John Bourne

Category: Stakeholder management

  • When strategy lands and delivery panics: Closing the gap without the drama

    I have struggled first-hand with the gap between strategic intent and real‑world digital delivery. I want to explore why that gap exists and how leaders can help digital delivery teams to be better supported through co‑creation, strategic alignment and practical collaboration.

    Strategy launch day

    The strategy deck lands well. The ambition feels right. Senior stakeholders nod.

    The delivery team are a bit quiet.

    Suddenly the room is full of questions that weren’t answered in the deck:

    • “Who actually owns this?”
    • “Do we stop doing what we are already working on?”
    • “Please tell me we’re not replatforming our CMS again?”

    This is the space between strategic intent and operational reality. And from where I’m standing, the space feels quite big.

    Mind the gap

    When a strategy deck lands with a team that hasn’t been close to its creation something predictable happens.

    • Teams translate abstract pillars into practical implications. As the slides hit the screen in the boardroom, I can see my team’s minds whirring:
      • “Customer-centric transformation” = a list of unimaginative personas.
      • “Data-driven decision-making” = re-reporting on user needs that we’ve already told them about.
      • “Platform modernisation” = a horrifying dependency map and unnecessary CMS upgrade.

    The team are confused and on the back foot and, frankly, are scared about what is to come. If the deck has any level of surprise to it, the team drift around in the ambiguity of the words they see in front of them.

    Why have strategy at all?

    Strategy is very important. I can’t do my job without it. I’m always so sad when I see a jaded team member roll their eyes at “just another load of words that don’t mean anything”. We have to find a way for them to buy into strategy that doesn’t feel hollow.

    Strategy shouldn’t have all the details, it’s not there for that. It’s not a detailed operational plan but a a direction setter. However, I find that teams often forget that detail when they receive a deck. I put this mostly to the fact they’ve not been close to it’s creation and the constant reiteration of why it’s being made in the first place.

    When strategy is presented as a finished artefact rather than a co-created direction, delivery teams don’t reject it outright. They stir over it and have an uncomfortable wait to see if it becomes reality or not.

    Until then, it is just a declaration.

    Shift from presentation to participation

    If strategy is going to resonate with the team, they need to be close to how it came to be.

    Instead of unveiling a completed strategy deck, treat the final phases of its development as a working session.

    It can’t just be the team leaders either – it has to include the whole team.

    Involving all of a digital team early will:

    • surface feasibility risks
    • build a shared language
    • help call out dependencies early
    • increase trust across the whole team

    A strategy that isn’t “heard” by the team is not a comms issue. It is a contribution and collaboration issue.

    What happens when you work together

    When digital teams are involved from the outset:

    • Roadmaps have already leaned towards the future direction direction when the strategy launches
    • Capacity assumptions are more realistic
    • Governance implications are anticipated
    • There is far less fear and far more hope

    The strategy deck doesn’t land as a disruption, but rather a confirmation.

  • I wish I had more time to see you! Let’s still be friends?

    The other day I had a message out of the blue from a friend I’d not spoken to in a long time, asking how I was and to see if I wanted to meet up.

    I felt guilty. I’d not spoken to them in ages, but I really value their friendship. I didn’t want them to think I’d forgotten about them, I’ve just been busy with other life stuff.

    Cartoon image of a man looking at his phone looking quite anxious, like he's maybe guilty about something he's just read.

    I wrote back hastily to say sorry and explain how busy I’d been. “Let’s get a date in the diary! It’s been too long!”.

    I feel like a bad friend, but know that they understand why I’ve not seen them. Life is busy… I have young kids and live on a farm. The thing is, it’s not an unusual occurrence.

    It got me thinking about work. I am a Senior Product Manager across a large portfolio of work with a small team. I need to prioritise both the broad areas to focus on as well as features within any specific product. Sometimes I get an email asking “what’s happening with the update of my site?”, which I need to remind myself of, digging through the backlog. The similar feeling as I had with my friend starts to creep up on me…

    I then have a bunch of questions:

    • Do I get too many of these types of message?
    • Does that indicate that I’m doing something wrong?
    • How should I manage things so they’re not cut adrift?
    • How can I tell them I think they’re important, but maybe not on the top of the agenda?
    • How do I keep that relationship healthy, even if I’m not directly working on things they really care about?

    Emotions can get in the way

    When my friend got in touch, I was sad that I’d let communication with them slip. It’s easy to feel the same about a work collegue and then immediately feel like you need to make it up to them. You want to make it right.

    Should I reprioritise because of neglect in that relationship? Just because they got in touch, do I have to jump on that? I don’t think that’s right, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to get too emotionally attached.

    What does “I’ve been busy” mean to them?

    So, I tell them how sorry I am and that I’ve been so busy. What do they care? They just want an answer. So, how can I show them less about how busy I am, and what the priority is for their problem? Well, that’s what a backlog is for… right?

    What a product backlog means to me vs what it means to them

    I show them a backlog, and how much other work is prioritised above them. They think it’s a black hole. They still have a real problem they need to solve, and I’m blocking them.

    Sometimes this means they’ll find alternative routes to solve their issue which could be problematic. We’ve had many examples of people making their own rival website separate to the company site, just because we couldn’t put all the pictures they wanted on there. To solve that I need robust governance as well as a wider culture shift to get people to understand the bigger picture of what a website is for… but that won’t happen overnight. The work I need to do now is not show them how their feature is lower down a list, but how the stuff higher up the list is going to help them even more.

    How I want to manage this from now on

    You’re not a bad friend for not seeing everyone all the time, and you’re not a bad PM for having a large portfolio. But you are a bad PM if you’re not working in the open enough.

    I think the answer to my first question – Do I get too many of these types of message? – is yes. They’re a symptom of not being open enough and not dedicating enough time to explaining what I’m trying to do.

    I want to:

    1. Try harder to be pro-active.

      I should get out in front of people and invite more people to demos. I need to reduce the amount of messages from seemingly forgotten friends.
    2. Keep a focus on the big stuff that will help everyone.

      I don’t want to fire-fight everyone’s design issues on their bit of the site, I want a design system that everyone understands and buys into.

      I don’t want to fix the fact they can’t add a picture to their bespoke listing of facilities, I want a content model of “facilities” across the institute that makes for better holistic find-ability.

      Avoid promising features. I want to fix the bigger user need gaps, and that’s not reacting to the symptom, it’s fixing the cause.
    3. Find the time to explain it all.

      I want to take them for coffee and explain the context and why the future is looking bright. I need to hear them out too. Can they help me build a better picture to prioritise? Probably.