You could see the slow burn on the supply-chain executive's face. An excellent pedigree, cross-industry success, and the question: how do you turn the beast around when there are so many projects and versions of priorities that it seems impossible? The beast was his company. Around was its financial performance.
I asked what criteria the company used to say yes or no to strategic projects. Silence around the table. There were none.
It is one of the most common frustrations we see: too many initiatives, never-ending requests for more resources, more money, more time. Those are symptoms. The cause is not being able to say no, and a company cannot say no without a common set of strategic criteria that is visible, measurable and quantified. You may believe your criteria are visible. Unless the executive team can recite them, they are not.
What invisible criteria produce
Debates about alternatives on their merits, which means on their sponsor. Criteria invented by a function or a region to favour its own priorities. Walls thickening between functions as they compete for resources. Inertia that becomes the norm before anyone notices.
The fix
Discipline, not complexity. Three to five criteria, agreed by the executive team, that every project is scored against: profit, fit with the product-market priorities, advantage created, risk. Published. Recited. Applied in the open. A good idea that scores low gets a no with a reason the room accepts, because the room wrote the criteria.
Where it lives
Tool six of the MOVE® system is the project portfolio: funded projects with a named executive and the P&L line each moves. Everything else stopped, and the stopping written down. The exit is what funds the bet.
Monday
Ask each member of your executive team to write the criteria the company uses to approve a strategic project. If you get different lists, you have found why there are too many projects.
