Agile Business Ownership and the premise of Strategic Management

We believe that generating value for all stakeholders is the essence of any business (our first premise ). That's why we place this practice at the heart of the organizations' growth strategy. In addition, we believe that strategy works like a compass, guiding organizational evolution. It is a powerful tool for indicating the paths of value generation, leading the organization from its current state to a future state desired by all stakeholders (our second premise ).

If we understand that Business Agility is about developing new organizational capabilities (strategy) that positively impact all stakeholders and enable sustainable business growth, we will understand that it is also related to organizational evolution. Therefore, Business Agility requires leadership to sustain a continuous process of business value discovery and delivery to all parts of the organizational ecosystem (our fourth premise ).

Continuing the series of articles I'm writing about the Evolutionary Practices of Agile Business Ownership, I'm going to present the 5th premise related to value discovery:

(5) Strategic management should support the evolution of organizational capabilities through a continuous process of business value discovery.

We call Strategic Management the business value discovery macro-process of Agile Business Ownership's integrated evolutionary management system. It involves a cycle of inception (steering), design (structuring), implementation (monitoring) and delivery (evaluation) of the real (results), potential (capabilities) and transcendental (purpose) value generated by the business.

Strategic Management goes beyond the traditional annual strategic planning practiced by companies, as it involves cycles of inspection and adaptation of the business in the long (multi-annual), medium (annual) and short (quarterly) term. In addition, it continuously monitors the evolution of organizational capabilities (on a monthly basis) through strategic programs coordinated by the business leaders themselves.

It is the responsibility of top management to ensure that Strategic Management stimulates organizational evolution, keeping the business relevant, competitive and innovative. However, it is also up to middle management (strategic program leaders) to ensure that this process takes place in the organization. In short, the continuous process of discovering value from Strategic Management results from perfect integration and synchronization between Corporate Governance and Strategic Program Portfolio Management.

In the next article (6th premise), I will analyze the role of Corporate Governance in the Strategic Management process and give you tips on how to put this approach into practice to accelerate the development of Business Agility in your organization.

To think about: Do your company's leaders still approach Strategic Planning in a static and linear manner, as they did in the 20th century - defining long-term objectives and goals with action plans to achieve them in the short term? Is this really working? What challenges do you observe with this traditional method? Moreover, what advantages would a Strategic Management macro-process bring to your company, by defining roles, authorities, responsibilities, artifacts, and inspection cadences to adapt to business evolution?