Executing Your Strategy: How to Break It Down and Get It Done Hardcover – January 7, 2008

It is a great book, i think every business man and every business student need to read and learn it

While the book is titled, "Executing the Strategy" it might more accurately be titled "Organizational Alignment" - strategy being only one, albeit the most central, of the domains of the Authors' brilliant and comprehensive Strategic Execution Framework (SEF).Readers may miss one of the more subtle but most important gifts of the book which is to recognize that most failures in strategic execution come from not managing the interfaces between the various domains of the corporate organism, defined in the SEF: Ideation (Identity, Purpose, Long-Range Intention), Vision (Strategy, Goals, Metrics), Nature( Strategy, Culture, Organizational Structure), Engagement (Strategy, Portfolio Management), Synthesis (Portfolio Management, Program Management, Project Management), and Transition (Program Management, Project Management and Operations).Theory of Constraints and Six Sigma aficionados take note: the greatest unaccounted for source of variability in organizational performance occurs at the interfaces between these SEF domains. Today, most organizations do not manage these interfaces at more than a superficial level, if at all. Further, the strategy domain directly interfaces with more areas of the corporate organism than any other: culture, structure, goals, metrics, and portfolio. It is no wonder that 70-90% of companies are consistently failing to execute strategies successfully.The book succeeds well in setting out the SEF, but don't expect guidance on how to go about setting vision or strategy or improving project or portfolio management, changing culture, or setting the right metrics. Rather, each of these domains represents large bodies of knowledge, and this book's purpose is to identify them, and define the interfaces between them. The subtitle, "How to Break it Down & Get it Done" might imply the presence of more nitty-gritty how-to's than this book sets out to provide.Another major takeaway is that the "lowly" discipline of project management will be the cornerstone of successfully executing strategy in combination with the SEF. Strategy is not just about upper management setting a bold vision in a weekend retreat and saying, "make it so". Strategic planning must account for the ripple effects through all of the organizational domains, and projects need to be chartered, resourced and managed between and within domains for the strategy to be carried off successfully.The authors provide numerous compelling real-world examples; including many from their own consulting practices to demonstrate how correct organizational alignment leads to success and misalignment leads to failure. The authors have particular experience and success with larger organizations, where the SEF particularly shines. This book is an outstanding and seminal contribution to organizational alignment and strategic execution.

There are millions of projects that fail each year due to lack of execution on strategy. Many projects find it difficult to transition from purpose to goal, culture to structure, metrics, strategy, projects and then to operations. The largest hurdle is being able to fit projects to the culture and using metrics that actually measure. The authors go on to outline the Strategic Execution Framework (SEF) that is the core to project success. The SEF is also the foundation to the Stanford University program on Advance Project Management. One of the core values is selecting the right projects, where effective strategy is choosing to do the right things and execution is doing those things right. One of the key aspects of this book is how it dives into the decision making process in that a company cannot do it all, so you must make choices that are non biased and lead to an effective use of resources. Another key area that is discuss is how many companies do not know when to stop a failed project and do have the right milestones in place to measure when it might beneficial cut the severed artery and stop the blood loss. Overall, this is a great book for learning how to go from a good project manager to a great project manager. There is an expectation that the reader has performed as a project manager at some point in their career. Overall really good book.

This reviewer concurs with most of the others reviews in their coverage and ratings of this book, i.e. the benefit of a framework like INVEST and the importance of developing an appropriate portfolio of projects to assure that business strategies are executed.However, what are particularly helpful to this reviewer are the connections the authors make with the different types of business strategies, value disciplines and organization characteristics previously articulated by Geoffrey Moore in his "Living on the Fault Line" and "Dealing with Darwin."More specifically, the authors indicate pursuing different strategies require varying emphases on projects and organizational functions. For starters, disruptive innovation strategies call for balanced matrix organizations with equal accents on projects and functions. Customer intimacy strategies necessitate strong matrices with more attention on projects than functions. Project leadership strategies require weak matrices where neither projects nor functions dominate. Finally operational excellence strategies dictate hierarchies where functions are in control vs. projects.Also important is that the authors show how computer modeling and simulation can be used to determine optimal structure and sizing. They present ways consultants have worked with managers and staff to use such tools in examining project organizing options. There are discussions of examples where there is a high degree of participation in considering alternate models and making choices.Look at this book for additional elaboration and useful references.

très bon support pour mes cours de management en anglais tout de même mais bon si il le faut ! a recommander

One book that covers execution of strategy in great detailed. The topics such as culture and organization structure and its relation to executing strategy is excellent. A must read for those interested in executing strategy.

Very intresting book and very relevant to my studies. A must read for people interested in strategy execution in all sectors.