Re:Align - A technologist's review
Re:Align - A leadership blueprint for overcoming disruption and improving performance, by Dr? Jonathan Trevor of Oxford’s Said Business School is written for a general leadership audience, yet I found the book to be very valuable for technology leaders and Enterprise Architects and is complementary to a lot of the technology books I’ve read.
Dr Trevor first wrote?Align, which was written pre-pandemic and I read in early 2020. At the time I thought it very relevant to dealing with pandemic-induced disruption [1] . Re:Align is part sequel, part update. It’s the same fundamental concepts but with significant changes in light of the startling changes to business dynamics over the past couple of years. Economic volatility, supply chain disruptions, the breakdown of business models, stressing of fundamental operating processes that were optimised for efficiency over adaptability (eg. Just-in-time manufacturing; staffing levels based on 100% utilisation), the great resignation, quiet quitting, etc.. have all been external impacts on businesses that have the potential to throw businesses out of alignment or to demand realignment. Throw in the massive changes that organisations are driving themselves such as initiatives for building back better and implementing digital and business transformations, and alignment problems could be exacerbated, and these efforts diluted, if the alignment is not carefully managed. This is the context for the updates that have been made to Re:Align.?
The book is about “strategic realignment as the means of overcoming disruption and securing high performance on a sustainable basis”. It bridges academic research and practical application as highlighted by the many case studies, and is intended to help practitioners lead their enterprises to greater value. The book takes the view of an organisation as a value chain (Enterprise Purpose -> Business Strategy -> Organisational Capability -> Organisational Architecture -> Management Systems), and the basic premise of?Re:Align?is that how well aligned these elements are is critical to performance. This is fairly intuitive and not exactly groundbreaking - who hasn’t heard this articulated informally as “get everybody rowing in the same direction”, “ducks in a row”, “all the wood behind the arrow”, etc.. While simple, making it happen is rarely done well, and this is where?Re:Align?is focused - by providing frameworks and a toolkit to identify and communicate the misalignment between parts of the value chain, misalignment between the current and desired future state, as well as identifying where action is required to drive realignment, and prioritising by urgency and importance. Dr Trevor is a contingency theorist, so he doesn’t provide you with a set of best practices to implement, rather he gives you the tools to work out what your organisation needs and to prioritise your efforts.?
An example of one of the tools is the Strategic Alignment Framework:??
The SAF allows organisations to map their current and ideal future approach to strategy and organisation across the dimensions of stability vs agility, and connectivity (how interdependent parts of the business are) vs autonomy. At the macro level, this shows the gaps between the current and future state (requiring realignment), but it can also highlight the degree of alignment between different parts of the current value chain.?
An example of this that I’ve seen time and again over the past decade, but has really exploded with the pandemic induced volatility and uncertainty around business dynamics, is an increasing bias towards agility and adaptability to change - to either survive through crises or to be able to pounce on new opportunities that are emerging. i.e. organisations moving towards agility on the X-axis. The business environment is changing so fast, organisations have to reinvent themselves to stay relevant and avoid being disrupted by upstarts. Efficiency is worth nothing if you’re really good at delivering something no one wants anymore. The underlying trend seems to be a reflection of the changing nature of the world, as we move from industrialisation to the knowledge era, from complicated to complex, from Kind vs Wicked domains [2], from 20th century reductionism to Systems Thinking. We see this in big things (like new business models) and small (the popularity of cloud consumption models with higher unit costs but increased flexibility). Almost as common, I’ve seen organisations struggle to move that way uniformly and in alignment. For every agile team and innovation department tasked with delivering new capability at speed, they’re usually bottlenecked by some kind of heavily bureaucratic set of processes optimised for stability and efficiency by legal or finance. Dr Trevor acknowledges this “One of the most challenging paradoxes of administration is balancing the apparent trade-off between bureaucratic efficiency and post-bureaucratic flexibility”.?
Why did I find the book to be so relevant from an Enterprise Architecture perspective???
