Andrea Jones defines the Alignment pillar of Execute Agility as getting leadership to agree on what projects to do, why, who's responsible, and when. Three roles must align: the sponsor (who owns budget and escalation), the project manager (who handles logistics and metrics), and the team doing the work. Leaders need to articulate the why so the organization rows in the same direction.
Hi, I'm Andrea Jones and today we're going to talk about the alignment pillar of Execute Agility. Remember, execute agility is your organization's ability to execute your most important project work consistently over time. And the first part of that is alignment. There are four components of alignment and who needs to be aligned. By the way, it's starting with the leadership team aligned to the leader of the organization. So they need to be aligned on what they're doing, why they're doing it, who is responsible for this and when it needs to get done. We're talking immediate terms, so the win is most likely within the current quarter. Sometimes you might have to chunk a bigger project though and say what's expected when in this quarter or this very next quarter we're working for. That's the win. The who is three things. It's the sponsor, that's the person making the budget decisions, the duration decisions, the scope decisions, escalation and decision making around roadblocks or any problem that comes up not performing tactical day to day work. The project manager, that's the person organizing, managing logistics, handling meetings, ensuring everybody shows up, gets people together together, escalates those questions and tracks all the metrics. We'll talk about that more in structure. And then of course the team, those are the individuals doing the tasks themselves. Typically they have a day job, so they aren't able to do it full time, but they're the ones that are working on this project. Need to understand that too. We'll get more into that with available time. The what, of course are the projects that you're talking about. And often companies have a very long list of projects they want to do. I have yet to find someone who's like, hey, we have no idea what we should do. There's a lot of things. This is where the why comes into place. Why are you working on any specific project this quarter? You might have a long term roadmap of doubling the business in three years. For example, you know, you need to standardize your operating procedures. You're going to get a new system, you're going to automate as much as you can over time. You're going to add new customers, you're probably adding new products and services. Those are all big what's. But what is it you're doing this quarter and why is it this quarter versus next quarter? If you can articulate, I recommend three criteria as to the why and have all the leadership team members aligned to that, they can use that information to communicate out to the rest of the project. Teams and truly the rest of the organization on a need to know basis. So alignment is very, very important. Sure, you've read many business books where it talks about how if everybody in the boat is rowing in the same direction, they are unstoppable. When one person thinks that they should be doing other things, or has a different rationale for why they're choosing the priorities versus other priorities, that's when things start going astray and the boat's not going as fast in the direction you want it to go. I've assessed dozens and dozens of leadership teams already. The why, the reason that we're doing whatever it is we're doing with who we're doing it. And by now, that is almost always the missing component. If you can articulate that why, everyone's going to be rowing in the same direction and you'll be well on your way towards strong executability.
