Author Interview – Whynde Kuehn and Dr. Brian H. Cameron
Book Title: The Execution Challenge: Delivering Great Strategy at Scale
From the Editor: Welcome to the latest in our series of interviews with leading authors of books in Architecture and its related disciplines.
In this edition, we speak to Whynde Kuehn and Brian Cameron about their great new book, The Execution Challenge. As practitioners, I’m sure you’ll know that having a business strategy, even one that is well defined, is not enough. You must be able to execute on that strategy to bring about the changes you need in your organisation to meet its objectives.
Released in July 2024, this has quickly become a favourite for Business Architects, Enterprise Architects, Strategic Planners, Program Managers, Business Executives, Educators and more. Going beyond the theory of why strategy execution fails so often in organisations, this book provides real-world, pragmatic advice and tools. It is written to help companies succeed in delivering change that allows them to thrive in an increasingly challenging global business ecosystem.
We hope you enjoy reading this wide-ranging interview, and we thank Whynde and Brian for their generosity in answering so many of our questions.
If you would like your own copy, the book is available here.
EAPJ: Can you tell our readers a little bit about yourself, your professional histories, and what brought the two of you together to co-author a book?
Brian: Sure, here’s a few snippets from my CV. I’m the Associate Dean for Professional Graduate Programs and Clinical Professor of Information Systems in the Smeal College of Business at the Pennsylvania State University. I am also a Senior Consultant with Cutter Consortium’s Business & Enterprise Architecture practice where I’ve published a number of enterprise architecture and business architecture related reports. I am also the Founding Director of the Center for Enterprise Architecture in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State and Founding President of the Federation of Enterprise Architecture Professional Organizations (FEAPO). I designed and implemented the first online Enterprise Architecture master’s program in the world and was awarded the NPA Career Achievement Award in 2011 for efforts related to founding FEAPO, building the Center for Enterprise Architecture, and associated service to the enterprise architecture profession.
I have worked with a wide portfolio of companies on a variety of consulting engagements, ranging from systems integration strategy to strategic enterprise and business architecture planning and design. I have consulted with Accenture, AT&T Wireless, Avaya, Boeing, EMC Corp, Lockheed Martin, NSA, Oracle, Raytheon, US Marine Corps, Saudi Telecommunications Corp (STC), and many others. I have also served as an expert witness for major U.S. law firms and have served on the boards and working committees of a number of international professional organizations and journals. I am currently a special advisor to the Business Architecture Guild.
My current research focus is effective value measurement for strategy execution and strategic business architecture. I developed a popular online graduate certificate in strategic business architecture and currently teach an online graduate level course for working professionals on strategic business architecture. This course focuses on strategic business architecture as a facilitator of strategy execution.
Whynde and I met through the Business Architecture Guild® where I serve as an academic advisor. We see the evolution of the business architecture profession in a similar manner and saw a need for the book in the marketplace.
Here’s some text from the introduction to the book that helps answer why we wrote this book: “My over twenty-year journey with strategy execution evolved as I moved into strategy-oriented IT leadership roles and more recently through my ongoing research and work with enterprise and business architecture groups and strategic planning groups in a variety of organizations and industries. I started this journey with the indoctrination that direct alignment between business and IT strategy was the “holy grail” but also saw that this alignment was not happening in most organizations and I began to explore why this was the case. At the same time, I ran across a quote from Michael Porter stating that 80% of organizations fail to execute their business strategy which was consistent with my experience. I also saw that in many of these organizations, the failure of IT to align with business strategy was often blamed as a primary cause of this failure to execute strategy. I asked myself if this was the real root cause of the strategy execution problems or was it something more – my conclusions offer a pragmatic and proven approach to strategy execution and alignment that challenges some of the traditional literature and thinking…..
…..I developed and launched an online graduate course in strategic business architecture that focuses on utilizing the practice of strategic business architecture as a driver of effective strategy execution. I started this course at Penn State in 2018 as a required course in our online enterprise architecture and business transformation master’s program and as an elective course in our online MBA program and online master’s in strategic management and executive leadership master’s program (this master’s program is populated with many strategic planning related executives). The course started with 25 students from the enterprise architecture master’s program and has grown to two offerings per year with over 125 students per year with over two-thirds coming from the online MBA program and online master’s in strategic management. The strategic planning people that take the course tell me that this course is what they have been searching for – a pragmatic approach to the HOW of strategy execution. As a result of this course, several students have received job offers from their strategic planning organizations to bring a strategic business architecture perspective to their strategy execution efforts.”
