Making strategy part of the day-to-day discussion at Juiced TV
Fire & Flint work with Juiced TV to develop an adaptive approach to designing and implementing strategy
Photo used with permission from Juiced TV.
“…Working with Fire & Flint was an incredible opportunity for us to learn about practices that would enable us to continue to innovate and have the quick turnaround we needed to suit the changing needs and wants of the patient population and the broader hospital community while creating a strong foundation for us to pursue our ‘big dreams’ as a team.”
Setting the scene:
We believe that traditional linear approaches to strategy are rational and effective in theory but practically limited. Why? These approaches assume a somewhat stable and static environment.
In today’s business environment, a competitive advantage can disappear much faster than it is obtained. To remain effective, businesses must develop a fluid and proactive approach to doing new and relevant things in pursuit of their vision. In other words, business strategies must be responsive to innovation and change. Not only that, strategies must translate into focused, meaningful actions that drive progress towards the desired end state.
To quote strategy guru Richard Rumelt, “A strategy that fails to define a variety of plausible and feasible immediate actions is missing a critical component”.
Building on this, if a strategy must be adaptable to the changing environment around it, so too must the identified actions be for making forward progress. Strategy can’t be a stale, cyclical box-ticking exercise that produces 100-slide PowerPoint decks and inch-thick, dust-gathering documents. A strategy must be embedded in the way you run your business every day.
Juiced TV:
We recently worked with Pip Forbes and her talented team of content creators, editors, marketers and relationship development gurus at Juiced TV. Juiced TV is a for-purpose organisation based in Brisbane that develops engaging content made by kids in hospital, for kids in hospital. The team wakes up each day to create a distraction, provide entertainment and make life a little easier for patients and their families when undertaking their hospital journey.
The Opportunity:
Pip and the team were looking to develop and implement a strategy that was in line with their creative, agile and collaborative culture.
The objective was to establish a way of working that integrated strategic thinking into their day-to-day decision making, with a strong connection to their work prioritisation and delivery. Plainly stated, they wanted the work they were doing each day to be connected and aligned with the company vision and their strategic priorities.
In delivering this engagement, it was very important that:
We established a strong connection between planning and execution (strategy must inform action)
Collaboration was maintained throughout the end-to-end process
The outcomes were light-weight and easy to adapt as things changed
Everything was accessible in one central place that the team could interact with in a real-time fashion
Juiced TV developed the in-house capability required to sustain the new work practices without assistance
The Engagement:
We designed a ten-week program for Juiced TV with the following outcomes:
Tailor and embed an approach to developing an adaptive strategy
Deliver the first iteration of the Juiced TV Strategy
Tailor and embed an adaptive delivery process to facilitate strategic execution
Coach the Juiced TV team in facilitating and sustaining the new way of working
By the end of this program, Juiced TV would be capable of designing a strategy and implementing relevant strategic actions as part of their day to day operations without support.
We structured the program into two phases:
Adaptive strategy design
Adaptive delivery (execution)
The two phases are intrinsically linked and together form what we call The Adaptive Strategy and Delivery Cycle. We have elaborated the key sequence of activities and their purpose in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Fire & Flint Adaptive Strategy & Delivery Cycle
Adaptive Strategy Design Phase:
In the first phase of this program, we set out to iteratively define the critical elements of an Adaptive Strategy (see Figure 1) for Juiced TV and coach the team to facilitate and repeat the process into the future. We began with the higher level direction and objectives of Juiced TV which should remain reasonably stable for a period of time. If the vision and strategic objectives change too often, it can cause volatility and uncertainty within a company that inhibits progress. We then worked our way down to elaborating the more specific, tactical goals (Critical Success Factors) and actions required to achieve the broader objectives of the Juiced TV strategy and take them closer to realising their vision. These elements are more susceptible to change and should be reviewed and updated regularly as new and better means of achieving the strategic objectives arise.
As we progressed through each step of the strategy design process, we continuously reviewed and iterated what we had defined previously to capture any new learnings and changes. The strategy is rarely right on the first attempt and often takes multiple iterations until it resonates with the team. At the end of this process, we had:
A cohesive and connected strategy that aligned with the vision and purpose of Juiced TV
Clear, measurable goals for making progress towards the strategic objectives
A backlog of tangible actions linked to the specific elements of the strategy they would enable when implemented
Adaptive Delivery Phase:
With the first iteration of the complete Juiced TV strategy defined, we then moved on to the second phase of building the adaptive delivery function (way of working) to enable execution (see Figure 1). This function is where the rubber meets the road in delivering upon what the business has committed to.
The purpose of this phase was to:
Embed an adaptive delivery function for:
Prioritising and planning the delivery of strategic actions
Allocating actions and facilitating centralised communication across the team
Monitoring the progress of actions
Capturing outcomes and learnings from delivery
Implement a central place to capture, prioritise, and manage the strategic actions for the business in a light-weight and real-time fashion
Coach the team in the roles and responsibilities required to facilitate and sustain the new way of working
The team decided to structure its delivery in two-week iterations. This means they would plan the strategic actions in detail two weeks in advance, whilst maintaining a backlog of future strategic activities to be defined clearly later. Two weeks ahead is a period for which the team has a high level of confidence in deciding which actions will add the most value to the business. The longer the period, the more likely it is that things will change and the actions defined at the beginning may no longer be relevant or the highest priority for the business. With a two week cycle, the team doesn't waste time planning too far in advance for things that will likely change and focus on obtaining very high clarity for the known, short-term activities. At the end of each iteration, the team reviews their progress against the strategy and changes priorities accordingly for the next iteration to maximise value for the business.
Key Outcomes:
The key outcomes of this program are:
The Juiced TV strategy is integrated into all organisational planning and decision-making activities.
Juiced TV has made their strategy real, relevant and accessible to the point that it can be referenced in every decision and action for the business with ease. The strategy is a living element of their business operations.
The new way of working for designing and executing an adaptive strategy is now running and changing without external support.
Juiced TV continues to improve their way of working to better support the team in delivering their strategy and deliver greater value to their customers. Juiced TV has also recently updated their strategy based on changing internal and external priorities for 2021 in consultation with the entire Juiced TV team, without any assistance from Fire & Flint.
The Juiced TV team has complete visibility of how what they do daily is contributing towards the organisational strategy and vision.
The team now has a clear understanding of why they are doing what they are doing and the insight and ability to challenge the things they think distract their focus and attention away from what matters most.
FEedback from Juiced TV:
Key Takeaways:
When undertaking a program like this, some key takeaways from our experience may help to ensure you mitigate some of the common pitfalls and challenges encountered along the way.
This approach doesn’t work without committed, passionate leadership that is willing to challenge the status quo and jump out of their comfort zone to drive positive change.
Don’t fall into the trap of feeling that you need to define the perfect strategy from the beginning. It often takes experience and learning from executing on the strategy to determine what is and isn’t working well. Don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo.
The end state is slightly different for every organisation. As long as the intended outcomes are achieved, how they are achieved should always be adapted to what works best for the organisation.
An organisation must be able to sustain and repeat the practices they follow into the future as/when required without external dependencies. Our priority is to ensure that the organisation owns its way of working, and it is something they want to sustain overtime because they see the value in doing so.
Conclusion:
We have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of our time with Juiced TV, a passionate organisation driving positive change in Australian hospitals. You can learn more about them at juicedtv.com.au.
If you would like to learn more about this project or the Adaptive Strategy approach we have applied, please get in touch with us at
enquiries@fireandflint.com or via our contact us link.