Technology Strategy Patterns

Chapter 5. Corporate Context

In this chapter, we look at the patterns that operate internally within the sphere of your own company. There are more patterns in the corporate sphere than in the others, as the work of your technology strategy is primarily centered on how to position your company for competitive advantage. They are:

• Stakeholder Alignment

• RACI

• Life-Cycle Stage

• Value Chain

• Growth-Share Matrix

• Core/Innovation Wave

• Investment Map

Stakeholder Alignment

Strategy without tactics is the longest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

Sun Tzu

The way to be successful in a company is to do something that matters to someone who matters. To test the validity of this assertion, consider the alternatives.

The first is for you to spend time doing stuff that doesn’t matter to the people who matter. If the work you’re doing does not matter to the executive leadership in your company, you face a choice. On one hand, you can get on board with something that does matter to them. Drop what you’re doing and find a different team, a different role, or a different project that does matter to them; or redefine what you’re doing so that it fits better with the stated direction and values. On the other hand, some soul searching may reveal that your passion for that misaligned project or process is so consuming, persistent, and fierce that you simply do not want to give it up. In that case, you must convince the executive leadership that it must change, or ...