On Building Strategic Agility

How do you move from a strategy that feels like a list of projects to focusing on the outcomes? Strategic agility is all about being flexible in how you get there, beginning with the end in mind rather than focusing on a to-do list. 

In this episode of Dreams with Deadlines, Jenny speaks with Dan Montgomery, author of Start less, Finish More: Building Strategic Agility with Objectives and Key Results, founder and Managing Director of Agile Strategies, and OKR Thought Leader. He explains strategic agility as providing value to an ecosystem for your business to be successful and using OKRs to stay in that bigger picture. 

Listen in to learn how to do strategic planning in your business using the five steps methodology (access, focus, commit, act, and learn). You will also learn how to be adaptable as an organization by understanding your value to the customer and then building key results around that. 

“If you don’t bring OKRs into the regular management agenda, you will set it and forget it.” — Dan [20:47]

Show notes

• [2:20] Dan on his interest in people’s organization plus the different career paths he’s undertaken.
• [3:35] Why he wrote his book Start less, Finish More, which is about strategic agility.
• [4:56] How to do more strategic thinking – begin with the end in mind rather than focusing on a to-do list. 
• [7:04] How to create a minimum viable strategy – creating holistic value for all your business’s stakeholders.  
• [10:37] The difference between the traditional mechanical business planning and today’s trying and scaling strategy.
• [13:48] The 5-steps of building strategic agility as outlined in his book; access, focus, commit, act, and learn. 
• [29:34] Overburdened matrix – not being agile and operating in silos plus how to use shared OKRs to cut across those silos.
• [33:09] Dan answers more quick-fire questions.

Relevant links

• Agile Strategies
• Start Less, Finish More: Building Strategic Agility with Objectives and Key Results
• OODA loop