Charting a Path to Your North Star via Strategy Execution
June 10, 2021
Hosted by William Ulrich
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Episode Description
Episode one of the North Star establishes the show's purpose, basic themes and range of topics to be covered. Host William Ulrich will discuss the suboptimal strategy execution track record that organizations share across the private and public sector, consider the root causes of these execution performance issues and lay the groundwork for optimizing strategy execution. He will share his experiences and lessons learned over the course of his 40-plus year career that has shifted his thinking from a technology-first to a business-first and customer-first perspective. William will also provide insights into why the success or failure of a given strategy can be predetermined well before programs and projects are established and corresponding investments are allocated. Two areas that he plans to explore include the lack of upfront problem diagnosis and holistic solution design, along with the tendency to execute strategies in splintered fragments that invariably create unworkable or unimplementable results. He will share a variety of real-world stories that are likely to leave you shaking your head, thinking how can these things be possible. Another topic he will address involves the penchant that business leaders often have for being drawn into major investments in "shiny objects", where those shiny objects become a poor substitute for well-crafted business goals and objectives. Finally, William will provide an overview of upcoming topics and guests who will include thought leaders, researchers, authors and experts from a variety of business and technology disciplines.
The North Star
Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Business Channel
The North Star takes a deep dive into the topic of strategy execution, often challenging conventional wisdom for achieving an organization’s strategic vision. The host and thought leaders from multiple fields explore concepts that include rethinking innovation, increasing enterprise agility, transitioning to the circular economy, managing enterprise risk and becoming a cognitive enterprise. Setting sights on one’s “north star” is only half the story. Decades of experience point to the headwinds organizations have faced in pursuit of their strategic vision. To that end, the North Star examines how organizations can more effectively deliver on critical business strategies in these uncertain times. The show tackles intractable challenges that many organizations have historically sidestepped, such as optimizing major program investments and untangling high risk technology deployments. While the show often points toward the road less traveled, that road that can make all the difference.
William Ulrich
William Ulrich is President of Tactical Strategy Group, Inc., Cofounder of Business Architecture Associates, President and Cofounder of the Business Architecture Guild and Cutter Consortium Fellow. As a management consultant for more than 40 years, Mr. Ulrich continues to serve as advisor, mentor and workshop leader to corporations and governments worldwide. He is a thought leader in strategy execution, business transformation, business architecture and transformation oversight. Mr. Ulrich has the unique ability to engage executives and practitioners across business and IT boundaries to facilitate and streamline ecosystem-wide transformation. His transformation workshops and lectures have been widely attended by organizations worldwide. Mr. Ulrich blends his IT transformation expertise with his extensive business architecture and business transformation experience to deliver end-to-end solutions that are fully aligned to business strategy. He has authored or coauthored multiple books and transformation methodologies and was an originating contributor to “A Guide to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge.” Prior to founding Tactical Strategy Group in 1990, Mr. Ulrich served as management consultant, spending the bulk of the 1980s with KPMG where he helped mature its software reengineering practice. His latest writings focus on the cognitive enterprise, transitioning to the circular economy and business-driven IT architecture transformation.
