Author Description

This book ties together several business disciplines. It is a guide to the successful execution of strategy. It takes the reader from strategy formulation, to initiative selection, to project management, to process design and in doing so, ties all the disciplines together with common underpinnings and rules. Part I of the book begins by setting out some fundamental constructs and linkages that are used throughout the book. It highlights what the author identifies as the ten potential failure points of any firm's strategy. Part I concludes with the strategic structure which include three "pillars" of knowledge, technology and people that support the business processes of the firm. Part II deals with strategy formulation. Much of this part of the book is merely drawing together constructs from other sources. The author describes Porter's value chain and then expands on it and promises to do so even further in the rest of the book. He addresses the use and misuse of balanced scorecard and discusses the four basic types of strategy that a firm may employ. He concludes Part II with a discussion of risk and barriers to strategy execution. Part III, Strategy Execution, departs from other constructs and becomes the heart of what is unique about the book. In it, the author discusses ways to identify a strategic initiative and then to vet or select the initiative. The method for transforming a firm's strategy into Cartesian math constructs and then being able to mathematically evaluate a potential initiative and align it with the firm's strategy is unique to the book as is its method for building and proving the business case. The remainder of Part III is spent looking at metrics in all its forms, characteristics and types. The reader may, at first, feel the author beats metrics to death, but it becomes apparent, further into the book, how important metrics are to everything discussed. Part IV is devoted to project planning and execution. One of the real strengths of the book