Altitudes and Latitudes of Alignment for AI Adoption

[This article was written in collaboration with Winnie Kroculick ]

Alignment is the linchpin of organizational success. It focuses Operations, Technology and Governance teams on delivering against the right priorities that are core to the organizations at each level of leadership across business units, functions, markets, products and platforms.? In this symphony, all work is human centered and? aligns to what was promised to the shareholder and is of value to the customer.

?? AI transformation ??

North Star | Change Culture | Pivot | Align | Digital Pillars | Playbook | Metrics

BUDGET ALIGNMENT

The reality is work can not progress without funding.

Creating the budget is an annual process. Maintaining and managing the budgets? against actuals happens weekly , monthly and quarterly.? Budget management is labor intensive and requires extreme attention to detail and they are highly dependent on a diverse set of structured and unstructured data sources.? Budgets are managed within functional silos, with fears of cuts and the “use it or lose it”? mindset playing a dominant role in the process. There are minimal cross functional discussions to address gaps, overlaps, dependencies and synergies.

However when there is a macro market disruption, like the emergence of the Internet in the late 90s, this process holds organizations back from quickly adjusting so they can innovate and disrupt with agility across all dimensions. For example, over a period of two decades the internet altered the supply side and the hand held device democratized the demand side of the flow of goods and services. Commerce and payments digitized, simplify the last mile from fingertip to doorstep in minutes.

Because of this, in the past decade we have enjoyed the "golden age of digital transformation".? Organizations that continued to embrace their legacy way of planning and traditional funding methods that enabled them to "do more of the same '' were passed by disruptors.? Organizations like Amazon, Google, Paypal, Square, Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, sat on the side of the disrupter,? NYC Cabs, Radio Shack, Blockbuster, Circuit City, Kodak, Yellowpages, Wythe labs? represent those that were passed by.

Modernizing the funding process entails taking the lessons from technology disruptors. and connecting the past to the future. Transformation endeavors need a strategic vision, and a destination with a clear sense of purpose at the front and center of Budgeting. An approach that starts with a fixed amount of money and backs into a list of things that can be done will tend to do more of the same. It is time to flip the script.? Organizations must focus on what needs to be done to meet the emerging trends, and continuously prioritize based sustaining market leadership.? A financial method that may serve well in the crossway of these traditional and transformation ways, is Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB).

Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB) is a budgeting approach in which organizations start each budgeting cycle from a "zero base" rather than using the previous year's budget as a starting point. In ZBB, every line item in the budget must be justified from scratch, regardless of whether it was included in the previous budget. This changes the mindset of use it or lose it, no matter what the outcomes or impacts are.

As organizations modernize their budget alignment practices, they will be better equipped to navigate future AI disruptions, embrace change, ensure revenue stability, and capitalize on emerging market opportunities while nurturing customer relationships. This will establish a seamless link between financial resources, strategic goals, and execution teams. Modernized budget alignment practices? will be responsive to both external and internal drivers, minimize friction and ensure agility in the face of any disruption.

ROADMAP ALIGNMENT

A roadmap serves as a critical bridge between budget allocation and the strategic objectives of an organization by articulating priorities/initiatives, objectives, milestones, and dependencies across various functions, products, platforms, and markets.?

Over the past three decades, roadmaps in program, project, and product management have evolved significantly to become indispensable tools for planning and execution.?

In the early 1990s, project management primarily relied on Gantt charts and linear timelines to outline tasks and schedules. By the 2000s, the advent of Agile methodologies brought about a shift towards more flexible and iterative roadmaps, particularly in software development.?

The 2010s witnessed a surge in product management roadmaps, which became essential for communicating product strategies and priorities.

In recent years, roadmaps have become highly visual and collaborative, often incorporating elements of design thinking and customer-centricity. They represent the elaborated vision of what the product will become over time with investment.? They are tools that support planning,? align teams, communicate to stakeholders AND support the ability to leverage agility to change rapidly to adapt to market and customer needs

Roadmaps, if used correctly, play a pivotal role in navigating complex, dynamic business' landscapes offering a clear path for achieving strategic objectives across domains.

Fueled by the need to give agile teams autonomy, over the course of time, roadmaps have narrowed in focus.? They are more commonly? focused on single products and platforms.? Funds become captured in a CICD model where they are continuously integrated and used to continuously deploy without validating value or adjusting to any macro external drivers . ? Consequently we have just invested in more of the same.

Don't get me wrong, the roadmap provides tremendous value and gives teams autonomy.

It enables a fail fast and course correct approach.? The challenge is in looking beyond the silos, and enabling super capabilities across functional roadmaps. The synergies, opportunities and consequently the meaningful saves remain unattained.

When we apply a ZBB funding model to continuous agile lines of delivery, it requires a new kind of alignment discipline. One that requires an “uber roadmap”, an orchestrator of all roadmaps that brings organizational priorities to the forefront.

