The Viable Business System, a requisite way to get work done
We present a way to create a more agile organization by connecting four tempos of work that exist in all organizations
Don’t follow the rest
Creating enterprise value for shareholders, customers, and society is at the heart of strategy realization. The review of the literature on effective strategy execution indicates that there is still room for improvement since:
%
Unsuccessful at executing strategic initiatives
%
Strategies’ potential value is realized
%
Corporate strategy is never implemented
The future holds possibilities your organization shall exploit
Organizations we advise always think about the future and often put great effort in costly work to explore it, but wrongly conclude that it’s pointless to work into the future given all its uncertainty. Instead, they turn to super-agile, short-sighted strategy work that slowly dilutes the strategic foundation of the company. Or decide to use a fixed version of the future to get around the dynamics that the future brings.
There is an evident lack of established frameworks to transition from bold strategic ideas to a controlled release of executive power. It’s also a limited knowledge on organization design for growth that harnesses innovation in a genuine way that gives customer value.
At the heart of our solutions lays the ambition to make all organizations operate at full potential in a more sustainable and self-sustained way.
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We share the Future Today Institute view on timespans and procedures to make projections into the future since it connects perfectly with Requisite Organization and the Stratified Systems Theory. After decades of practicing Requisite Organization and the Stratified Systems Theory, we master its components. It’s the only model covering the full complexity of any organization, regardless of size.
To ensure fluid plans and effective transition from strategy to execution, we practice the military strategic and operational planning and execution principles of Operational Art & Design and dynamic leadership, supported by the Opportunity Space theory. Refined since the early 1900-century they are proven in battle and have inspired many business leaders over the years. These models are all validated through decades of scientific studies and practice.
Systemized approach to building trust
We promote a comprehensive stratified approach with Four Windows of complexity breakdown and knowledge scale up to operationalize strategies and capitalize on innovation. Our system gives a stable strategic foundation that helps minimize the risk of failure in operationalization and maximize the return on effort. It also engages people in the change journey and builds trust in the work.
Working like this creates a systemized approach where actions, organization, working methods, and performance assessment are linked and robustly designed to adapt to change over the organization’s lifecycle. A continuous loop of managerial activities on all levels and the cross-functional alignment are essential building blocks to guarantee execution power and agility.
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Revision of long-term strategic objectives occurs continuously to match the changing environment. The organization feeds the strategic direction processes with results and innovation. It results in a continuous process of complexity breakdown. Level by level, the managers in the organization do their imperative managerial work to reformulate instructions to subordinates. The process repeats until precise tasks impact work on the shop floor. In the opposite direction, questions, results, and ideas stream back. Altogether, this creates a robust managerial system that gives a vibrant environment with clear accountabilities designed for change and growth.
This way, it gives the Viable Business System four distinct tempos or windows as we call them, where work will flow back and forth in the organization. The windows are all connected and support each other to generate a fluid way of working on a stable foundation, to run the managerial system at full speed in all types of organizations.
The four windows connect the business with the organization set out to execute the work and make sure there is a predictable output in each window.
The Viable System derives from Requisite Organization, Futuristic Think, and Military leadership.
Change as a state – matching Business Lifecycle with the Organization
Organization Lifecycle Management
Every organization needs to evolve to stay competitive. This includes maintaining and improving the organization throughout its life cycle to proactively respond to changing conditions. Rather than continuous reorganization, it would help if you started with a Requisite Organization design, giving you a stable platform.
The primary considerations are to specify the required outcome your organization shall produce, how it shall produce it, and when. New conditions and the transition through the business phases will change expectations on the results, reflecting how the organization manages to exploit innovation and creativity to ensure success.
The executive leadership’s most important task is to ensure optimal performance of the organization. This is Organization Life Cycle Management.
Healthy organization
To stay healthy throughout its lifecycle, the organization requires:
The right outlook beyond the current strategy
The right long-term objectives
The right tasking
The right business processes
The right production system
The right technology
The right way of working
The right organizational structure
The right people in the right place
The right environmental and social impact
The right profitability and quality
The right modus operandi
The Viable Business System
The Viable Business System four distinct tempos or windows as we call them, where work will flow back and forth in the organization. The windows are all connected and support each other to generate a stable foundation for a fluid way of working. It will run the managerial system at full speed in all types of organizations.
