported, and even required others to be more accountable in driving important measures and outcomes. Figure B illustrates how different elements of a program’s implementation have changed to focus on results, including the specific business measures. The previous approach, labeled activity management, focused on activities—sometimes ignoring what those activities were driving or delivering.

TABLE C

Stakeholders for Typical Projects and Programs