There are no other books like this out there today and the book has been very well received by people from a wide variety of organizations in a variety of strategy execution related roles including enterprise and business architecture.
Whynde: I have had the honor of working with an extensive array of organizations around the world to help them build their capacity for end-to-end strategy execution, including Fortune 500 and global enterprises, governmental and non-profit organizations, social enterprises, startups, and cross-sector initiatives. Regardless of size, industry, or sector, I have observed that most organizations share a similar challenge: how to successfully turn big ideas into action. I fell in love with the gap between strategy and execution and the power of clear intent translated into organized effort to help bridge it.
I am a long-time practitioner, thought leader, educator, advocate, and community builder in strategy execution and strategic business architecture. I have led large-scale transformations and teams, and I am proud of my track record in creating successful strategic business architecture practices worldwide. I am also co-founder and academic chair of the Business Architecture Guild®.
The way I look at it is: every day I wake up and serve a global vision and community around cohesive, end-to-end strategy to execution and the intentional, sustainable design of organizations, enabled by strategic business architecture. I am a catalyst and changemaker for new ways of thinking and doing business. That is really who I am and what drives me. Today my focus is on helping organizations to build their capacity for end-to-end strategy to execution and build their strategic business architecture practices. I love making a difference and helping people.
As Brian mentions, we came together through the Business Architecture Guild®’s efforts around higher education. I found him to be a kindred spirit as we both saw the advantage of effective strategy execution for organizations along with the untapped potential of strategic business architecture as a critical enabler. We both saw similar contributors to poor strategy execution outcomes such as the fragmentation of organizational structures, processes, and accountabilities. We were also both passionate and curious to research and uncover the true root causes of the strategy execution challenge.
Brian and I both believed that this book needed to be written, and in a way that would resonate with strategy and strategic planning leaders and teams who could champion the ideas.
EAPJ: What were your key motivations for writing this book, and what outcomes are you hoping for, now that it’s published?
Brian: As I discuss in the book introduction, early in my career I uncovered the emerging discipline of strategic business architecture and the many modeling approaches and tools that fall under this broad umbrella that enable the in-depth organizational understanding needed to develop the enterprise-wide perspectives that are critical for creating (and maintaining) “line of sight” linkages between business strategies and tactical execution (typically in the form of project portfolios). The development and usage of these perspectives made so much sense and I assumed that the strategic planning profession has a similar approach and set of tools for facilitating effective strategy execution but perhaps called it something other than strategic business architecture. After talking to many people in the strategic planning profession and exploring what the strategic planning professional organizations had to offer, I learned that no such comprehensive approach to strategy execution exists though pieces are referenced from time to time when discussing strategy execution. It was clear to me that a marriage between strategic business architecture and strategy execution would be the “holy grail” that many in the strategy execution arena were searching for.
I also suspected that part of the problem with the issues plaguing strategy execution was the manner in which the topic was covered in most graduate business programs. I decided to explore how strategy execution was taught/approached in higher education at the graduate level. My hypothesis was based on my experiences and was: “if strategy execution was covered in a curriculum, it was done at a high-level that focuses primarily on the WHAT and WHY of strategy execution with very little detail on the HOW”. The HOW is hard and often messy. I organized a research study sponsored by the Business Architecture Guild® and the Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable to explore this question. Whynde and I collaborated on this study. The bottom line was that my hypothesis was correct – we found mostly lip service on strategy execution with no detail on HOW to effectively align project level execution with business strategy (and keep them aligned over time).
Whynde: The Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable study that Brian mentioned was an inspiration and key turning point for me. I also was continuing to realize that what got us here won’t get us there. I mean that from two different perspectives.
First, to really succeed at strategy execution – and with the discipline of strategic business architecture – we need to think and act differently. We have approached the design and change of our organizations in a siloed and reactive way for far too long. It is time to take a view of the whole and to connect the dots across the functions and disciplines involved in strategy execution. Strategy execution is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary function as important as any other, and it requires focused business leadership and commitment.
Second, as much as business architecture has been repositioned as a strategic discipline and is growing worldwide by every measure, we still haven’t crossed the chasm to mainstream adoption.
So, one of my key motivations for writing this book – and the outcome I am hoping for – is that we can help to reshape the way we all think about strategy execution. My greatest hope is for the book to be read and adopted by business executives and boards, and in higher education.
We envision a future where the business students and leaders of tomorrow have a strong command of how to deliver strategy at scale, guided by the holistic perspectives of strategic business architecture – and that strategy execution as an enterprise-wide function with accountability for outcomes becomes the standard.
