End-to-End Strategy Execution

Organization design is a long-standing discipline that has historically been described as the alignment of a company's structure, roles, workflows, and culture with its strategic goals. What does it mean when artificial intelligence (AI) introduces the ability to reinvent structure, change people's roles, and go beyond traditional workflow-based thinking. According to some sources, hierarchies need to flatten, roles that used to exist will be redefined or eliminated, and traditional process flow

There is growing concern and even more disappointment in the inability or unwillingness of business leaders to recognize the value of architecture and the teams responsible for defining and helping capitalize on those architectures. While not an entirely new phenomenon, the number and scope of situations where I hear of architecture teams being disbanded, disbursed, or just laid off entirely seems to be escalating. Those remaining keep getting cut out of the planning, impact assessment, future s

According to a recent survey, over half of customers say they stopped using a product or buying a brand because of a bad experience. Only four in ten customers say that their brand loyalty has grown over the years. Yet nine in 10 executives think that customer loyalty has increased during that same time frame. The survey found that there's more than a 50-point gap between executive perceptions of customer loyalty and the reality of the customer experience. This podcast will exam some of the root

In this episode, William Ulrich and Charles Bowman outline the "cognitive vision", something that appears to be lacking as organizations struggle to articulate a strategic direction on AI, even as they spend millions of dollars annually pursuing its benefits. The episode charts a path forward that defines the role of cognitive computing in streamlining strategy execution while concurrently making progress towards the cognitive operating environment. The discussion provides examples of cognitive

In this week's episode, William Ulrich and Charles Bowman welcome Seth Earley, author of "The AI-Powered Enterprise", for which he received the Axiom Silver Medal for AI and Business. Seth's work covers artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, knowledge engineering, data management systems, taxonomy, ontology, and metadata governance. The discussion examines the role of AI in corporate strategy, the importance of architecture, formal design paradigms, and high-quality data, the concept of s

This episode features an interview with Joe Cerasani, a senior solution architect and development lead. Our discussion breaks down a topic that most business professionals and even IT professionals see as a black box. Topics include the ideal team setup, the role of business, data, and related architecture perspectives in software service design and development, and best practices that support the viability and scalability of the deployed solutions. A key topic involves the importance of event-d

Solution deployment has traditionally been characterized by development teams parachuting into an ill-defined project that lacks clear goals and objectives, defined scope, formal architecture and design targets, and an optimized deployment roadmap. In this episode, William Ulrich and Charles Bowman discuss how systematically traversing the strategy execution framework ensures that solution deployment is based on well-defined goals and objectives, a rigorous impact assessment, clear architecture

Business and technology transformation planning is based on rigorously defined metrics, with the culmination of those metric-based assessments resulting in a business and technical debt assessment. The debt assessment, in conjunction with impact assessments and target state architectures and designs, lays the foundation for crafting a formally defined transformation roadmap. Tune into this episode as William Ulrich and Charles Bowman define the key ingredients to transformation road mapping. In

For every initiative an organization undertakes, there are many things that can go wrong for every one that can go right. Every major initiative needs someone to keep things moving in the right direction from a sponsorship, business, technical, personnel, and deployment perspective. Enter the Portfolio Executive. In this week's podcast, we interview Mr. Raj Dolas, President of Akiak Technologies. Mr. Dolas has held a number of leadership positions including Portfolio Executive and Chief Technolo

In William Ulrich and Charles Bowman’s latest book, they cite Jim Rohn’s quote that “discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment”. They go on to highlight three essential elements of discipline; the ability to maintain rigor, continuity, and interconnectedness from an end-to-end perspective. In this episode of their strategy execution podcast, they highlight the concept of the business knowledgebase and, coupled with business architecture, the role it plays in maintaining disciplin

Organizations that ignore, sidestep, or underfund solution architecture are missing the glue that binds the architecture perspectives that lead to successful initiative outcomes and strategy deployments. In this episode of the End-to-End Strategy Execution podcast, William Ulrich and Charles Bowman welcome guest, Dr. Michael Bardash, practicing senior solution architect with unique insights into the topic. This episode focuses on the makeup of solution architecture, attributes of the ideal solut

In their recently published book, End-to-End Strategy Execution, William Ulrich and Charles Bowman said that problematic data is one of the seven deadly patterns undermining strategy execution. In this podcast episode, they interview distinguished guests, John Bottega, President of EDMA, and Professor Peter Aiken, President of DAMA – the two leading global associations focused on data. Join the podcast as they help listeners understand and address the mounting data challenges presented by poorly