Get It Done!: A Blueprint for Business Execution

by Ralph Welborn, Vince Kasten

Overview

Praise for Get IT Done!

"A challenge businesses always face is how to get more value out of their IT organization. Another is how to infuse business with technology so that both the business and the technology people appreciate their differences as they deliver on their commitments-to each other. Get It Done! is a superb book that shows businesses how to tackle, and meet, both challenges."
—Dave Sanders, Chairman, Information Technology Association of America, and President, Commercial Solutions of Perot Systems

"Welborn and Kasten have again hit the mark by providing significant thought leadership on the aspects of effective organizational execution...[Get It Done!]addresses this issue by providing the reader with knowledge on how to make sense of and take action on what the organization has to get done and how to do so-a must-read book for senior executives!"
—Dr. Kenneth E. Nidiffer, Fellow, Systems and Software Consortium

"A gap often exists between what executives require and reality on the ground. Welborn and Kasten demonstrate how to bridge this gap in a surprisingly nonthreatening and effective way. While many books have talked about the need to create a culture of execution, Get It Done! Shows pragmatically how to make such a culture real."
—Pat Schambach, former CIO, Transportation Security Administration

"[Welborn and Kasten] tackle the issue of execution for differently than do many others-in a powerful way that cuts through so much of the noise around execution, providing insight on why it's so hard to get stuff done and usable steps of doing so. Get It Done! is as provocative to read as it is necessary to use."
—Dominick Cavuoto, President, Global Financial Services, Unisys Corporation

"This book is extremely useful to anyone who has to get things done-management and line people, technologists and project managers, and yes, executives and other corporate staff. Simply put, read this book!"
—Trevor Davis, Chief Implementation Officer, UISL, a Business Process Utility

"[Welborn and Kasten's] pragmatic focus cuts through the high-level boilerplate discussion and provides tangible insights, lessons, tools, and methods for 'getting done what needs to et done' and, by doing so, helps to strengthen your capabilities to meet the uncertainty we all face."
—Dan Wollenberg, Senior Vice President, Huntington Bank

"If you think execution and results are what it's all about, this book is a must-read!"
—Joseph Plumeri, Chairman and CEO, Willis Group Holdings Ltd.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780471479314
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	12/23/2005
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.22(w) x 9.19(h) x 1.14(d)

About the Author

Ralph Welborn  works extensively with industry executives, sales teams, technical teams and strategic alliances throughout the Americas, Europe, and East Asia.  He is a Managing Partner of Global Transformation at Unisys Corporation and a former Senior Vice President of Global Solutions and Chief Strategist at BearingPoint. Ralph lives in Westwood, Massachusetts. 

Vince Kasten is a business advisor in the areas of business transformation, strategic collaboration, software product development, and large-scale systems integration.  He is a managing partner of Global Transformation at Unisys Corporation and was formally a Managing Partner of Business Transformation and a Global Head of Applications at BearingPoint. Vince lives in Fanwood, New Jersey.

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Table of Contents

Introduction—Making Sense and Taking Action xxi

Setting the Stage: What Is It about Execution That Demands So Much Attention? And Why Now?, xxi

What’s in the Book?, xxv

What This Means to You, xxx

1 The DNA of Consistent Execution 1

Setting the Stage: Getting Stuff Done Quickly, Effectively, Consistently, 3

Extent of the Challenge: Why Is This So Hard?, 7

Common Challenges to Getting Stuff Done, 8

Facing the Challenge: Bridging the Semantic Disconnect, 12

Answering the Question of How, 18

The Semantic Stack as Insight and Action, 20

Detailing the Stack, 25

Making It Real: Executing Over and Over Again, 28

What This Means to You, 29

2 Maps, Models, and Action—Blueprinting Your Business 37

Setting the Stage: Rippling Changes, Crippling Impacts, 39

Extent of the Challenge: Beware the Red Queen, 42

Facing the Challenge: Maps-as-Models, 45

Maps and Models—for Insight and Action, 47

The Business Blueprint—The "Where’s Waldo" of Your Organization, 48

Business Blueprinting—The "What’s Waldo Doing" in Your Organization, 51

Understanding the DNA—What Connects with What, Where, When, How, and How Much, 54

