Reading a book about it or attending a lecture will simply not suffice. It happens with colleagues, between departments, and so on. In this way, they further align.īecoming aligned is something that one person cannot do on his or her own. Other KPIs demonstrate the performance of multiple departments or even the whole team. Some KPIs reflect the performance of one department, hence putting a focus on one’s own department only. These KPIs can be selected by the team members.
Last but not least, business outcomes are measured and followed by KPIs. Sometimes suboptimal decisions in one or more departments lead to a better overall team result, which signals horizontal alignment. At the same time, the team needs to be mindful of trade-offs that exist within and between their departments. That is how they can take care of being vertically aligned. Subsequently, the team needs to derive departmental decisions from it. In order to be successful, the team needs to put a strategy in place. Each participant heads a department, e.g. In Inchainge’s business simulation games, participants form a management team. The reason for this is that a key element of alignment is that it hinges on collaboration and communication. To truly learn how powerful alignment can be, or the lack thereof can be, one needs to experience it. Learn about alignment while experiencing it These examples of misalignment can obviously make a huge impact on your bottom line. As a result, they can become disengaged or even leave. Another effect can be that workers simply do not see how their efforts contribute. Talented workers that were hired to move company goals forward, may end up wasting their contributions on tasks unrelated to the company strategy. This can set the organization back big time. Therefore, the goal often gets lost in translation. Like a game of telephone, organizational goals cascade from the top of an organization to the bottom. Because of how organizations are structured, a majority of the employees are often too distant or completely removed from the ultimate goal and mission of the company. Not only human tendencies can get in the way of alignment. That self-centered approach can hamper overall success. Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is that people tend to focus only on their area to the exclusion of others. Horizontal alignment happens when different functional departments are working for the same common goal. Vertical alignment exists when everybody from the CEO to the janitor knows, understands, and executes the mission of the organization. We all know that for organizations to be successful they need to be aligned, ideally both in a vertical as in a horizontal sense. What is alignment in Value Chain Management?