EAPJ: The material in the book appears to have a universal applicability across industries. What do you think makes these challenges so common and widespread in business environments?
Whynde: The concepts in the book are indeed universally applicable to organizations across all industries and sectors – and to organizations of all sizes, including startups and small businesses. Why these strategy execution challenges exist have has been a constant source of fascination and research for me.
Without getting too philosophical, I will share a few root causes that I see. The first is the various silos within an organization. I believe some of this is a function of our legacy, industrial structuring of organizations, but I also think that we don’t teach holistic and systems thinking enough early on in our schools either. The second factor is that as the Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable study uncovered, we rarely teach students how to translate strategy into execution in business schools. Third, I think there is a tremendous bias towards action and short-term thinking in organizations. However, the opportunity is to slow down in the beginning to look at the bigger picture and make sure we are doing the right things, so that we can speed up later and prevent many of the downstream challenges in execution from ever occurring in the first place.
Brian: Definitely, the book applies to all types and sizes of organizations – public and private. Porter cites failure to execute strategy as one of the top issues for organizations of all types and sizes. Our first chapter deals with this problem and root causes in detail. There is a lot to unpack here, and I’ll leave the detailed explanation to the book.
EAPJ: You speak in the book about the “How” of strategy execution, and it being the missing piece in much of the material that has come before. What do you think are the main reasons why this important aspect of business change has gone under-represented in past treatments of strategy formation and execution?
Brian: Great question that we cover in detail in the book. I mentioned the study that Whynde and I conducted that provided a basis for the book. I’ll provide a little more information on the study now. According to Michael Porter and other recognized experts, strategy execution is a major issue for all types of organizations today. Also, it appears that there have not been significant improvements in the ability of organizations to successfully execute strategy. This analysis suggests several possible contributing factors to this problem:
Only Part of the Problem is Covered
Most of the courses in this analysis covered strategic management and leadership topics and only
focused one or two weeks to strategy execution/implementation, concentrating on topics such as organizational culture and structure, change management, team dynamics, rewards and incentives,
power and influence, and effective communications. These topics were often discussed in the context of case studies.
While these topics are important contributors to strategy execution, they do not explain the details of HOW to perform strategy execution comprehensively and how to link the execution layer (projects) with business strategy and ongoing changes to business strategy. Without this linkage, the execution (project) layer falls out of alignment with strategy.
Strategy Execution Courses Don’t Go Deep Enough
The courses with strategy execution/implementation in their titles focused heavily on the human and organizational elements of strategy implementation – managing people, resistance to change, building effective teams, navigating/understanding politics, types of power, change management strategies, importance of communication, organizational structure, information and decision processes, rewards, people, and leading change without formal authority. These topics were taught by the use of case studies that focus on one or more of these areas.
While these topics are important for successful strategy execution, they are far from the comprehensive set of skills, knowledge, and processes needed for successful strategy execution. None of these courses discuss HOW to link the execution layer (projects) with business strategy and manage ongoing changes to business strategy. None of the cases used focus on this critical aspect of strategy execution. The case teaching method is effective at a higher, conceptual level and tends to address the WHAT and WHY well but often does not provide many details on the HOW which is often context/organization specific. In addition, cases rarely give the students the opportunity to model and explore their own organization and problems and get hands‐on experience with the details of the HOW component of strategy execution.
Business Architecture Offers a Needed Complement
This analysis suggests that an incomplete strategy execution picture is presented in many business curriculums today. This incomplete picture could be a contributing factor to the persistent problem of strategy execution seen in many organizations currently. The discipline of business architecture offers a potential complement to traditionally taught strategy execution related topics.
Whynde: As Brian shares with the Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable study findings, I think a major root cause for the how of strategy execution being so underrepresented is that we are not taught it. I observe the lack of focus not just in higher education curriculums worldwide, but I also don’t see it as part of the conversation or methods taught in the startup world.
I think part of the reason is that good strategy execution is interdisciplinary, and as a result it has fallen in the cracks between business disciplines and topics. As I mentioned earlier, Brian and I see that the fragmentation of organizational structures, processes, and accountabilities are part of what leads to suboptimal results. Successful strategy execution requires many teams working hand-in-hand and from end-to-end, with transparency and accountability for the business outcomes. I like to say that strategy execution takes a village, giving a nod to heritage wisdom.