Bill and Carl’s Hurting Hospital Group, 55

Strategy Model, 57

Watch Out for the Bus!—or Else the Company Stops Running, 73

What This Means to You, 73

3 Measurements, Gauges, and Graphs—Doing What’s Important 77

Setting the Stage: From Gut Feel to Root Causes, 79

Extent of the Challenge: "Reducing the Number of Bad Outcomes", 80

Facing the Challenge: Defeating the "Corporate Antibodies to Change", 86

Lean Six Sigma—Methods and Madness, 91

Reginald Goes Lean, 98

What This Means to You, 99

4 The Pragmatics of Strategy . . . with Your Head in the Clouds and Your Feet on the Ground 105

Setting the Stage: How to Be "Strategic" Yet Still Get Stuff Done, 107

Extent of the Challenge: What You Don’t Know Will Get You, 109

Facing the Challenges: "Go Not into Uncertainty Unaware, and Certainly Not Unarmed!", 113

Characterizing Business Uncertainty, 113

Answering the "So What" Question, 120

The "Pragmatics" of Strategy, or Pragmatic Strategy, 120

Creating a New "Outside-In" Strategy, 120

Justifying an "Inside-Out" Operational Strategy, 123

Philippe and Marcus and Scott and Debbie, 128

What This Means to You, 129

5 Business Processes . . . Where Business and Technology Meet 135

Setting the Stage: All Value Is Built in Processes, 137

Extent of the Challenge: "Doing More with More", 142

Facing the Challenge: Mutual Visibility/Useful Action, 146

Process Optimization Leads the Way, 148

Optimizing for What?, 151

Mutual Understanding, 152

What to Do, Where, and How Much, 153

Shared Vocabulary, Interdependent Actions, 156

Tools to Get Stuff Done, 158

The Work of Process Optimization, 159

After Optimization, 164

Technology, 164

Organization Design, 164

Change Management, 165

Business Case Development, 165

What This Means to You, 166

6 Next Generation Business Process Outsourcing . . . as Promise and Threat 171

Setting the Stage: An Industry in the Crunch—Beyond the Precipice or into the Chasm, 173

Extent of the Challenge: At a Tipping Point or Just Plain Tipping Over, 174

Facing the Challenge: Decisions Made and Decisions to Make, 180

The Contractual Crunch and the Unintended Consequences of Win-Lose Contracts, 181

Nice New Promises/Same Old Methods, 184

Explaining the Crunch, 187

The Wedge Effect, 187

The Bull's-Eye Effect, 190

The Peak Effect, 193

Returning to the Contractual Crunch, 197

Next-Gen BPO—The Search for the Win-Win Contract, 198

The Semantics of Value—Why We Need to Care, 199

Mutual Visibility—Again, 202

Making the Shift to Value, 207

What This Means to You, 209

In Closing, 214

7 Secure Global Commerce . . . Managing the Tension between "Assured" and "Agile" Commerce 217

Setting the Stage: Mutual Visibility and Mutual Dependency, 219

The Extent of the Challenge: "Here, There, and Everywhere", 222

75 Days, 25 Hands, 222

Operation Safe Commerce: Starting Steps of a Long Journey, 227

Facing the Challenge: Turning the Tension into Harmony, 230

Visibility through Blueprinting, 230

Visible Commerce and Connectivity, 235

It Is a Small World after All, 245

What This Means to You, 246

8 Pragmatic Execution . . . in the Context of Everything Else 255

Setting the Stage: From Being Compelling to Being Useful, 257

Facing the Challenge: Managing

the Impossible Decision, 258

Making a Scramble Not a Scramble, 258

Creating Information Advantage, 259

What This Means to You, 262

Afterword 265

The Pragmatics of Getting Work Done:

A Perspective from State Street, 265

Notes 271

Index 285

About the Authors 299