- All too often, organizations plan their work
in isolated pockets to solve individual problems
without looking holistically or planning for the longterm.
A project is initiated, something's built,
and then forgotten.
To overcome this challenge,
companies should map their business capabilities.
A definition would probably be helpful here.
Business capabilities are an integrated set
of organizational competencies applied through processes,
technology, and expertise to capture or deliver value
to the organization.
Once you know that, identify the gaps
in your current capabilities and form teams
that are dedicated to enhancing those capabilities
with the mindset of a product manager.
Capabilities, like products, need to be managed
through a life cycle, with improvement opportunities
prioritized and examined holistically.
One person should be the overall steward
of the business capability in order to examine
not just what technology needs to be built,
but how the process and metrics should evolve
around the technology to achieve business outcomes.
Once a capability owner is clear,
a capability team should be created, which typically
is made up of a cross-functional group of roles.
Examples include project management, business analysis,
user experience, engineering,
quality assurance, and architecture.
These should be dedicated to building
technology capabilities that will merge with process
to enhance the overall organizational capability.
Let me provide a case example.
The $20 billion Dutch multinational banking
and financial services corporation, ING Group,
restructured the company's employees into squads
that were self-guided.
These were teams of up to nine people
who were responsible end-to-end for their area of focus.
A mission would bring a squad together,
and these resources would work in the same location.
Each squad defined a mission,
and then it agreed to a path to accomplish the mission
with each squad member contributing insights
from their field of expertise.
They would also agree to metrics to gauge progress
or lack thereof.
Finally, daily activities were agreed to,
and the plan would then be enacted.
Once the mission was accomplished,
the squad would break up with each person becoming
a member of a new squad with a new mission.
Among the advantages of setting up work in this manner
is that it breaks up the traditional silos of a company.
This multifaceted team with experts in a diverse array
of business topics brings a richness
to the solutions they develop that is nearly impossible
when work is done in a siloed fashion,
where work is passed from, say, marketing to product to IT.
Additionally, the focus they provide
is an enormous advantage.
Undertaking the same in your environment will ensure
you accomplish more as a efficiently as possible.