EAPJ: Silos and silo mentality is a common challenge for practitioners in the Enterprise Architecture field, as we tend to want people to see the bigger picture. In your book, you talk about Strategic Business Architecture as a way of creating enterprise-wide understanding, that can get everyone on the same page, and enable a “line of sight” between strategy and project execution. Can you expand a little on what Strategic Business Architecture is, and how it helps unify plans and action?
Whynde: Strategic business architecture is a holistic view of an organization comprised of multiple business perspectives, such as capabilities and value streams. It represents what an organization does and how it is structured to deliver value to its customers/constituents and support its operations. A strategic business architecture creates a shared mental model for an organization, just as a blueprint does for a building.
Just like any blueprint, strategic business architecture creates common understanding and activates change. For example, when we are translating a strategy, we can turn to our strategic business architecture to understand which capabilities are already in place, which ones we may need to enhance, and if we need to develop any new ones. The capability provides a way for us to harmonize all changes to a given capability across people, process, information and technology. We can unify our plans by shaping the portfolio of work around investments in capabilities.
We can also create a “line of sight” by maintaining the relationships between strategy, goals, and objectives, to value streams and capabilities, to projects. This way we can ensure that execution stays aligned to strategy, and that if strategy changes we can methodically adjust the portfolio of work.
In the book, we describe seven techniques that can be used to inform and translate strategy into a unified set of plans and action, with example artifacts for a global apparel company.
Brian: As we explain in the book, strategic business architecture is not the same thing as execution level business architecture that typically resides in enterprise architecture and is often more siloed in nature. Strategic business architecture ideally resides in the strategy execution function within strategic planning or similar enterprise-wide strategic area. We also stress the need to have critical strategy execution related areas report to the strategy execution function. If you agree that we’re all employed by our organizations to execute the strategy of the organization, then this thinking makes sense. We go into great detail on the differences between strategic business architecture and more tactical execution level business architecture in the book and the different skill sets needed for success.
EAPJ: The history of the relationship between Architecture functions and the Enterprise Project Management Office has been one that has seen its share of tension. What are your tips on bringing these teams together and ensuring that they work effectively to realize a company’s strategy.
Brian: Yes, this is a problem I see in many organizations unfortunately and is often the bottle neck for successful strategy execution. If the project portfolio management function does not report to the strategy execution area/function, effective strategy execution will remain elusive. Again, if you agree that we that we’re all employed by our organizations to execute the strategy of the organization, this makes sense. In fact, it makes little sense to have the execution part of strategy execution (project portfolio management) report anywhere but to a strategy execution area/function. However, many organizations did not evolve in this manner and we’re hoping that our book provides a blueprint for more effective organizational structures aligned with the mission of effective strategy execution.
Whynde: In addition to aligning the reporting structure, I think another way to bring architecture functions and Enterprise Project Management Offices together is to have conversations about the benefits that architecture can provide. For example, Project Management Offices are increasingly emphasizing the delivery of value and strategic alignment, which business architecture is well-suited to provide. In addition, architecture can help to ensure that work is scoped in a way that leverages reusable solutions and delivers consistent, integrated experiences for customers, partners, and employees. Architecture can also help to identify key stakeholders, dependencies, and integration points. All of these upfront inputs can be invaluable for heading off the challenges that can otherwise show up downstream in execution.
EAPJ: Finding the balance between agility to respond to short term demands, and the need to see and set long-term direction for organisations is a constant challenge. What advice would you give to those involved in strategy formation and execution to allow them to keep both of these ideas at the heart of their considerations?
Whynde: The business building blocks of capabilities and value streams can help to harmonize the investments both from a long-term direction and short-term demand perspective. They also give us a way to aggregate and ensure transparency, so that we can best leverage the short-term investments to help us achieve our long-term goals and potentially uncover any conflicts. Both types of investments have their place and value, as long as the short-term is not being focused on to the detriment of the longer-term direction. If this is the case, it is worth investigating the root causes and addressing it more systemically.
Brian: This is the primary focus of the book – how do you better ensure that the initiatives and projects you’re focusing on in the shorter term are aligned with the current state of business strategy. Many organizations don’t do this very well and while they are busy with short term demands, they might be doing work that isn’t aligned with the current direction of the business and not adding the value that they think they are adding.
EAPJ: How do you incorporate or embrace innovation functions and teams into your approach to strategy execution?
Brian: We also address this question in the book – in short, we advocate for an integration of innovation and strategy execution and discuss the rationale and how to make this happen.
