Business Execution Canvas^® Foundations · Lesson A9

Measuring and starting

A canvas earns its keep when it changes what the organisation does. This lesson shows how to measure where you stand, choose the two or three things to fix first, fix them properly, and measure again.

Lesson 9 of 9About 35 minutes

Measure with the people who do the work

The Business Execution Canvas Diagnostic asks managers at every level the same questions about how the organisation really works. Each person rates all 27 components on the five described levels, which takes about 15 minutes. Results appear once three people in the organisation have answered.

Three rules keep it honest:

Each person sees their own result. Leaders see only combined results, and only for groups of three or more.
Every level answers. A diagnostic answered only by executives measures what executives believe.
It is repeated. One round is a snapshot; the second round shows whether anything changed.

Read the pattern before the total

Scores run from 0 to 100. Around 50 means something happens, but unevenly. 75 or more means it works well and reliably. A change of 10 points or more between rounds is a real change; anything smaller is normal ups and downs.

Read in this order:

The pillars. Which is weakest? The Execution Score counts it most.
The spread. Where do management levels see a different organisation? A wide spread is a finding before it is a score.
The overlap. Components with a low score and wide disagreement are where to start. As a rule of thumb: below 55, with people more than 20 points apart.
The change. Which components moved 10 points or more, and what happened between rounds that might explain it?

Harbourline’s starting points

After round 3, Harbourline’s report draws three conclusions:

Finding	Evidence	First step
Collaboration across the value chain is the weakest area and the least agreed	Across 34 (executives 49, team leads 20); Structured Collaboration 46 (executives 62, team leads 32)	Ask team leads which two handoffs cause the most escalations, and agree both sides of each
Adapt is the pillar holding execution back	Adapt 47; Respond 36, Innovate 39	Name the one thing learned about customers this year that has not been acted on
Strategy Deployment trails the other foundations	Strategy Deployment 42, against Mission 78 and Vision 71	Trace each goal down to the teams that carry it

Notice what the report does not do. It does not list every weak component. It picks three, explains each with evidence, and suggests causes to test rather than stating them as fact.

From finding to action

A finding becomes action in four steps, each with its own tool:

Rank. List the problems behind a finding, score each against the goals it would move, then on cost and time. Fiona Grant, Harbourline’s Service Transition Manager, ranked 18 project-to-service issues this way.
Fix one properly. Take the top problem through an A3: facts, root cause, countermeasures, follow-up. Aoife Byrne’s A3 on missing run-books cut the share of new services with a priority-1 incident in their first 30 days from 1 in 3 to 1 in 8.
Write it into the canvas. Record the decision, its owner and its measure, so the fix outlasts the people who made it.
Measure again. The next round shows whether the score moved, and the cycle starts again.

Two or three at a time is enough. Organisations that try to fix all 27 components at once usually fix none.

What management can learn from software

A good backlog is ranked by value and cost, and the team works from the top; a good improvement list is ranked the same way.
A fix is not done until it is tested and released; an organisational fix is not done until it is written into the canvas and measured.
Teams measure the same few things every release to see the trend; organisations repeat the same diagnostic every round for the same reason.

Try it

what to fix first

Choose Try the example: “Project to service: what to fix first”, with 18 issues scored against four goals. It is free. Allow about 15 minutes.

On the Score the issues tab, read the four goals across the top and how each issue is scored against them, then on cost and time.
On the Ranking tab, read the top three issues and why each came out where it did.
Find the issue that became Aoife Byrne’s A3.

Open the Priority Decision Matrix

Pause and think · your notes

Bring the lesson back to your own organisation.

Look back at your note from lesson A1. List three problems behind it. Which would you take through an A3 first, and who would own it?

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Your note from lesson A1 is on your notes page.

Where to go next

Measure your own organisation. Run the Business Execution Canvas Diagnostic with your leadership team. Your first team diagnostic is free.
Draw your own canvas. Create a free account in the Builder and start a new canvas.
Fix the joins. The free Structured Collaboration Foundations course shows how teams agree what they need from each other, ending with your own Structured Collaboration Canvas^™.
Go deeper. The Practitioner course covers the canvas at every level, process owners and process managers, and deciding what to fix first.

Check your understanding

Five questions on this lesson. Choose an answer to see straight away whether it is right, and why. Your score is saved with your progress.

Question 1

When do diagnostic results first appear?

The three-person minimum protects individual answers.

Question 2

A component moves 6 points between rounds. What should you conclude?

Only 10 points or more is a real change.

Question 3

Where should you usually start?

Low and disputed is where the shared picture is weakest.

Question 4

Harbourline has eight components below 55 with wide disagreement. How many should it work on first?

A few, fixed properly, beat many, fixed partly.

Question 5

When is an organisational fix finished?

The canvas records it; the next round tests it.

Harbourline Services is a fictional company used as the worked example in every Structured Collaboration tool. Its figures come from the sample diagnostic report.

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