Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

5Developing the Transformation Plan

Execution. It’s the focus of dozens of business books, hundreds of white papers, and thousands of conversations between frustrated executives and their teams. Every author, B-school professor, and consultant seems to have a theory—and often a method—for combating the pesky problem of getting things done. We boil it all down to five unavoidable facts: you need a well-crafted plan, consensus around that plan, the discipline to stick with it, the wisdom to know when to adjust the plan, and the restraint to deviate from the plan only when absolutely necessary. There’s a big difference between needing to change a plan because new data or new conditions warrant it and deviating from a plan because an avoidable distraction ...