HET^® for Strategy Teams

HET for Strategy Teams helps you navigate the complex, and sometimes messy, work of strategy development. It includes three modules – one for each stage of the cycle of working on a strategy, each designed to help groups work together as Highly Effective Teams^®.

• Module 1.  Structure, Roles, Decisions answers: “How are we organizing ourselves for success, and who makes what decisions?”
• Module 2:  Strategy Articulation and Prioritization answers: “For our expected results and outcomes, what is our most important work, and who leads each piece?”
• Module 4:  Active Management answers: “How do we ensure we deliver the promised work and that it adds up to the change we want to see in the world?”

The Structure, Roles & Decisions module is depicted visually as the leading edge of the HET Wave, because it usually happens only when a new team is forming or during an organizational restructuring. Unless the entire organization is a start-up, structure does not get revisited every quarter or every year the way the other HET strategy modules may. Structure may periodically need to be updated as strategy changes, but structural changes should be much rarer than the regular changes we expect to see in our priorities, processes, and results.

HET helps your team organize early for success. The HET Structure, Roles & Decisions module provides a common language to help teams Align the structure, Balance the roles, and Capture decision-making. Each of the Structure, Roles & Decisions principles has corresponding learning curricula and tools to help teams live by these principles.

• HET Family Tree: Illustrates relationships that different parts of your organization leading and implementing the strategy.
• HET Strategy Team Organizational Chart: Clarifies the people and roles within the strategy, and projects and roles nested in the strategy.
• HET Decisions Map:  Lays out major decisions that need to be made within a given strategy from idea to implementation and evaluation.

In the second stage of the cycle of teamwork, Strategy Articulation & Prioritization, your team sets the vision for the change you want to see in the world and builds the strategy and body of work your team needs to perform to bring that vision to reality. The Strategy Articulation & Prioritization process can be painful, political, polarizing, and create conflict. This is because we often realize that:

1. We may not be aligned on our vision and desired strategy outcomes,
2. We may have an overlapping or incomplete strategy framework that causes us to step on one another’s toes or allows work to fall between the cracks, or
3. We are trying to do too many things for our given capacity and deadlines.

Going through this process is necessary for us to get aligned on what we are trying to do together, how we are going to do it, and what is most important, so that we can prioritize, focus, implement and succeed.

This HET Module provides a common language to help teams Articulate the vision, Build the strategy framework, and Confirm the body of work. Each of the Strategy Articulation and Prioritization principles has corresponding methods and tools to help teams live by these principles.

Tools include:

• HET Strategy Theory of Change: Clarifies what you can control and deliver and how our work will influence target audiences to bring the change we hope to see in the world.
• HET House Strategy Framework: Simplifies your strategy into a clear structure that organizes your work and allows clear communications.
• HET Team Portfolio: Documents and assigns the entire body of work within your strategy to align the team on current and future priorities.

Once your strategy is clearly defined, HET helps you and your team implement and make it a reality (using Module 3, Project Planning & Implementation). After a period of execution, you use the fourth stage of high performance teamwork, Active Management, to make sure you deliver on the work you promised to do and that it achieves the change you want to see in the world. Active Management is a two-step process: making sure the work is done, and then making sure the work has the intended impact. If the work is not done, we cannot assess its impact. Once the work is done, if we do not assess its impact, we will not know whether to maintain or adjust our strategy.

The HET Active Management curriculum provides a common language to help teams Adopt a Rhythm, Bring Measures, and Commit to Goals. HET helps you codify the lifecycle of your teamwork, measure progress toward your desired outcomes, and keep the team focused on near-term goals and the long-term vision.

Tools include:

• HET Team Cadence Tool: Outlines the lifecycle of a team around a recurring schedule, like a drumbeat, to keep you all stay on time and in rhythm.
• HET Measures Dashboard: Makes reality visible on progress the team has made toward its vision and what gaps remain.
• HET Goal Tracker: Clarifies commitments the team has made on short-term objectives and long-term vision.