Firstly, the context. Many companies are undergoing huge amounts of change and many are implementing digital transformations and technology platforms as the foundation for their ability to be more adaptable in the future. Big trends such as cloud and agile, which have seen increased adoption over the past decade, are now seeing increased urgency/importance and in numerous cases are the leading edge of the transformation. As the adage goes, all businesses are becoming technology businesses.??
Secondly, we see the types of alignment issues that Dr Trevor talks about in IT all the time. The aforementioned agile development team constrained by fixed/traditional project financing (misalignment on the stability / agility axis between strategy and management systems), cloud migrations where half the org is focused on driving cost optimisations, and the other half is looking to it to deliver increased capacity and greater flexibility [3].
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Finally, the nature of an architect's role means they are well placed to be involved with, or drive, alignment efforts.??
As Gregor Hohpe , in the Software Architect Elevator [5] states “Architects play a critical role as a connecting and translating element, especially in large organisations where departments speak different languages, have different viewpoints, and drive towards conflicting objectives. Many layers of management only exacerbate the problem as communicating up and down the ladder resembles the telephone game” (or Chinese whispers as it is known in Australia). One of my former tutors, Steve Mostyn , often stressed the importance of leaders needing to move between the balcony and the dance floor [6], which has similarities to Hohpe’s concept of architects riding the elevator between the engine room and the ivory tower.?
Development of technology roadmaps typically fits within an EA’s remit, and obviously shouldn’t be created in isolation. It is equally important that technology roadmaps are aligned with broader aspects of the enterprise value chain as it is that they drive alignment within IT's walls. Many improvement initiatives (local optimisations) end up contributing little to an organisation’s performance as there are limiting constraints elsewhere in the system (see The Toyota Production System, Theory of Constraints, Poppendieck, and my personal favourite “ Steve Spear ” for more [7]). Not only are architects well placed to notice misalignment in the value chain, they are also well placed to identify where flow is constrained, and often have a broad spectrum of contacts and experience influencing across disparate parts of the business.
Furthermore, Architects' work touches on most parts of the enterprise value chain and driving alignment is a large part of an architect’s role. As such, EAs are becoming increasingly important in bridging the business/IT divide and driving both alignment and the realisation of business value. This book will help you do that. Get the book, devour it, share it with your colleagues, and most importantly put it into action!
Footnotes:
The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. (https://www.amazon.com.au/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement-ebook/dp/B002LHRM2O/);
Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash by Mary Poppendieck (https://www.amazon.com.au/Implementing-Lean-Software-Development-Poppendieck/dp/0321437381/);
The High-Velocity Edge by Steven Spear (https://www.amazon.com.au/High-Velocity-Edge-Operational-Excellence-Competition/dp/0071741410/).
IBM zSystems and LinuxONE - IBM Australia
2 年Great review Shane, it all makes a lot of sense particularly in light of world experiences in the last couple of years. It makes me want to read more, so it hits the mark.
Associate Dean and Professor at Sa?d Business School, University of Oxford | Researcher | Advisor | Teacher | Speaker
2 年Dear Shane McGregor - thank you very much indeed for the thoughtful and generous review of Re:Align. I am wildly flattered you invested the time in compiling the review. I think you have captured very well what I was trying to achieve with it, including reflections on alignment/realignment and the relationship to disruption. The book was written for everyone. But especially 'enterprise architects' (aka enterprise leaders and systems leaders) regardless of field, from technology through to strategy and all things in between. I am delighted it resonates. Thank you again for the kind words and for investing the time. Best regards, Jonathan
Associate Fellow Sa?d Business School, Honorary Professor Adam Smith Business School
2 年Shane McGregor - thanks for this excellent book review of Re: Align. I work with so many faculty and you have captured Jonathan Trevor approach and strength perfectly with your comment ?'Dr Trevor is a contingency theorist, so he doesn’t provide you with a set of best practices to implement, rather he gives you the tools to work out what your organisation needs and to prioritise your efforts.'
Retired from big tech. Not retired from riding the Architect Elevator to make IT and architecture a better place. Have opinions on EA, platforms, integration, cloud, serverless.
2 年"From the balcony to the dance floor" could have been an alternative title for The Architect Elevator