TECHNOLOGY GUIDEPOSTS

Guideposts are strategic technology aspirations that will guide you as you navigate your organization toward a position of industry leadership.

WHAT ARE TECHNOLOGY GUIDEPOSTS

Guideposts are strategic, aspirational statements that guide efforts and investments. They are not goals; they’re broader than goals. Guideposts target areas for competitive advantage that narrow the focus of technology strategy. They are designed so investments of time and money make a true market impact.

Guideposts differ from goals because they are long-range, big concepts that dictate the more detailed elements of executing with technology on a day-to-day basis. As an example, a goal would be, “we want to build a database with one million names in it.” A guidepost, however, is, “we want to be the best in our industry at growing our database of names.” The former is a one-time goal; the latter is focused on building a tangible asset long term.

After your guideposts have been established, you will set goals under each guidepost and then create projects to help you hit these goals.

Every two to three years, it is important to refresh your guideposts so that they accurately reflect organizational and market changes. Guideposts offer a rolling strategy to keep building a market leading advantage.

WHY ARE GUIDEPOSTS IMPORTANT

STRATEGIC FOUNDATION

Guideposts provide a fertile ground for your long-term strategies; they are the foundation upon which your business and technology strategies are developed.

TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT

Guideposts will focus your investments on things that are going to move the needle. By continuously evaluating necessary technology investments against your guideposts, you can align your technology strategy to support your ability to win in your market.

ORGANIZATIONAL ALIGNMENT

Your leadership and staff across the organization can use guideposts as a common ground to align the organization on a unified mission.

HOW WE HELP

Setting technology guideposts can feel quite daunting the first time. Therefore, we offer private work sessions to help you determine specific guideposts.

At these sessions, we typically develop three to five guideposts. This process should be repeated every two years because guideposts need to be continually matured and altered with changing market conditions. This is why learning this process is so valuable, because it can be utilized for the life of your organization.

As a result of this session, your team will be empowered through an understanding of guideposts and learning the methodology for developing and applying them. In addition, applying guideposts will help your team:

  1. Influence tech-centered decision making toward organizational aspirations
  2. To anticipate and leverage technology trends that are affecting your industry
  3. Align your organization to ensure all employees are working in a shared and strategic direction

WHAT AN ENGAGEMENT LOOKS LIKE

In a Technology Guideposts engagement, we meet with select members of the organization and lead a strategy session. In these sessions, an organization will select its guideposts and begin creating actionable steps to meet them. These meetings are characteristically held yearly so that progress can be charted. Guideposts are then readjusted, and the team is then realigned to meet new guideposts.

1// KICKOFF MEETING

The process begins with a kickoff call to align the team on the objective of the engagement, set expectations on the sequence of events, explain the deliverables, and answer questions you have.

2// SCHEDULING & LOGISTICS

We work closely with the team’s designated coordinator to schedule dates and session participants.

3// ASSESSMENTS, INTERVIEWS, AND/OR RESEARCH

We conduct pre-event assessments with key stakeholders either in person or through our digital assessment platform. This process helps us gather perspective as we prepare for the strategy session.

4// STRATEGY SESSION

We facilitate a full-day strategy session to establish guideposts and build an action plan. These sessions will include key stakeholders from throughout the organization’s team. The findings from the session are captured and prepared in a report that we will deliver to the client.