"Real strategy deployment empowers teams to act on strategic intent with ownership and clarity." - Karl Scotland

We’re joined by Strategy Deployment expert Karl Scotland in this episode.

Karl helps businesses become Learning Organisations through outcome-oriented, continuous transformation, engaging everyone, everywhere.

Over the last 20+ years, he has been an advocate of Lean and Agile approaches to achieve this, working with companies including the BBC, Yahoo!, EMC Consulting, Rally Software, Cisco, SDL, Legal & General, Allegis, HSBC, Bank of America, Vocalink, Sky, and Irwin Mitchel.

During this time, he has been an early adopter of XP and Scrum, a contributor to Agendashift, and a pioneer of using Kanban Systems and Strategy Deployment for product development. He is a founding member of both the Lean Systems Society and Limited WIP Society, active in the Lean and Agile community, and a regular conference speaker. As a result, he was awarded the honorary Brickell Key Community Contribution Award at the 2013 Lean Kanban North America conference.

Our conversation explores Karl’s journey with Strategy Deployment, particularly how he learned and applied it during his time at Rally Software. He explains how models like the X-Matrix help to align aspirations, strategies, and tactics by visualizing and connect strategic decisions to tangible actions. Karl emphasizes that strategy deployment is a continuous, evolving process that requires ongoing feedback and adaptation rather than a static plan. He shares how using Strategy Deployment at Rally fostered collaboration, benefited from customer involvement in strategic planning, and enabled the organization to make more informed decisions about what to prioritize and what to stop doing.

Karl also introduces us to the “TASTE” model he has developed as a framing model for understanding the state of a group’s strategy deployment:

• (T)rue North - What direction are we trying to head in?
• (A)spirations - How are we defining success?
• (S)trategy - How are we going to get there?
• (T)actics - What are we actually going to do?
• (E)vidence - What leading metrics will indicate whether we’re making progress?

In this episode, we cover:

• (00:00) Introduction
• (08:05) What led you to Strategy Deployment?
• (15:42) What is the connection between Strategy Deployment and Big Room Planning?
• (30:45) What happened when you brought real customers into your strategic planning events?
• (38:52) How would you describe the difference between Strategy Deployment and Participatory Budgeting?
• (48:20) What is the thinking behind ‘acting in the present?’
• (54:20) What advice would you give someone starting their Strategy Deployment journey?

Cast:

Karl Scotland

Eric Willeke

Mark Richards

References:

• Karl's Blog
• Hoshin Kanri for the Lean Enterprise - Thomas Jackson
• The Art of Action - Stephan Bungay
• Good Strategy Bad Strategy - Richard Rumelt