I help organisations cross the divide between business and technology by developing meaningful IT strategies that can be clearly communicated, implemented by all, and ultimately lead to the right decisions being made at all levels of the organisation.

My strategy services emphasise sound analysis and thinking, but also the creation of a meaningful decision framework for use throughout the organisation. My experience is that approach is required to empower everyone in the organisation to own the execution of strategy and to make the right decisions day to day.

Interpretation of business strategy is challenging for IT departments. Customer, competitor and supplier reality can be removed from day to day IT concerns and (frankly) poorly communicated by business colleagues. Demands on time and deadline pressure from planning and budgetary cycles contribute to a tendency for an “IT strategy” to be little more than a funding request for the next twelve months.

I offer both an objective perspective and first hand experience of managing competing demands during strategy formation. I help clients develop effective, executable IT strategies based on business direction or to review existing strategy for a planning or budget cycle. Learn more.

I provide a systematic and deliberate way for an organisation to review and enhance the competitiveness of its service offerings.

I help clients identify how their services are used and perceived by their customers by understanding what their customers are trying to achieve. From that understanding I facilitate the design of changes to better help a customer achieve their goals, increasing the value of the service.

Deliberate service innovation is therefore about respecting customers’ needs and how they use a service, and then designing services that are both easier for them to use but also better meet their goals.

Success requires breaking out of an inward looking focus on what an organisation produces to an outward looking one on what is in it for the customer. Looking differently at what an organisation does can be greatly accelerated with external help.

I help organisations make the right decision on whether to proceed with process or technology driven opportunities, and what is likely to be the best way of doing so. I provide a rigourous assessment, with common sense judgement, that can save hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of effort.

A critical starting point is to understand the potential value of the opportunity, using justifiable evidence. I go further and emphasise understanding what is driving that value. Without an understanding of such drivers it is all but impossible to identify rational trade-offs in implementation or risks due to changing circumstances.

I work with clients to identify meaningful options to deliver the opportunity, actively looking to uncover surprising approaches that are more effective or cheaper. A structured triage of options can yield enormous benefits in picking the right approach but is often omitted for want of time or experience.

I help organisations make decisions on programme value and bring together the organisational consensus required for programmes to be successful. Part of the programme setup is usually also the identification and recruitment of a suitable programme manager.

Setting up a programme of change is not the same as running one, and requires different skills. A well set up programme has clear sponsorship and stakeholders, and a well understood value proposition. Setting up a programme includes identifying what type of programme management is needed, and avoids hiring the wrong programme manager for the job.

I have experience working with a variety of organisations in this capacity, as sponsor, manager and service provider.

A periodic review of alignment to goals and value delivery can be useful for larger programmes, particularly those with multiple multi-project streams that span several years. I provide objective, focused reviews with a clear emphasis on ensuring the overall organisation goals are being met rather than unproductive nit-picking to have something to put in a report.