How We Serve You : White Papers
From the Boardroom to the Shop Floor and Back:
A Framework for Achieving Organizational Alignment
Summary: Aligning to Company Strategy and Customer Needs
Organizational alignment is both vertical and horizontal. Individuals need to be both aligned to the strategy and the needs of the customer. Creating a framework that provides a means for linking the entire company provides the mind-set where everyone knows how decisions are made, and how they add to the corporate value. Also, effective communication begins to occur throughout the organization.
Communication from the boardroom to the shop floor starts with a well thought-out strategy, which is used to guide the selection of leading indicators, for the whole organization, which will be measured. These measures will, in turn, be used to guide the selection of leading indicators, for a department or unit, which are then measured. Finally, the department or unit measures are used to guide the selection of shop floor measures. Through this linked selection process, the shop floor personnel know what is required, on a daily of hourly basis, to meet the goals established by top management. Changes in direction by top management are communicated through out the organization merely by selecting new measurements and deploying them all the way to the shop floor.
Communication from the shop floor to the boardroom begins with shop floor personnel who monitor their own progress toward goals by reviewing their measures on an hourly or daily basis. Departmental or unit level management review the shop floor measures on a weekly basis and use the results to generate the measures for their department or unit. The department or unit measures are reviewed monthly by top management and are then summarized to makeup the measures used by top management which guide the organization. It is through this multi-level structured review process, that the results of activities at the shop floor level become known to top management.
