At a recent staff meeting, an executive was explaining about how Lean methodology was going to be rolled out to our group. (This group covers a variety of responsiblities, but development is not one of them.) This executive focused on how our activities and projects should be designed to be completed in 14 days, as is the Lean recommendation for spliting up large development projects into 14 day chunks.

For some, 14 days would be an absolute luxury, though those ‘projects’ need a much shorter timeframe for resolution or completion. For others, ‘projects’ are controlled by some other entity, a partner or a customer for example, and we neither can break it into 14 day chunks nor ultimately control the duration.

Stressing this specific output of 14 days, this executive presented a message that left most perplexed and baffled. If the focus have been on some examples of outcomes, or even goals as applied to our group, it would have been much more clear in the audience’s collective mind about what areas needed our attention.

As to your other point, I also agreed and I’ve written before that strategy shouldn’t be static (http://alignment.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/strategy-shouldnt-be-static).

Two quick points, with which I think you will agree.

1. Risk-adjusted performance management is the next level of maturity. Add KRI to your KPI; set your objectives with due consideration of risks and what you can do about them; recognize that 80% achievement with 5% risk of failure (to meet optimum objective) is often better than 95% achievement with 95% risk of failure.
2. Be prepared to adapt your goals and objectives. “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” is not always the best business philosophy.