The four windows connect the business with the organization set out to execute the work and make sure there is a predictable output in each window.
The Viable Business System primarily derives from Requisite Organization, Futuristic Think, Lean and Military leadership.
Tactical Window
A set of processes flows through the organization to link strategic objectives with the day-to-day operational guidelines to produce the intended output.
Doing so will produce critical data to describe the status of your organization’s production system and shape the company’s opportunity space.
Customer value is created in this window, and true heroes shall work here. All other windows exist to make this work as productive and relevant as possible.
Outlook: Hours – 2 years
Level of work complexity and uncertainty: Lower than Strategic Window
Strategic Window
Provide a long-term focus and stability for operations to opt for sound investments in operational capabilities necessary to generate competitiveness and good working conditions.
Outlook: 2 – 5 years
Level of work complexity and uncertainty: Lower than Vision Window
Vision Window
Give your company a visionary end state to strive for and create a meaningful purpose for the organization that brings competitiveness and viability.
Outlook: 5 – 10 years
Level of work complexity and uncertainty: Lower than System Window
System Window
Look outside the current strategy and business plan to ensure that your company explores possibilities, exploits the potential, and can manage the dynamics of your system-level evolution in an ever-changing environment. This type of new business development will ensure that your company and strategy don’t become obsolete, with the risk that competitors blindside you.
Outlook: 10+ years
Level of work complexity and uncertainty: High
Fluid plans for the unexpected
When someone pursues the traditional way of working, it risks creating a big strategic gap. Partly because it often misses to handle the inevitable dynamic presented by everything happening around us. We can predict much about the future, but we must accept that most plans change the exact minute we put them in action. That’s why they have to be fluid by design, which means that they adapt when situations and objectives are likely to change, often repeatedly and unexpectedly.
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Therefore, solutions must be designed to seamlessly adapt to extreme fluctuation without losing full operational power or creating unnecessary chaos. Without a sound thought-through structure for the organization, it can still be a design for failure.
It’s equally important to form a clear view of what is possible to achieve in every given situation. We use the opportunity space to create these capabilities to guide our design work. When new long-term objectives are implemented, they will not risk falling out of what is possible to execute.
We will have inherited insights from the analysis work during the design, making a viable solution well prepared to handle a dynamic environment. This holistic aspect of the situation is seldom present in a traditional approach to a strategy process, unlike, for example, the military equivalent. It dramatically increases the risk of ending up with a strategy design that is not optimal for operationalizing.
Stay on a competitive level
It’s a recurring managerial problem to keep the business on a competitive level and with the right innovative programs underway to stay tuned with the competitive landscape. This challenge has always troubled most executive leaders. Most of these strategic initiatives fail to deliver the necessary operational effect to close gaps in the organization’s capability platform.
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Therefore, solutions must adapt seamlessly to extreme fluctuation without losing full operational power or creating unnecessary chaos. Without a sound thought-through structure for the organization, it can still be a design for failure.
One reason for this is that strategy as a managerial tool often is misunderstood. The traditional strategic planning process does not consider the full complexity of operations and the necessity of a requisite organization to support the strategy transition to value creation. A comprehensive view of business processes, people, and culture is often not in scope. Instead, the focus is on business innovation, figures, vision creation, and finding unique strategic features. All these things are, of course, of great essence for a successful strategy but should link directly to a requisite organization design and feasibility assessment over the covered timespan. Otherwise, the risk is to end up with a ”perfect strategy” that’s impossible to execute or doesn’t exploit all possibilities.
The traditional approach brings little attention to the most potent managerial tool, the organization’s design, the talent pool, and the working methods. Please note that organization doesn’t imply only a project portfolio alignment. It refers to the complete system of levels, roles, and work assignments from top to bottom. It’s the necessary company organization structure to carry the change management.