(2006-12-13) Hagel Fast Strategy

John Hagel sketches a FAST Business Strategy process. FAST = FocUs, Accelerate, Strengthen, Tie It All Together. This approach urges executives to move along parallel paths, operating on two very different time horizons: one horizon takes a five to ten year view of the business and the second horizon zooms in to a much more tactical six to twelve month view of the business. The one to five year horizon that is so loved by traditional business strategists actually receives very little attention in the FAST approach... Fo Cus is the key activity on the five to ten year horizon. This requires senior management to develop a common view on two key questions for their business. Five to ten years from now, what will the markets that we participate in look like? Then, what kind of business we will need to have in order to continue to create value in these markets?... On the six to twelve month horizon, Accelerate and Strengthen are the key requirements. By Accelerate, I mean identifying a few key operating initiatives that have the potential to significantly accelerate the movement of the company towards the long-term Focus.... On the same time horizon, Strengthen also comes into play. Here, management needs to ask, what are the major organizational obstacles that are preventing us from moving even faster to achieve our operational objectives? Then the question becomes, what can be done over the next six to twelve months to "de-BottleNeck" the organization and strengthen our organizational capabilities so that we can move even faster in the next six to twelve month cycle?... Tie it all together integrates these three streams of activities... Few companies today have adopted anything like a FAST strategy approach. You can use five questions to determine whether a company is pursuing this approach... The FAST strategy approach provides a robust framework for incremental (and Iterative) Innovation.