The research goal of this research is to use the CBP to facilitate the strategy implementation of an organization. To meet this goal, the main research question has been formulated as follows:
How to develop a capability-based planning method to support strategic
alignment?
To answer this main question, a set of sub-questions are defined:
RQ1: What is the relationship between strategy implementation and capability?
Chapter 2 provides a theoretical foundation for this research to explore the relationship between strategy and capability. A broad literature review shows the capability generates the competitive advantage of an organization and provides a foundation for the organization to execute their strategy.
Especially for the strategy implementation, since capabilities are unique and not easy to change, they are needed to enable the delivery of the chosen strategy. Therefore, strategic decision should be based on the organization‘s capabilities.
Furthermore, as discussed in the Chapter 2.3, the organizational CBP method aims to give the suggestions for the organization to make appropriate projects to develop their capabilities, which could facilitate the organization achieve their strategy. The chosen strategy is the necessary data input for the organization to execute the CBP method, which means the development plan of the capabilities should be associated with the strategy.
In conclusion, the successful implementation of the strategy depends on a proper deployment of the organization‘s capabilities. The improvements of the capabilities are based on the organization‘s strategic needs.
RQ2: How to design a method to link strategy and capabilities?
The Map phase of the proposed CBP method which is described in Chapter 3.2.1 addresses the solution for this research question.
The Map phase of this method mainly uses the Strategy Map and Capability Map as the techniques to link the capabilities with the strategic objectives of the chosen strategy. The Strategy Map provides a hierarchy way for the organization to demonstrate the strategic
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objectives in the cause and effect relationship as well as the Capability Map. Chapter 3.2.1 discussed how to use link the capabilities from different specific level to the strategic objectives from different perspectives of the Strategy Map, which could help the organization to construct the Target Capability Map to present the required capabilities for the organization to achieve their strategy.
Therefore, the chosen strategy and capabilities of the organization can be linked according to the Map phase of this proposed CBP method.
RQ3: How to define indicators based on strategy to assess capabilities?
To address this research questions, the capability dimension, indicator specification table and the capability assessment framework have been defined in Chapter 3.2.2.
Before defining the indicators based on strategy to assess the capabilities, the measures and the targets of the strategic objectives for the chosen strategy are required, and the information can be acquired through the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) of the organization. Later on, we can set up the capability goals based on this information that we get from this BSC. These capability goals can give us the direction to find the directions to assess the required capabilities, which would fit for the strategy requirements.
After the capability goals and the sequence to assess the capabilities have been defined, we can continue to find the indicators to assess the capability. First is to identify the target architecture for the specific capability to have the overview of how this capability works according to its capability goal. Then, accompany with the target architecture and the possible capability dimension, the indicators for each capability dimension can be defined. Since the capability goals are defined according to the BSC, the indicators that are used to assess the capability dimensions that should fit for the strategy requirements. After these indicators are defined, we can fill in the indicator specification table to find out the performance level of the specific capability dimension. And then, according these results and the capability assessment framework, the capability performance level of the chosen capability can be determined. And the whole process is guided by the chosen strategy.
RQ4: How can an organization develop and arrange a set of capability development
projects based on the strategic needs?
The Plan phase of the proposed CBP method is addressed to answer this research question.
To ensure the organization can achieve its strategic goal, the required capabilities should meet the capability goals that defined in the Assess phase of the CBP method. If there some capabilities do not meet these requirements, the organization should make a development plan to improve the performance of these underperform capabilities. The capability development plan includes deploy the improvement projects and constructs an architecture implementation roadmap for these projects. This roadmap gives the organization a general picture of how to execute the projects to improve the performance of the underperform capabilities.
RQ5: How can the method be applied in practice?
To validate the proposed method, we used the business case to demonstrate the CBP method and conducted the interviews with the experts in the related area to evaluate it.
According to the case study, we can know how to use the proposed CBP method and its techniques in business. The case study demonstrates the process of using this method to help the organization to translate the chosen strategy into implementation by making the
Chapter 6: Conclusion
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development plan of the required capabilities.
For the evaluation, we conducted the interviews with the experts in BIZZdesign. They evaluate the possible value of the proposed method and also gave the comments for the improvement.