Whynde: Innovation drives and facilitates the ideation, development, and implementation of creative solutions and transformative ideas within an organization. From a strategy execution context, innovation ideas can feed into planning and portfolio management when proven to be viable and relevant.
We also see strategic business architecture as the nexus for strategy as well as innovation of all types, from product and service innovation to business model innovation to organizational improvement.
EAPJ: Many people that are responsible for the execution of change activities are often not involved in the creation of the strategy they are expected to deliver. This can result in significant downstream impacts on delivery resources, particularly when expectations have been set around timeframes, costs and resourcing. How might the approach you describe help to alleviate these common execution challenges and negative impacts on staff?
Brian: Another great question that we address in the book. We go into great detail on the many organizational and structural issues we’ve seen in a wide variety of organizations that often cause significant issues with understanding the current state of strategy and delivery of strategy. There is a lot of unpack here and I’ll leave that to the chapters that focus on these issues.
Whynde: I see different aspects of this challenge in organizations. Sometimes the strategy is simply not shared widely throughout an organization. Once it is to a certain point of finalization, I believe that this direction is essential to share. Successful strategy execution starts with clear intent, and we can’t work towards that unless everyone knows where we are heading and why. In other cases, strategy diffusion happens, where the clarity of direction becomes more diluted and misinterpreted as it filters throughout the various levels of an organization.
Particularly in cases like strategy diffusion, our approach helps from a couple perspectives. First, we translate strategy, goals, objectives, and courses of action through the capability and value stream, which frame where change is needed across people, process, information, and technology. This means that anyone working on a project or solution will have a direct tie back to the business direction based on the capabilities that they are enhancing or automating. Second, architect changes is an important step that we add into strategy execution and this is where we visualize and articulate a shared view(s) of what the future state business and technology environments will look like. This helps people to understand the impacts and requirements for change that are directly applicable to their part of the business or role, regardless of their visibility to the original strategy.
EAPJ: The relationship between Business Architecture and Strategy appears to be a circular one, where Business Architecture enables strategy execution, but also provides invaluable insight into strategy formation and planning. Can you elaborate further on this cyclic relationship?
Whynde: Absolutely, there is a close and circular relationship between strategy and strategic business architecture (and of course the strategists and strategic business architects involved). This is more important than ever before since strategy development is becoming more fluid to adapt to disruption and opportunities.
Business architecture helps to inform strategy development by defining what an organization is currently capable of as well as communicating the full impact on the organization if certain strategic decisions are made. This collaboration can and should be iterative throughout the strategy development process. Once the strategy is finalized then strategic business architecture is used to translate it into a set of coordinated changes for execution.
To take it a step further, there is also a close and circular relationship between business architecture and execution, as illustrated in the diagram. This iterative and flexible approach provides agility from end-to-end across strategy, architecture, and execution, allowing an organization to evolve and continually adapt to change.
Brian: In the book we distinguish between Strategic Business Architecture and Execution-level Business Architecture. In the book, we make the case that Strategic Business Architecture is part of a strategy execution function that might be embedded in strategic planning. The graphic that you reference is intended to show how strategic business architecture functions as a component of the strategic planning/strategy execution function. Again, a lot to unpack here and the entire book explains why this is needed and makes sense and how to make it happen.
EAPJ: For organizations, and practitioners, just starting out on this journey, what are your suggestions for where to focus their initial efforts, and how to improve over time.
Brian: We actually answered this question in detail during a recent webinar we did on the book – please see the recording here.
This is another great question but requires more room to answer adequately and we cover in detail in the book – this is a common question. Many people want to know where to start and how to grow and improve their efforts over time, so we focused quite a bit of content on this topic in the book.
Whynde: As Brian mentions, our book launch webinar does address this hot topic and a significant amount of the book is dedicated to this journey. However, here are a few key steps to consider:
- Assess your organization’s current strategy execution approach and outcomes (leverage the strategy execution organizational assessment that we provide in the book).
- Start conversations, create an intolerance for status quo, and build a case for change for cohesive, end-to-end strategy execution enabled by strategic business architecture.
- Start making forward progress – one person, one step, and one win at a time. Choose a place(s) to start such as investment decision-making or strategy translation which will allow you to test the concepts in your environment and demonstrate the value.
- Establish a strategic business architecture baseline and mature the practice over time to support strategy execution.
- Continue to demonstrate value, build buy-in for, and take steps towards realizing the full strategy execution vision.
