What can strategic planners learn from architects?

Strategic planning processes create large, detailed documents, but often little action. They sit in the bottom of draws or in unused electronic files only to be accessed when the next strategy plan is needed. As Dilbert famously described a conversation between the head of strategy and a new recruit – “The planning process involves making Powerpoints for the executive committee meeting”. “Oh … but that can be fun. I enjoy doing the analysis for Powerpoints.” “Well, actually we use the ones from last year and change the dates.”

Since a strategy is a design for how the organisation is going to compete and what it will do in the next period, maybe strategists can learn something from a profession where design is the core skill – architecture.

One of the things that I have learnt from architects is the concept of “levels of design”, a notion that the creation of a design goes through a series of levels of increasing complexity and detail.

When an architect designs a new house, for example, he or she does it in stages of increasing detail. At the first level, she sets out a few basic principles that she and the client agree on. These may be broad visions such as the house should feel welcoming for guests or it should blend into its environment. As well as practical details like the kitchen should face East to catch the morning sun or the car port should be close to the kitchen to help unload groceries.

At Level 2 the architect draws a rough sketch of the building. It might include a basic plan for each floor, a plan of how the building might sit in its plot and a view from each side. It might also include some basic infrastructure ideas such as the type of heating and where the main water and sewage pipes will run.

Level 3 is a scale blueprint with accurate measurements of each room, details about the heating and plumbing, suggested positioning for the main bits of furniture and some important material choices, such as clay roof tiles or a wood floor in the living area.

Level 4 is the quantity surveyor’s list of materials and quantities: the number of clay tiles needed or the yards of copper wire. Final decisions are made about power points, about the taps in the bathroom and the colour of the kitchen wall. These decisions are often delegated to lots of different specialists: the interior decorator, the plumber and the garden designer.

Level 5 involves the many issues that come up as the new house is being built. An extra power point is needed for the wi-fi router. The chosen wood fired burner requires a bigger alcove than planned. A supplier is late. The building regulator requires thicker floor joists.

This concept of five levels of design, could be helpful to strategic planners. If planners thought about “five levels of strategy”, they might be less likely to find themselves with fancy plans and little action. The typical strategic planning document would be recognise for what it is – a rough sketches at Level 2. Before anything is likely to happen, the strategist will need to make sure that plans are developed at Levels 3 and 4.

A Level 3 plan would identify the main organizational units responsible for different parts of the strategy and the operating model that links these organisational units together. For each unit, the plan specifies the outcomes expected, the timeframes, the way the unit will work with other units, any constraints on the unit and the resources available. The sum of outcomes at Level 3 will achieve the objectives defined at Level 2.

A Level 4 plan specifies the people, the money and the time needed for each sub-task within each unit. It also explains how units will continue with existing activity and take on the extra tasks required by the strategy.

Just as the work of the quantity surveyor often throws up issues for the architect to resolve, so too will Level 4 plans raise issues to be resolved at Levels 2 and 3. Strategic planning should, therefore, include an iterative process for dialogue between levels. This requires a concept of levels of strategy, and clarity about the work at each level. In the military, the dialogue process is called back briefing. Interestingly, in strategy work, we do not have a good label for this activity.

Finally, Level 5 planning is about the inevitable adjustments that need to be made as events unfold. The money is not available when expected. Critical people leave with little prior notice. The competitor reacts aggressively to the plan. The chosen software package does not provide some needed management information.

Sometimes events cannot be handled by adjustments at Level 5. Changes are needed at Levels 4 or 3 or 2. This is when clarity about levels is again helpful. Knowing when events require a Level 5 or a Level 2 response ensures that managers do not wander off course unnecessarily or fail to correct course when circumstances demand it.

Maybe an awareness of levels of strategy work will bridge the gap between strategy and action and help organisations do better strategic planning.

Andrew Campbell is a Director of Ashridge Business School in the UK and runs executive courses such as Designing Operating Models and Advanced Organisation Design. He has written more than 10 books on business strategy and organisation.

Thoughts about the long term short term debate

Received wisdom says that leaders have become increasingly short term. In fact short termism is blamed for many ills. In addition the strategic entrepreneurship debate and the ambidexterity debate both argue that it is difficult for organisations to make current operations efficient while at the same time investing for future growth.

