Creating the BSM Strategy Draft
I’ve talked over the past few weeks on why you need to establish a BSM Strategy. Now is the time for all good techies, managers or business folks to put pen to paper. Over the next several weeks I’ll highlight some of the best practices, thoughts and ideas I have around writing the BSM Strategy document. All of this will lead up to an example BSM Strategy document.
One of the first points of wisdom that I can offer as you begin is to take the K.I.S.S. approach. The focus of the BSM Strategy document should be kept at a higher level with a very focused effort to keep lower level details out. We don’t want to turn the BSM Strategy document into something that takes a PhD to understand or a secret decoder ring to translate all of the TLA’s that are generally thrown about these days in most companies.
How do you do this? One way is to rise above your day job and find more senior IT or business (financial) folks responsible for capital budgeting requests and business case/plan development for those key IT or business initiatives we talked about previously. These folks are usually masters of getting to the point with very simplistic use of words, concepts or discussion. You could also review the companies annual report or other financial documents particularly in the “Management Discussion” section. The K.I.S.S. concepts are often applied here to get the data or information across as clearly as possible, minimizing the chance for confusion or questions (or SEC fines!).
It may help to reach back to your college days and apply some of those nifty techniques such as mind mapping to help organize your key points, thoughts, supporting arguments, cause & effect, initiatives, etc. Organize or rank things where you know you can K.I.S.S. and get the points across while highlighting others where you’ll need help. Ask for help. Reach out to your boss or those who may have a more simplistic, less technical, less “toolsey”, applications or architectural focus. You may be surprised by how others can rationalize technology into value proposition and simple “no-brainer” descriptions.
The K.I.S.S. approach also needs to be applied to the overall length of the BSM Strategy. Most executives have a very short attention span and generally want to consume enough key information to be able to make a “go, no-go” decision in less than a few minutes, hence the “Executive Summary” concept. The folks down the chain will want more content to be able to think about and analyze, but they’re not going to read a 20 page document in most cases. Get to the point in the first few paragraphs. Paint the picture of value, return on effort and investment and answer the “who, what, when, where, why or how” questions you’ve already anticipated in advance. You’ll likely be more successful and have the BSM Strategy document considered “Executive Ready” when you’ve put this kind of effort into creating it and thinking things through.