In order to align multiple Agile roadmaps with the organization's transformation objectives, ZBB can help prioritize and fund only those initiatives that drive maximum value across the organization. It can help develop a culture of financial accountability and adaptability that is?

essential in today's dynamic environment.?

Alignment of roadmaps needs continuity - and that can be accomplished by developing ZBB powered agile practices like but not limited to

Strategic Focus: Emphasize value delivery and business impact.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Ensure stakeholders are working towards common OKRs and have contextual metrics for consistent measurements

Data-Driven Decision-Making: Refine strategies based on real-time results and metrics that measure progress over time

Continuous Monitoring: Adjust resource allocation to maximize value.

Incorporating ZBB into Agile budgeting practices drives? the alignment of multiple roadmaps to the organization's North Star. It prioritizes and funds initiatives that drive maximum value, while fostering a culture of financial accountability.? Even if we get the funding to match year over year dollars, ZBB will maximize value to the customer or shareholder. From a capacity perspective this doesn't mean we don't fund teams year over year, it just means we add a layer of financial accountability at the top of the organization to deliver priorities with predictability while preserving the autonomy of teams.

Roadmap prioritization is an ongoing, dynamic process that operates both horizontally and vertically across an organization. It starts by establishing a framework that seamlessly connects available funds to strategic roadmaps, but it doesn't stop there. It extends to cataloging wish lists, assessing their potential value, and creating a transparent system for prioritization that functions at both the highest organizational levels and within individual teams' tactical backlogs.??

Effective roadmaps identify dependencies across silos taking into consideration projected timelines with a level of confidence that is consistently assessed and adjusted holistically. By comprehensively mapping priorities and dependencies, organizations gain the ability to re-prioritize effectively, leveraging AI capabilities to drive efficiencies. Roadmap prioritization gives visibility across the organization that we are working collectively? on the highest priorities, stopping non critical priorities and freeing up capacity to embark on innovation.?

This process involves the identification and mitigation of redundancies across various roadmaps and initiatives, enabling the strategic reallocation of resources. By eliminating conflicting work-streams and streamlining efforts, organizations can unlock valuable resources that can be redirected to support AI initiatives. Furthermore, this approach allows organizations to incrementally introduce AI-driven solutions into their roadmaps, facilitating continuous improvement and optimization over time. In essence, understanding and managing dependencies across initiatives and leveraging AI fosters a culture of adaptability, responsiveness, and resource efficiency that ultimately fuels successful transformation and innovation.

Aligning Strategy to Vision, Roadmaps to Strategy and Funding Roadmaps through a modernized Budgeting process is key for any change program. The emergent AI agenda makes it ever so important to iteratively and continuously align all Operations, Technology, and Innovation to truly reap the benefits for the shareholder and customer.

In the intricate ecosystem of AI, ML, Data, Decisioning, and Analytics, human intervention assumes a pivotal role bridging the gap between automated applications and data engineering. Here, human expertise is instrumental in gathering, synthesizing, and meticulously reviewing patterns of progress, success, and potential risks. These insights empower decision-makers to chart the course for the next best action, ensuring that technology aligns with strategic goals and real-world complexities. In certain instances, these manual interventions extend beyond organizational boundaries to engage partners, vendors, or even customer inputs, introducing asynchronous interactions into the mix. Today these interactions are marred by delays and multiple touchpoints, barriers to collaboration and timely resolution.

Generative AI has emerged as a transformative force, capable of seamlessly integrating multiple data sources and harnessing the capabilities of large language models to bypass the need for manual curation, review, or content approval in between. This technology holds the promise of streamlining workflow steps by introducing algorithmic decision-making in real-time. By doing so, it has the potential to eliminate the asynchronicity and inefficiency that often plague these processes. With the power of Generative AI, organizations can not only boost efficiency but can also enhance the speed and accuracy of decision-making, ultimately driving productivity and innovation to new heights by eliminating intermediary manual steps.

Any and all inflight Technology initiatives,? manual interventions and asynchronous delays need to be assessed from a customer centric view.? Enriched AI aligned priorities will focus on target state,? which forces us to re-priotize tech backlogs based on that strategic imperative.???

So what? Aligning budgets and incorporating ZBB,? creating "uber roadmaps" that roll up priorities for the organization and cascades them across functions, embedding Generative AI capabilities in the tech backlog will together drive a mindset that ensures that all work is human centered and? aligns to what was promised to the shareholder and is of value to the customer.

Pivot can enable an organization to navigate the complexities of AI transformation and deliver tangible outcomes at various milestones throughout the AI transformation journey.

?? AI transformation ?? North Star | Change Culture | Pivot | Align | Digital Pillars | Playbook | Metrics

NOTE: The views expressed in this article are solely my own and do not represent any past, present, or future affiliations.