I have two challenges to this debate. First, how much evidence do we have that managers are short term biased? Second, most humans balance short term and long term issues every day. Most are quite good at getting the balance right. So, if managers are short termist what is the cause?

On the first issue of evidence for short termism, I think it is possible to argue that it does not really exist. Yes there are examples such as sub-prime mortgages and asset stripping and massaging reported numbers. But there are also examples of the opposite. I did research into corporate venturing units, and found that less than 5% achieved their objectives. This was not because of short termism, but because they were taking too much long term risk. I also know of plenty of companies investing in foolish growth initiatives in a desperate attempt to find new growth (less of this in the last three years admittedly). Also, the one recent period where long term thinking dominated – the dot com boom of the late 1990s – was not a period of much note. My own experience suggests that humans have a tendency to dream themselves into unrealistic views of the future. Hence long term thinking is dangerous. I am old enough to remember “long term planning”: an activity that proved to provide very little help to managers.

There is however solid scientific evidence for some mental biases in the human make up, such as risk aversion, loss avoidance and a preference for immediate gratification (the bane of our dieting ambitions). So I am not totally against the idea of short termism. I am just not convinced by the evidence.

On the second issue of capability, all of us have to deal with trade offs between the short term and the long term in our education, in our marriages, in our diets, in our daily work, and in our friendships. Most of us get pretty good at finding the right balance between things like staying up late with friends and performing well at work or between exercise and health. It is true that many make mistakes and some are pretty bad at making some of these trade offs. But, typically, managers who rise to leadership positions are those who are better at making these trade offs than others. So we might expect to find that our leaders are pretty good at trading off short term gains for long term outcomes. If we believe they are not, we would have to believe in one or all of the following explanations

1. The human brain is biased towards short termism and there is very little we can do about it
2. Our processes for selecting people for promotion cause us to select people who are biased towards short term outcomes
3. The incentives we give leaders causes them to take short term decisions even though they would prefer to take longer term decisions

My guess is that those who believe in short termism mainly believe the problem is one of incentives. This is something that can easily be researched. We could look at a sample of leaders with longer term incentives (like owners) and compare their performance with those with shorter term incentives (like bonuses). My experience suggests that we would not find much difference, although there is some evidence to suggest that family companies marginally outperform public companies. If there is short termism, it does not, I think, have a very big impact on anything – except, of course, in some specific situations – such as the incentives given to bankers to lend money to people who could not pay it back! These specific problems are probably not that hard to spot and correct. We may not need a campaign against short termism. We may just need some common sense about incentives.

Insights about ambidexterity

Ambidexterity is the ability to look after today and innovate for tomorrow. It is the holy grail of organization. The main recommendation is structural separation at the operating level and managerial integration at the next level up.

A recent discussion with a manager from Colfax made me wonder whether the solution might be process separation rather than structural separation.

Colfax has a dual budgeting process. There is a budget for the base activities and ‘policy deployment’ for projects that will make a significant change to the status quo. Policy deployment consists of 5 to 10 projects each of which will make a step change in some dimension of sales or costs. Each project is headed by a member of the executive team, so some may have more than one project. Each project is separately funded. Progress is reviewed monthly. The reviews happen the day after the budget reviews. Normally the same people are present, but the focus is on progress, speed, value for money and stretch rather than operating performance, variances and plans to get back on track.

Colfax also has a track record. Most senior managers have come from Danaher which has had above 20% earnings gains for 20 years or more. Both management teams frequently double margins and double organic growth in the companies they acquire, exactly the sort of ambidextrous performance that most companies are looking for.

So maybe we do not need to create structural ambidexterity. Maybe we can do it with ambidextrous processes.

I run courses on organisation design and operating model improvements at Ashridge business school

Organisation charts as organisation models

In an earlier blog “How to draw organisation charts”, I described a way of labeling boxes in an organisation chart with terms such as business unit or shared service or policy unit. The benefit of this is that it generates an organisation chart that communicates the organisation model: it explains how the organisation works, who is most important and what relationships managers should have with each other, for the organisation to function well. The more consulting work I do on organisations the more convinced I become of the importance of this way of drawing organisation charts.

This blog touches on a couple of issues. First the issue of layers. What I have realised is that this way of constructing and displaying the organisation chart described the organisation model for a layer. It may be the group to business unit layer, the head of the business unit to direct reports layer, the head of marketing to direct reports layer or a layer even lower down. So it is possible to define the organisation model for each layer in a way that helps managers work together productively. Try it.

