Relating Enterprise Strategy to Business Outcomes

Author(s)

Senior Principal, MITRE Corporation
Ken Mullins is a Senior Principal in the Center for Veterans Enterprise Transformation within MITRE’s Center for Connected Government; he also serves as a MITRE Portfolio Manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs. During his career, which spans more than 30 years, Ken has enjoyed the privilege of serving as trusted advisor to executives and senior leaders in the Defense, State, Justice, Interior, Veterans-Affairs, Health-and-Human-Services, Commerce, Homeland-Security, and other departments of the federal government. Prior to joining MITRE more than ten years ago, Ken was a Technical Director with Oracle, a consultant to Booz Allen Hamilton, and a Program Manager with ITT. He holds a Master of Science degree in Systems Management from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Administration and Government from the University of Maryland. From 1978-to-1980, he also studied International Law under Dean Rusk, the former Secretary of State, at the University of Georgia’s School of Law. Ken has written extensively on technology, management, and government. As the Editorial Director for the Government Bulletin, published by the BPMInstitute.org, he not only edits articles, but also remains a frequent contributor to that organization’s multiple online fora. Samples of his published articles include these: Enterprise Architecture Works Best as a Roadmap – not a Blueprint; Relating Enterprise Strategy to Business Outcomes; Three Fundamental Prerequisites for Transforming Your Government Enterprise; Without Metrics, Process Improvement Can Be Hazardous to Your Business Health; BPM – A Cure for Institutional Memory Loss; Government Missions Should Drive the Lifecycle Management of Agency SOA-Services; Improving Government Service, by ‘Building Sidewalks Where People Like To Walk;’ The Importance of Being Earnest – about Enterprise Governance; For Most Government Agencies, An IT Strategy Can Be One Too Many; Government Transformation Depends On Dynamic Portfolio Management; Enhancing the Value of Your Government Transformation Roadmap; To Deliver Business Value, Avoid Paving over Cow Paths, and NIEM – A Model for Sharing Government Information.

I was both privileged and pleased to have the opportunity to present a keynote address at the BrainStorm DC Conference in Washington DC last summer, where my presentation focused on the subject of relating enterprise strategy to business outcomes. By way of reintroducing the topic, I prepared a brief summary of that presentation for publication in the January 2009 edition of the Government Bulletin.

 

At every level of government, officials have been increasingly challenged in recent years to continue improving upon the delivery of government services, even as their expertise heads out the door – with the climbing rate of baby-boomer retirements –, while budgets are trending to the south. It is in times like these that government decision makers need to point their enterprise strategy, with a steady aim, at achieving better business outcomes, and greater mission success. This presentation focuses on the value of relating enterprise strategy to business outcomes by applying effective performance measures, portfolio management, and program/project management to the execution of business strategy – all of which will significantly improve the chances of implementing successful solutions in response to the basic business needs of government.

The presentation also maintains that the three primary areas of management focus – i.e., Performance Management, Portfolio Management, and Programs Management – need to be achieved as managers strive to ensure that these key facets of transformation success are not neglected along the way:

  • Continuing to clarify the mission of the government enterprise, its vision, goals, and objectives
  • Communicating and Socializing both the “current” and the “desired states” of the enterprise – to better understand the gaps and obstacles that separate them
  • Engaging and persuading affected stakeholders to remain committed to a journey of transformation
  • Establishing and supporting a transition strategy aimed at closing the identified gaps
  • Maintaining a robust and well exercised decision-making process (otherwise known as “governance”)

 

The presentation also addresses some of the questions that are most frequently asked by government leaders and managers about the implementation of effective enterprise business strategies:

a. How is portfolio management delivering better value in government decision making?

b. What are the key practices that distinguish different maturity levels of government organizations?

c. What are the key lessons learned to date from implementations in different government settings?

d. What criteria and categories should be used for assessing government IT investment proposals?

e. How can the value of IT be defined in a government context?

f. How can government IT programs be assessed to ascertain their real value, ensure that objectives are reviewed, and that resources are appropriately rebalanced from time to time?

The presentation concludes with an acknowledgement of several opportunities for further improvement, based on lessons learned, especially with respect to the utility of metrics applied, processes for dealing with government acquisitions, management’s ability to “blow the whistle” on underperforming programs and projects, and the need to improve decision support for enterprise governance mechanisms.

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