The Chasm Connection The Strategy Deployment Newsletter   December 2008 Issue Unsteady Times Uncertainty is certainly in the air. One of the key questions now is how do leaders keep their organizations on the right track... with real-time visibility of the status of key initiatives? Too many times organizations slip into the fire fighting mode and reject the concept of planning and sticking to the plan. Even worse, management does not have their hands on the ongoing status of their plans or see the real picture until it is too late. What good is having a strategy or plan that is not continually updated to meet changing conditions? Dashboards and reports can only show us the direction the symptoms are taking. But, how do we know what is making the temperature rise, or what is being done about it? This is where it becomes essential to conduct frequent top management reviews of the progress towards achieving the goals, objectives, and activities. Refinements can then be made to the plans to meet the dynamics of the market. Many of our clients look at this as negotiation between management levels to obtain the realtime communication and understanding of key priorities To make this happen: Make sure objectives are "SMART" Have ongoing dialog on trends; refining initiatives, targets and actions as necessary Trigger a review process when defined metrics/tasks are in danger of missing the mark Ensure that the reviews lead to organization-wide alignment & refinment of these goals, metrics & activities to meet the refined plan Communicate and reward success Unless we can clearly see and change what is causing the failures to meet our goals (insufficient cost cutting, poor sales improvement, lack of quality) realtime, we will not be able to get to the root cause and put certainty back into the equation. The Y-Change Solution Y-Change, the award winning strategic management application, is the accountability building software tool available to do this. By linking each level of the management hierarchy, Y-Change allows you to see who is working on what and what is not being worked on. With Y-Change you have an on-line, real time view of the status of your strategic plans, goals, initiatives & projects throughout your organization. Management can quickly spot the problems and provide the resources where they will be best utilized. You will also be able to rapidly identify the hidden costs that are often overlooked until the money has been spent. Y-Change is a simple to operate, intuitive &cost effective application that can be ramped up immediately in any company environment to support all of the efforts needed by management to succeed. IN THIS ISSUE Unsteady Times The Y-Change Solution Ask the Experts LINKS Would you like to have "MAGIC" help guide your company to success? Send us the Last Newsletter Contact us for our next quarterly newsletter. Let us know and we will send you the 5 fundamentals of MAGIC ... as well as a presentation given to the ASP by a Baldrige award winning company Read About Y-Change's recent Performance Management Award given by Ventana Research ASK THE EXPERTS: "SMART" Goals S: Specific M: Measurable A: Actionable R: Realistic T: Timebound Visit our website www.y-change.com and learn more about this innovative tool for successful company management or give us a call, and one of our representatives will answer your inquiries. Discover the MAGIC in the next issue of The Chasm Connection!