Second, there are only three ways of structuring the operating activities of a layer – as a value chain, as a group of semi-autonomous departments or as a matrix of departments with overlapping responsibilities. It is vital to be clear which of these three is the main structure at each layer. Try listing the layers in a part of your organisation and assessing which of these three is the core structure at each level.

Third, the job of the leader of a layer (the boss) is greatly simplified by the clarity gained. This is because much of the job is dealing with disagreements and squabbles between members if his or her team. If the squabble is between different parts of a value chain, the boss will have to be closely involved in sorting out a suitable compromise. But if the squabble is between semi-autonomous departments, the boss is best advised to leave them to it. If they have energy left to squabble, the best policy is probably to raise their performance targets. The same sort of clarity is achieved for squabbles between support functions and operating functions. If it is between a policy unit and an operating unit, then the boss should back or sack the policy unit. If it is between a shared service unit and an operating unit, then the boss should tell the shared service unit to figure out how to make the operating unit happy or risk losing control of that activity. Clarity about relationships reduces management costs.

These thoughts are further explored in the Ashridge course on organisational structure

Organisations Part 2: Some Propositions

1. The most effective examples of each type are those which are most consistent and avoid drift towards the other model.

No organisation is at one extreme end of the spectrum along every one of the dimensions.  However, the dimensions are not neutral, but reinforce each other.  So the more consistently an organisation’s characteristics are grouped around one end or the other of the spectrum, the more effective it is likely to be.

The most basic choice facing those in charge is what type of organisation is required in order to be fit for purpose.  Taking a basic Type A and trying to graft on Type B features will usually result in a mess.  It is at the heart of many problems of public sector performance across the world.  Demanding that a public sector organisation simultaneously govern citizens and serve customers is demanding that it be Janus-faced, and that is an impossible act to pull off.  Governments need to decide what they want and create separate organisations to do each.  They need some thoroughgoing Type A’s, and others dedicated to service delivery which should be Type B.

2. There is a natural drift towards Type A; maintaining Type B characteristics requires the constant expenditure of energy.

Businesses tend to demonstrate Type A characteristics as they lose their sense of purpose and they come to be dominated by structure and processes.  It is more common if they become very large, but not all large organisations are Type A (GE is a thoroughgoing Type B).  Type B organisations tend to drift naturally towards the state of Type A unless their leadership is energetic in countering this.  The opposite of this entropy is crisis.  In a crisis, external needs become so pressing that behaviour tends to move towards Type B until the crisis has passed.  So it is that sustained success is dangerous for Type B’s and they often need to experience a disaster (e.g. a collapse in share price, a hostile bid, a humiliating battlefield defeat) in order to regenerate.  Wise leaders of Type B organisations create internal crises by challenging the organisation before a real crisis hits them.

3. In any organisation, power tends to float upwards and responsibility tends to sink downwards.

This is a corollary of 2.  Like oil and water in a bottle, keeping the right mix throughout requires vigorous shaking.

4. The intelligence of an organisation is never equal to the sum of the intelligence of the individuals who work in it –  i.e. I ^org ≠ Σ I ^ind

Organisational intelligence is manifested as an ability to respond to its environment and react to changes in order to fulfil its purpose.  This depends on its being able to identify, absorb and process information and act upon it.  A measure of intelligence is the speed and accuracy with which it does so.

Organisations always act as multipliers or dividers of the intelligence of the people in them.  They are never neutral.  As a Type B drifts towards Type A, it acts less and less intelligently, because the drift impairs its ability to respond to its environment.  Hiring more talented people will make things worse because they will become even more frustrated than average ones.  The challenge is to create an organisation which raises the performance of average people.

5. An increase in communications capacity will lead to an increase in control unless this is deliberately countered.

The volume of communications will tend to expand to fill capacity.  Capacity is defined by how much senior people can transmit rather than how much junior people can absorb.  An increase in capacity will therefore tend to centralise control.  Expansion towards capacity creates overload and in conditions of overload prioritisation mechanisms break down.  The effects of this will be to create confusion, slow down decision-making and create inaction. This speeds up the drift of Type B’s towards Type A.

Written by Stephen Bungay, expert in executing strategy in uncertainty.