EAPJ: There has been such a focus on AI in recent times, despite not being parts of most organizational strategies just two years ago. Looking at your crystal ball, where do you see this technology being used in strategy formation and execution, and what other technologies should we be thinking about that might have a similar large-scale impact on strategic thinking.
Brian: We cover AI a bit in the last chapter of the book. AI has the potential to drastically improve our ability to execute strategy. In the book, we discuss the need to create a capability perspective of the organization. Capabilities form the foundation for the composable organization that we discuss. In large organizations, the number of capabilities across many divisions and units creates a very large amount of data to understand and utilize – often too much data for a human to get their arms around. AI has the potential to quickly understand the capabilities that exist across the organization, identify gaps, and assemble needed capabilities in a very timely manner. AI will make the capability-based organization and composable organization a reality for many organizations.
Whynde: I think AI can and will be used throughout every part of strategy to execution. For example, it can be used to formulate strategic ideas, to define strategic business architecture content in the knowledgebase (e.g., capabilities), to apply business architecture in various decision-making scenarios, to suggest initiatives and solutions, and to assess alignment. Of course, all of these ideas require human involvement, but AI can minimally be leveraged to inspire ideas and accelerate the process.
The opportunity for AI to help us reimagine business models and strategies and build new capabilities is also exciting and mind blowing. Whether it’s AI or the next big technology, it is important to bring it back to the why and to the business context. Strategic business architecture provides an invaluable framework to help organizations understand where to leverage these technologies for business value and what the potential implications may be of doing so.
EAPJ: Without giving away all of the book’s secrets, there are many useful tools and techniques within its pages that can benefit readers. Could you describe some of these, and how readers can apply these things in their work in organisations?
Whynde: One of the things I am most proud of is that this book provides so many practical tools and techniques that readers can take away and adapt for their own organizations. We provide a strategy to execution framework that we return to throughout the book with different overlays, such as where each team is involved. As I mentioned earlier, we also step through seven different techniques for leveraging strategic business architecture for strategy execution. We provide a strategic business architecture maturity model and key competencies. The book also includes over 70 diagrams!
Brian: I’ll hit two tools in particular – (1) we describe the strategic business architecture ecosystem which is comprised of key modelling tools needed to understand aspects of the organization. We show how to link the data provided by these tools as inputs to other tools to ultimately create a “line of sight” between the execution layer (project portfolios) and the current state of business strategy. (2) We have developed an organizational assessment to evaluate key areas needed for success with strategy execution – this will help organizations understand what is needed for success and where gaps may exist in their organization.
EAPJ: With the experience you both share in the field of Business Education, what do you see as the key messages you would like to impart from this book to the business leaders of today and tomorrow?
Brian: There is nothing like this book out there today and our hope is that it will be used to help effect needed changes in the way we think about strategy execution to ultimately improve the poor success rate in strategy execution reported by Porter and others today.
Whynde: I second that!
At the top level, the key messages that I would like business leaders to take away are:
- Strategy execution is an enterprise-wide function with an end-to-end process and accountability that requires many teams working together hand-in-hand. Everyone is responsible for executing strategy within an organization and this is of paramount importance.
- There is a gap between strategy and execution, and it can be addressed. We no longer need to accept suboptimal results, and our organizations’ ability to thrive and adapt to change depends on effective strategy execution.
- Strategic business architecture is a critical enabler of strategy execution to ensure clear intent, to design the future organization, and to provide the ongoing line of sight between strategy, architecture, and execution.
EAPJ: Are there any last thoughts you would like to leave with our readers, many of whom may be working within Architecture and Transformation, but all of which are struggling with making effective change within complex human environments?
Whynde: I am often reminded that this is more of a human journey than it is a strategy execution or architecture journey. What we are really trying to achieve in our roles as leaders and change makers, is a new and holistic way of thinking and working in our organizations. This journey requires vision, passion, and persistence. Every mountain is climbed one step at a time and this one is worth it.
Brian: In architecture domains, we’ve been trying to achieve more strategic recognition for a long time with limited success in my opinion. This is mostly because this has been a bottom-up effort led by more technically oriented people. This book takes a totally different approach and perspective. We recognize that a more of a top-down approach is needed and that strategic business architecture brings a perspective and approaches for the effective facilitation of strategy execution – this statement has been validated by strategic planning professionals from many organizations over the last several years. In the book, we discuss skill sets needed for success with strategic business architecture which are different from traditional execution level business architecture. We also discuss the need to integrate strategic business architecture with the strategy execution function and provide a roadmap for successful integration. There is much more to all of this but will leave the rest to the book.
