Capability-based Planning in 7 moves! (5/7)

Move #5: Set improvement goals

After the previous move…

It’s time to set ML improvement goals for BCs. The main idea is to move forward the BCs in the Gap Zone to bring them out of there and put them in Acceptance Band. But this is only a rule of thumb and in every certain situation, we need a concrete analysis of improvement requirements, based on the as-is landscape, strategy execution time-frame, allocatable resources, etc. to set definitive target ML for each BC.

Since the ML improvement of BCs is, in general, a difficult and time-consuming task, it would be a good idea to break down the path to target ML into some improvement increments, each span for up to 1 year. It makes a set of acceptance lines for BC MLs on the ML-SI Matrix.

Following is an example:

There are 3 acceptance lines set in the above example, for 3 consequent years:

• The first increment, shown by the red line, implies that by the end of 2023, Product Management capability will be improved to ML rank 1, GRC and Customers Management capabilities ML rank will be improved to 2.
• The second increment, shown by the green line, implies that by the end of 2024, Product Management and Strategic Management capabilities will be improved to ML rank 2.
• The third increment, shown by the blue line, implies that by the end of 2025, Product Management and Marketing & Sales Management capabilities will be improved to ML rank 3.

The above targets require a capability improvement roadmap for 5 strategically important capabilities for the period 2023-25, as shown in the following table:

Note that setting target ML ranks for BCs is not an algorithmic rigid process and needs management insight into the future of the business and inter-relations between business strategy and BCs. Therefore, take the above-mentioned procedure just as an illustrative example and pick your own method to set the improvement goals.

Then, go to the next move…