Learn more at the Ashridge course on organisational structure .

Organisations Part 1: A Typology

Throughout history, there have been two fundamentally different types of organisation.  Their features are laid out below.  Neither is good or bad, so they are simply labelled ‘Type A’ and ‘Type B’.  Both have been vital to the development of civilisation.

Purpose:   Type A – Create stability.   Type B – Create change.

Principle: Type A – Subsume reality into itself.  Type B – Adapt itself to reality.

Goal: Type A – Extend its power through growth and continuity (internally directed).  Type B – Fulfil its mission by achieving tasks benefiting stakeholders (externally directed).

Organisational rationale: Type A – End in itself (seeks perpetuation).  Type B – Means to an end (can abolish itself).

Managing principles: Type A – Avoid Corruption; processes dominate individuals; inputs dominate outputs; follow procedures; treat everyone the same; personnel are servants of the organisation; reward compliance.

Type B – Create accountability; individuals dominate processes; outputs dominate inputs; show initiative; treat everyone appropriately; personnel are free agents within boundaries; reward achievement.

Consequence:  Type A – The general dominates the specific.  Type B – The specific dominates the general.

Definition of failure: Type A – Departing from process (how).  Type B – Failing to achieve goals (what).

Examples:  Type A – Churches, State bureaucracies.  Type B – Businesses, Armies.

This is a heuristic device, a model in terms of which real examples can be understood, not an attempt to describe an organisation or group of organisations.  The dimensions define scales along which it is possible to plot any organisation.  Nevertheless, impurely, but perhaps usefully, one could think of Type A as standing for ‘Administrative’ and Type B for ‘Business’.

Type A’s used to be the most common.  They include political bureaucracies and churches.  Two of the most successful organisations in history, the Imperial Civil Service of China (221BC – 1904AD) and the Catholic Church have been Type A.  Such institutions create the conditions in which Type B’s can flourish.

Type B’s are now far more numerous because they include the business corporations which dominate market economies.  However, they only started to become common some 200 years ago.  Prior to this the main examples were some standing armies, but they too did not become common until the C17th.  The outstanding Type B of all time probably remains the Roman Army (ca 580BC – 565AD).

Importantly, the principles of Types A and B are not just different, but opposed.  Hence a hybrid will have immense difficulties in being effective.

Part II: Propositions coming soon…

Written by Stephen Bungay, expert in executing strategy in uncertainty.

Learn more at the Ashridge course on organisational structure .

The missing link in strategy development

Going back to the 1970s, strategic planning was seen as being about linking opportunities to capabilities.  Since then great progress has been made in developing strategy tools to examine both opportunities and capabilities.   But, not much progress has been made on how to develop winning strategies.  Most strategic planning processes are seen as analysis paralysis and lack creativity.

The solution I believe is in the bit of 1970s thinking that has got lost.  Kenneth Andrews talked about “matching” opportunities and capabilities.  While we have done lots of thinking about both opportunities and capabilities, strategists have done little on “matching”.   This is implementation and change management and … the sorts of things that strategists do not get very involved in.

But what if “matching” is the key ingredient? How does matching occur?   Simple observation suggests that matching is achieved by the entrepreneur or manager or intrapreneur.  Matching requires someone who understands the opportunity and has influence over the capabilities and can bring the two together.  With this view, strategy development could be more about identifying individuals capable of doing the matching, than about exploring opportunities and capabilities.  These people are likely to be much rarer and harder to find than opportunities or access to capabilities.

This suggests a different focus for strategic planning processes.  The new focus would be on identifying managers inside or outside the organisation who have the ability, energy and insight to find some new or improved match.   Strategic plans would then be focused more on defining the “strategy experiments” that are being sponsored than about laying out the five priorities for the next five years.

How do you draw organisation charts

How to draw organisation charts

The typical organisation chart does not tell you much about how the organisation is supposed to work.  Normally, charts are drawn in layers: all the people reporting in to a boss are on the same level and so on down the structure.  Because there are multiple layers, the chart often extends to multiple pages.

If an attempt is made to distinguish between people reporting in to the same boss, it is normally done using pay grades or titles.  So that those with an SVP title are higher up the chart than those with a VP title and so on.

This simple format is partly a result of the simplicity of the computer programs used to construct the charts.  But, it is also a result not knowing a better way.

