About the Book
Table of Contents:
Introduction—Making Sense and Taking Action xxi
Setting the Stage: What Is It about Execution That Demands So Much Attention? And Why Now?, xxi
What’s in the Book?, xxv
What This Means to You, xxx
1 The DNA of Consistent Execution 1
Setting the Stage: Getting Stuff Done Quickly, Effectively, Consistently, 3
Extent of the Challenge: Why Is This So Hard?, 7
Common Challenges to Getting Stuff Done, 8
Facing the Challenge: Bridging the Semantic Disconnect, 12
Answering the Question of How, 18
The Semantic Stack as Insight and Action, 20
Detailing the Stack, 25
Making It Real: Executing Over and Over Again, 28
What This Means to You, 29
2 Maps, Models, and Action—Blueprinting Your Business 37
Setting the Stage: Rippling Changes, Crippling Impacts, 39
Extent of the Challenge: Beware the Red Queen, 42
Facing the Challenge: Maps-as-Models, 45
Maps and Models—for Insight and Action, 47
The Business Blueprint—The "Where’s Waldo" of Your Organization, 48
Business Blueprinting—The "What’s Waldo Doing" in Your Organization, 51
Understanding the DNA—What Connects with What, Where, When, How, and How Much, 54
Bill and Carl’s Hurting Hospital Group, 55
Strategy Model, 57
Watch Out for the Bus!—or Else the Company Stops Running, 73
What This Means to You, 73
3 Measurements, Gauges, and Graphs—Doing What’s Important 77
Setting the Stage: From Gut Feel to Root Causes, 79
Extent of the Challenge: "Reducing the Number of Bad Outcomes", 80
Facing the Challenge: Defeating the "Corporate Antibodies to Change", 86
Lean Six Sigma—Methods and Madness, 91
Reginald Goes Lean, 98
What This Means to You, 99
4 The Pragmatics of Strategy . . . with Your Head in the Clouds and Your Feet on the Ground 105
Setting the Stage: How to Be "Strategic" Yet Still Get Stuff Done, 107
Extent of the Challenge: What You Don’t Know Will Get You, 109
Facing the Challenges: "Go Not into Uncertainty Unaware, and Certainly Not Unarmed!", 113
Characterizing Business Uncertainty, 113
Answering the "So What" Question, 120
The "Pragmatics" of Strategy, or Pragmatic Strategy, 120
Creating a New "Outside-In" Strategy, 120
Justifying an "Inside-Out" Operational Strategy, 123
Philippe and Marcus and Scott and Debbie, 128
What This Means to You, 129
5 Business Processes . . . Where Business and Technology Meet 135
Setting the Stage: All Value Is Built in Processes, 137
Extent of the Challenge: "Doing More with More", 142
Facing the Challenge: Mutual Visibility/Useful Action, 146
Process Optimization Leads the Way, 148
Optimizing for What?, 151
Mutual Understanding, 152
What to Do, Where, and How Much, 153
Shared Vocabulary, Interdependent Actions, 156
Tools to Get Stuff Done, 158
The Work of Process Optimization, 159
After Optimization, 164
Technology, 164
Organization Design, 164
Change Management, 165
Business Case Development, 165
What This Means to You, 166
6 Next Generation Business Process Outsourcing . . . as Promise and Threat 171
Setting the Stage: An Industry in the Crunch—Beyond the Precipice or into the Chasm, 173
Extent of the Challenge: At a Tipping Point or Just Plain Tipping Over, 174
Facing the Challenge: Decisions Made and Decisions to Make, 180
The Contractual Crunch and the Unintended Consequences of Win-Lose Contracts, 181
Nice New Promises/Same Old Methods, 184
Explaining the Crunch, 187
The Wedge Effect, 187
The Bull's-Eye Effect, 190
The Peak Effect, 193
Returning to the Contractual Crunch, 197
Next-Gen BPO—The Search for the Win-Win Contract, 198
The Semantics of Value—Why We Need to Care, 199
Mutual Visibility—Again, 202
Making the Shift to Value, 207
What This Means to You, 209
In Closing, 214
7 Secure Global Commerce . . . Managing the Tension between "Assured" and "Agile" Commerce 217
Setting the Stage: Mutual Visibility and Mutual Dependency, 219
The Extent of the Challenge: "Here, There, and Everywhere", 222
75 Days, 25 Hands, 222
Operation Safe Commerce: Starting Steps of a Long Journey, 227
Facing the Challenge: Turning the Tension into Harmony, 230
Visibility through Blueprinting, 230
Visible Commerce and Connectivity, 235
It Is a Small World after All, 245
What This Means to You, 246
8 Pragmatic Execution . . . in the Context of Everything Else 255
Setting the Stage: From Being Compelling to Being Useful, 257
Facing the Challenge: Managing
the Impossible Decision, 258
Making a Scramble Not a Scramble, 258
Creating Information Advantage, 259
What This Means to You, 262
Afterword 265
The Pragmatics of Getting Work Done:
A Perspective from State Street, 265
Notes 271
Index 285
About the Authors 299
About the Author :
Ralph Welborn works extensively with industry executives, sales teams, technical teams and strategic alliances throughout the Americas, Europe, and East Asia. He is a Managing Partner of Global Transformation at Unisys Corporation and a former Senior Vice President of Global Solutions and Chief Strategist at BearingPoint. Ralph lives in Westwood, Massachusetts. Vince Kasten is a business advisor in the areas of business transformation, strategic collaboration, software product development, and large-scale systems integration. He is a managing partner of Global Transformation at Unisys Corporation and was formally a Managing Partner of Business Transformation and a Global Head of Applications at BearingPoint. Vince lives in Fanwood, New Jersey.
