Visualizing Enterprise Goals

Motivation

A network diagram visualizes a strategic initiative, Goal, or project in comparison to other initiatives. At the project portfolio level, Flight Level 1 Kanban, or Enterprise Backlog, a project can be more easily assessed relative to other initiatives and weighted accordingly. This improves decision quality and makes it easier to determine how many initiatives, Goals, or projects can be focused on and worked on simultaneously.

• Only a few pieces of information are displayed that can be quickly processed cognitively.
• The focus is on information relevant to decision-makers.
• Assessment is always relative to other initiatives, making estimates comparable and transparent.

Process

The estimation is conducted by a group of experts. The process can be facilitated using Planning Poker. The assessment is based exclusively on the project description. Estimates can be adjusted in later rounds when new insights or additional experience become available.

Structure

• The dimensions (axes in the spider chart) are scaled from 1 to 20.
• Each dimension should always be estimated in comparison to one or more reference initiatives. The estimation uses a pseudo-Fibonacci sequence: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20.
• To minimize estimation errors, the values of the reference dimensions should ideally be 2, 3, or 5.

Suggested Dimensions:

• Relevance in relation to enterprise strategy
• Benefit (relative economic value gained from implementation or loss prevented by implementation)
• Impact on existing organization, services, and products (e.g., customer outages, process disruptions, effects on other initiatives and projects, and impact on employee productivity)
• Complexity (uncertainty regarding success, benefit, technology, etc.)
• CAPEX (directly attributable capital expenditures)

Example