Enhancing visualisation to communicate and execute strategy : Strategy-to-Process Maps

Purpose – Developing an organisational, business, or corporate strategy is an important process which sets the direction and the scope for the business, over a period of time. While any organisation can create their own strategy, not all strategies are well executed and lead to business success. What is required is a process that provides a holistic understanding of an organisational strategy, and clear links between the elements of the strategy and the organisational processes that will be central to its execution. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This paper describes three case studies of medium-sized organisations that were the research context in which the methodology for developing and representing Strategy-to-Process Maps was developed and iteratively refined. Findings – Each of these three case organisations had identified a need to better understand their strategic objectives by a stronger visual representation of the components of their strategy, as well as a need to identify how their daily operational tasks contributed to, or distracted from, the achievement of their strategic goals. These cases assisted in the creation of a method of both facilitating better understanding of strategy through visualisation, and better execution through linking strategy to process. This methodology resulted in the employees of these organisations gaining a much stronger understanding of the strategic directions of the organisation and improved the three elements of effective strategy execution: visibility; leverage and responsiveness. Originality/value – Strategy-to-Process Maps provide a new way in which organisations can communicate without reliance on any specific strategy development methodology; and can execute their strategy more effectively by linking it closely with organisational processes.