Strategic Thinking

What is strategic thinking? This question often crosses my mind and those of my students, especially when I am teaching the ITIL Lifecycle classes. Just as often as the question arises, a variety of answers are put forth as well.

One definition of strategic thinking holds that “the role of strategic thinking is ‘to seek innovation and imagine new and very different futures that may lead the company to redefine its core strategies and even its industry’ ". This implies that the definition and use of strategic thinking are related but different from strategic planning—putting into action or executing the ideas developed using strategic thinking. Strategic thinking is just that—postulating or thinking about what the future holds and what the future looks like. Strategic planning is action based. A good organization recognizes they need both.

As a Professor who attempts to provide learners with theory-driven practical data, information, knowledge and wisdom, I particularly like the difference in definition between strategic thinking and strategic planning. But how do you learn to use the two approaches differently yet in a related manner? I think one key is in the deliverables.

The key deliverables of strategic thinking should be a vision, a mission statement and a values statement. In this context a vision is a mental picture of what you would like the future to be for yourself, your company and your industry. A mission is a basic statement on how you would like to go about achieving that picture of the future. The mission then becomes a key input to strategic planning, which develops action steps from the mission. The values statement identifies the core beliefs and convictions you will stand by as you move forward towards your vision.

The key deliverables of strategic planning are your objectives, goals, strategies, plans, and critical success factors that serve as a roadmap and toolkit for achieving your vision. Since the vision is a picture of a broad horizon, strategic planning helps you lay out the details, milestones, vehicles, elements and conditions required to achieve success.

Once you have used strategic thinking and strategic planning to layout your future, you will have completed top-down design of what success looks like for your customers and your organization. You will need to follow up the top-down design by building your capabilities from the bottom up as a validation of design. You will need to identify the processes, roles, key performance indicators, measures, metrics and tool sets that will enable you to reach your vision.

Remember that you need to do the top-down design before you do the bottom-up build. Otherwise you risk putting the proverbial cart before the horse. Taking too operational a perspective on how to serve your customers can take you away from the benefits of strategic thinking and planning and place you into a “just do it” mentality that can often lead you in directions you did not intend.

You will continue to go in this strategic thinking/planning and capabilities cycle using Continual Improvement as a guide towards quality. Each cycle will help you refine your vision and improve your roadmap and toolkit until you are moving along the journey to success as a well-oiled machine.

So do not hesitate: start thinking and planning strategically today!

Four Service Characteristics

Recently I came across several articles by researchers and experts that laid out definitions and characteristics of services. ITIL provides us with a definition that can help drive the creation of value-laden services: A means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks. An area that ITIL is not so clear is in terms of service characteristics. Several researchers and experts put forth that services have four basic characteristics (IHIP): Intangibility—Services are the results of actions not things. They have no physical presence and represent a logical set of elements. One way to think of service is “work done for others.” Heterogeneity—Also known as “variability”; services are unique items because of the mechanisms used to deliver services, which is people. Because the people element adds variability, the service is variable. This holds true, especially for the value proposition—not eve...

What Is A Service Offering?

The ITIL 4 Best Practice Guidance defines a “Service Offering” as a description of one or more services designed to address the needs of a target customer or group. As a service provider, we can’t stop there! We must know what the contracts of our service offering are and be able to put them into context as required by the customer. Let’s explore the three elements that comprise a Service Offering. A “Service Offering” may include: Goods, Access to Resources, and Service Actions 1. Goods – When we think of “Goods” within a service offering these are the items where ownership is transferred to the consumer and the consumer takes responsibility for the future use of these goods. Example of goods that are being provided in the offering – If this is a hotel service then toiletries or chocolates are yours to take with you. You the consumer own these and they are yours to take with you. ...

What is the difference between Process Owner, Process Manager and Process Practitioner?

This article was originally published in 2015. With the Introduction of ITIL 4, some of this best practice has changed. See ITIL 4 and the Evolving Role of Roles . Updated Definitions in ITIL 4: Process Owner: In ITIL 4, the concept of 'processes' has expanded into broader 'practices.' Consequently, the Process Owner is now often referred to as the 'Practice Owner.' This individual is accountable for the overall design, performance, integration, and improvement of a specific practice within the organization. They ensure that the practice achieves its intended outcomes and aligns with the organization's objectives. Process Manager: Now commonly known as the 'Practice Manager' in ITIL 4, this role is responsible for the day-to-day management of the practice. The Practice Manager ensures that activities are carried out as intended, manages resources assigned to the practice, and oversees the practitioners performing the work. Process Practit...

Search