A good organisation chart can achieve the following:

–       explain who reports to whom

–       communicate information about the business model of the organisation and

–       define the relationships that should exist between boxes in the chart.

The operating core

The first step in drawing an organization chart is to define the operating core; and to decide how this operating core is divided up.  There are three ways to divide up the operating core: by function, making each box a cost centre; or by business unit, such as product, market segment or geography, where each box is a profit centre; or by matrix, where profit reporting is made on more than one dimension.

The operating core of a single restaurant would be structured as functions: for example buying, cooking, serving and marketing functions.   The operating core of a chain of similar restaurants would be structured into business units, with each restaurant as a profit centre.  The operating core of a group of restaurant brands would also be structured into business units.  Each brand would be a separate business. The operating core, therefore, may be different at different levels in the structure.

If the operating core consists of functions the relationship between these functions is that of a “tight team”.  Profit can only be calculated once the activities of all the functions are combined.  Hence the functions need to work closely together to ensure their combined activities are achieving the objective. Monday morning meetings or something equivalent are needed to ensure regular coordination between the functions.  This also has implications for the role of the leader of these functions.  He or she will be “hands-on”: frequently involved in easing tensions, deciding priorities and guiding action.

If the operating core consists of business units, the relationship between the units will be much looser.  Coordination does not need to be as close: each can operate with a good degree of independence.  The relationships between business units can be quite distant.  Monthly or quarterly meetings may be sufficient to achieve needed coordination.   Also the leader of the collection of business units is likely to be “hands-off”.   Because he or she is not needed to ensure coordination on a daily or weekly basis, much more can be delegated to each business unit within the constraints of defined policies and strategies.

Above the operating core

Once you have clarity about the operating core at any level, the next challenge is to define any parts of the structure ‘above the operating core’, yet still at the same level.

Obviously the boss or leader sits above the operating core in the organization chart.   But it is also helpful to position some other activities ‘above the operating core’.

The way to do this visually is to have the operating core boxes all on the same level of the chart.  Then draw a horizontal connecting line just above the operating core boxes.  Then draw a vertical line, from the horizontal line, to the boss or leader.  Make this vertical line long enough to allow additional boxes to be added to left and right of this line .

So what boxes should hang off to the left or right of this vertical line?  Four kinds of support functions:

1. Policy functions: these are functions with policy roles, whose job is to set and monitor policies for the operating core.  Examples are accounting rules from finance, people management rules from human resources and IT rules.
2. Shared services: these are activities that could be carried out within each part of the operating core, but have been centralized for reasons of economy of scale or skill.  The relationship is a service one: the operating core is the customer and the shared service is the supplier.
3. Partner functions: these are also functions that could be embedded in each part of the operating core, but have been centralized for competence or control reasons.   The relationship is that of a partner rather than a supplier.  The representative from the function has a seat at the table of the relevant part of the operating core.  Examples are HR business partners, central research, IT business partners, finance business partners, etc.
4. Lobby functions:  these are units whose role is to influence the operating core to give more attention to some area of importance.  If the operating units all involve manufacturing, the lobby function might be lean manufacturing.  If the operating units are structured by product, the lobby function might be global accounts.  Often one of the roles of a lobby function is to facilitate coordination.  So, where a number of business units operate in one country but report in to their global divisions, there is often a country management structure whose job is to coordinate the business units in the country, but whose power is limited.  One of the features of the lobby function is that it has responsibility that is greater than its authority.   It is expected to influence, but does not have the power or resources to execute.

The final part of drawing the chart is to place the “bossy” functions on the left and the “service and influencing” functions on the right of the vertical line.  So that policy functions and partner functions go on the left and shared services and lobby units go on the right.

In practice, finance, HR and IT typically contain, within their empires, at least three or sometimes all four of these support functions.  This can make it difficult to decide which side of the line to place them.

There are two responses to this.  First, place them in which ever of the four roles is dominant.  Second, consider splitting the function into its separate roles.   For example, many companies are achieving significant improvements from separating shared services from policy functions.  The reason for the success is that the skills needed to manage these different support roles are very different.  The same is true for lobby functions.  They are often more successful with a separate reporting line to the overall leader.  There is, however, less evidence about the value of separating policy from partner roles, and these are often combined in functions where they both exist.

