Chapter 5 of our recently published book, End-to-End Strategy Execution, states that the omission of a comprehensive, well-articulated impact assessment is a major factor undermining successful strategy execution. Impact assessments serve as the focal point for dissecting, validating, and synchronizing business goals, objectives, and related courses of action. Specifically, the episode discusses why and how organizations should prioritize, justify, and fund business-first impact assessments by incorporating them into annual planning cycles that leverage built-in feedback loops. Topics include scoping the assessment, driving technical assessments through a business lens, and laying the foundation for architecting the future state. Listen in and learn why this underappreciated yet critical element of strategy execution is not just a luxury, but a necessity.

Getting leadership on the same page with strategy execution is often a challenge. This episode features an interview with Whynde Kuehn, strategy transformation specialist and author of Strategy to Reality. The discussion focuses on strategy formulation best practices, how to deal with executive mandates in the absence of clearly defined business objectives, and business architecture's role in framing and interpreting strategy. The episode also looks at how siloed, unaligned strategies can be aggregated and synchronized into a shared, executable perspective. Other topics include how to deal with siloed budget and compensation models that fly in the face of delivering highly aligned, cross-ecosystem strategies and the challenges of dealing with methodologies that often stall strategy execution versus moving it forward.

William Ulrich and Charles Bowman's Strategy Execution podcast, is based on their new book, tackles one of the main challenges facing organizations today, successfully executing on their business strategies while maximizing the value of related technology investments. Episode one outlines the challenges facing organizations today, where two thirds of technology investments are wasted, strategies go unfulfilled, and initiatives fall short their goals or fail entirely. Ulrich and Bowman introduce the strategy execution framework, challenge the status quote, and lay the foundation for future episodes that will seek to unravel long-standing issues that few organizations have been able to escape. Join them as they kick off this exciting new podcast series and provide the story behind the story of their new book, End-to-End Strategy Execution: From Inception through Solution Deployment.