Page 371 - Operations Strategy

346 The proCess oF operaTIons sTraTegy – monITorIng and ConTrol
and interpret its meaning through comparison to pre-existing standards or objectives,
and then respond in some way. At a strategic level, this interpretation process should
involve more than simple data analysis; it should be an exercise that tries to make sense
of what is really happening with the implementation. To do this successfully, any oper-
ations strategy process should

● be tracking the appropriate elements so that progress can be assessed;
● compare progress against some aspiration or target; and
● have some idea as to what risks the implementation faces.

Tracking the appropriate elements

‘Performance measurement is a hugely important but difficult area for organisations of
all kinds. Accurately calibrating performance of activities and their outcomes has many
advantages – as well as some risks. Performance measurement is therefore central to
successful strategy execution.’ 2

Which aspects of implantation performance are appropriate to track will obviously
depend on the implementation itself. Implementations with different strategic objec-
tives will focus on different operations objectives. Because of this, it is difficult to
generalise. However, it is important to draw a distinction between two types of imple-
mentation objective:
● ‘Project’ objectives – those that indicate the progress of the implementation towards
its end point. In other words, is the strategy being implemented as planned?
● ‘Process’ objectives – those that indicate the consequences that the implementation
has on the operations processes that it is intended to affect. In other words, are the
results produced by the strategy as they were intended?

Project objectives
Project objectives help to provide a definition of the end point, which can be used to
monitor progress and identify when success has been achieved. This can be judged in
terms of what are usually called the ‘three objectives of project management’ – cost,
time and ‘quality’.
Any implementation will normally be allocated a budget to ‘make things happen’.
This should include the resources that will execute the implementation, as well as any
disruption to the ongoing operation during the implementation. Similarly, no imple-
mentation would be planned without some idea of how long it will take. Sometimes
the deadline for the implementation is set by external events (e.g., competitors entering
your market), sometimes the deadline is governed by internal views on what is appro-
priate. ‘Quality’ (the quotation marks are deliberate) is how well the ‘project’ meets its
objectives – does the implementation do what it is supposed to do? In an operations
strategy context one could argue that the best way to assess the ‘quality’ of the imple-
mentation project is by judging the consequences it has on the operations processes
that it is intended to affect; in other words, ‘quality’ here means the process objectives
of the implementation.
The relative importance of each project objective will differ for different types of
implementation. Some implementations in the aerospace sector, such as the develop-
ment of a new aircraft manufacturing technology, which impact on passenger safety,

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