Content from Advanced Organisation Design course at Ashridge Business School

Thoughts about the balanced score card

I was stimulated today by a discussion group on LinkedIn on the balanced score card. 

One of the entries explained the the origins of the scorecard came from Analog Devices, whose approach to measurement was reproduced in the famous HBR article.   While appropriate for Analog Devices, it is probably not universally appropriate, which explained why I have always struggled with the four dimensions.

My work on measurement has led me to conclude that the stakeholder approach is the only theoretically sound way of tackling the measurement and targeting challenge.   

The reason why the stakeholder approach is superior is because the success of the organisation depends on winning and retaining the loyalty of a group of stakeholders, such as financiers, employees, customers and suppliers, or, in my case, business school leadership, member companies, course participants, fellow directors, fellow academics, clients, Harvard Business Review Readers, etc.  Hence measurement should start with the degree of loyalty or satisfaction of each important stakeholder group.

All other measures should be treated with caution unless we are certain that the measure correlates with success.  Take waiting time for medical treatment – topical in the UK right now.  If we place this on our balanced score card, it may or may not lead to greater success.  Or take market share.  In financial service markets half the market is often unprofitable – so a market share measure can lead to less success.

Of course our strategy should guide us to the measures that matter – but this assumes that our strategy is wise.  If we do not have some measures that are independent of the strategy, how will we know when the strategy is wrong or needs changing?

So, start by defining all the “active” stakeholders (those who can influence success).  Then look for measures of satisfaction for each stakeholder.   Some stakeholders will not be good at giving accurate feedback (think of subordinates with regard to a boss) – so you may need to find surrogates for “satisfaction” (such as employee engagement).  Then scrutinise the strategy and look for additional measures that will record the progress of the strategy.   Then stand back and consider a universal measure “productivity” or “resource untilisation efficiency”.  More success will always come from achieving more with fewer resources – so consider ways of measuring either the amount of value created for a given input of resources or the amount of resource used for a given output (e.g. cost per unit or profit per employee).

These steps will give you a “Comprehensive Scorecard”.  Measures of success;  measures of strategy implementation; and measures of resource utilisation efficiency.

Strategy made simple

Devising a strategy can seem a daunting task – so a simple structure can help. See what you think of this one.

Strategy involves answering six basic questions:

1. What is the External environment? Strategy involves aligning the organisation’s capabilities and assets with external opportunities and threats –so it makes sense to first get a grip on what that environment is like
2. What is the Internal situation? Two aspects of the internal situation must be understood: the objectives of the organisation and its capabilities. The tricky part is that both have to be viewed in the context of the external environment. It is not enough to know that you have capabilities in R&D; you must understand how valuable they could be in generating superior products for customers and how these capabilities compare with those of your competitors.
3. How might the situation Evolve? Your strategy will play out in an uncertain future. Understanding the current external environment and internal situation is an important start, but you need to project how things might evolve and identify the greatest sources of uncertainty.
4. What is the primary Issue? Understanding the situation and how it will evolve allows you to frame the issue (or perhaps issues) facing the organization. Is it how to grow – or how to survive?
5. What are the Options? Once the issue has been properly defined, options need to be identified.
6. Which Option is Best? The final step is to pick an option – although it may be one that permits you to take different pathways in the future.

Since these questions are so important, it may be helpful to use the acronym EIEIO as an easy way to remember them. External Environment, Internal situation, how the situation will Evolve, the primary Issue, and what the Options are.

You can answer the questions using a mix of strategy concepts and frameworks and people and processes (see blog at

https://ashridgeonstrategy.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/how-do-you-create-a-good-strategy/ )

You will not need to spend equal time on every question. If the situation is familiar you may be able to jump to question 4 or 5. Or, if you are considering entering a new market you may need to spend a lot of time on question 1. You need answers to every question, but you will start with differing levels of knowledge about each. Some will require a lot of analysis – some you can jump to an intuitive answer. So, it is important to know where to spend your time, and when you can trust your gut feelings ( see

https://ashridgeonstrategy.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/when-to-trust-your-gut/ ).

Focusing strategy making down to these six questions helps demystify it and turn it into a manageable activity. Decide where you need to spend your time, and step back occasionally to consider if you need to reprioritise. At the end, of course, you still have to implement and adapt your strategy – but that is the topic for another blog!