Articulating a vision is not an easy process. Even more difficult is implementing the vision. Most of the time even if you had a way the vision might have changed along the way there. The important part is getting started and learning along the way. The vision needs to be there if for nothing else to provide some sort of direction for the organization. The secret to implementation is to achieve the willingness of others to participate. I always thought that the best idea did not necessarily always win, but the best implementable idea was the winner. Without action ideas, vision flounder.
In the Lean world, we are familiar with the strategic deployment aspects of Hoshin Kanri and the act of Catch-Ball to cascade it through the organization for buy-in and implementation. The Toyota Kata process developed by Mike Rother has a similar style based on Vision – Challenge and next Target Condition. Both of these are outstanding processes and actually lend themselves to understand better what I am about to say.
In my work lately, I have been relying more and more on the idea of Storyboards to create a clearer sense of direction. It has been evolving and after much work, I actually evolved into something eerily familiar and not quite as good as the original work of Daniel H. Kim when he developed the Vision Deployment Matrix (VDM). In explaining this storyboards, to customers, I found using the Levels of Perspective (My Blog Post: Dealing with Levels of Perspective) an ideal way to explain and help create the storyboard. In essence, it was nothing more than an adoption of Kim’s Vision Deployment Matrix.
You can download a PDF of Kim’s work: PG17 Vision Deployment Matrix I – The Systems Thinker.
A link is provided below of an outline in Excel or as a PDF for you to use:
Vision Deployment Matrix Excel
What is unique about this process is that it provides an excellent outline in Storyboard form to create and implement a course of future action. This document provides a needed framework that I see missing in many organizations and provides the visual aspect that is well, unsurpassed in my humble opinion. We can even use it in its entirety for the entire organization or cascade multiple VDMs by divisions, department and all the way down to team levels.
Besides the Level of Perspective is documented in the PDF and previous blog post, the idea of creating the current reality emphasized a Daniel Kim says,
Designing a process for involving people ensuring a vision is only one part of the formula for success. Visioning also requires a commitment to articulating current reality with clarity and honesty: talking about daily events as they really are, not as we wish them to be. In between vision and current reality lies an enormous chasm that we must cross in order to realize the desired future.
Many change efforts failed to achieve the expected results because they do not strategically address ways to bridge the chasm. Successfully managing large scale organizational change requires a comprehensive, broad-based approach. To bridge the gap between future and current reality, we need to be explicit about the multiple levels of which we must think and act: the events, patterns of behavior, systemic structure, mental models, and vision.
I find the lack of articulating current reality one of the major deterrents to the success of young companies. In working with these companies, I find current reality is always painted with some sort of “how I would like it to be” expressed. This results in false assumptions and as a result a failure in addressing the proper issues. Even mature companies can struggle with this outlook, and if you have mapped or assigned metrics to a process, you are fully aware of what I am discussing.
To use the document, many of us will start with current reality, something we think we know. The author, Daniel Kim recommended starting with the desired future reality because allows us to be more expansive in our thinking and not be limited by current reality. He added that it also frames the effort in terms of creating what we want rather than the limiting what we don’t want. In Kata and in Hoshin, they adhere to similar thought.
As in a storyboard, thoughts are captured with the ever identifiably post-it-note and actually can be placed anywhere on the board where it fits. This does not have to be entirely done in a linear fashion though it helps to cascade from top to bottom developing future reality and from bottom to top when defining current reality.
We then identify gaps and the challenges that surface. Formulating action steps to close these gaps with the established indicators of the process with an assigned timeline. It might seem like a linear process, but it is not. Think more about working the board. As we make adjustments we learn and by changing mental models, for example, may and will cause a change in our patterns of behavior. I encourage people not to use as a report card but a way for us focus our efforts, continually clarifying is going on throughout the process. Following this process is not an end in itself. It is more about creating a journey, a story we might say that allows us to build commitment and provide new challenges as we learn.
Since I work primarily in a virtual world, I have used Trello for many of my Storyboards. Depicted below is my Vision Deployment Matrix template that I copy to use with clients. The good thing about this is that it allows us to have discussions, attach information, create checklist and timelines on each card. I use the labeling feature to keep track of cards as they become uneven across the board. I find this a great way to create a roadmap for a customer but often will drill down creating other boards to for project management. A deterrent in using Trello is that you cannot visualize several cards at a time, such as opening up all the vision cards across the board.
