The Accelerated Breakthrough System

Our belief is simply that the organisations that win in the longer term will be the ones that establish a systematic approach to simultaneously running, improving and transforming their businesses. It is this belief that led us to create the Accelerated Breakthrough System – a blueprint for an integrated “Strategy Implementation” system that ensures transformations in the way the organisation operates are systematically translated into business as usual and that the organisation has the capacity, capability and focus to achieve game-changing breakthroughs whilst also continually improving quality and increasing efficiency.

In creating this system, we have borrowed heavily from Toyota and other lean manufacturing leaders. The legendary Toyota Production System, and its many derivatives, essentially provide a blueprint that codifies how organisation can both run its daily operations (Daily Management) whilst simultaneously increasing value to the customer through reducing waste and improving flow across the value-stream (Value-stream Management).

These two components provide the foundation of the ABS – the Daily Management component defining how team members and supporting managers at the “work cell” level plan, execute, manage and improve daily work and the Value-Stream Management component defining how operational performance at the customer outcome level is managed including how chronic quality problems and value-stream wide improvements that need cross-functional involvement are implemented.

Over the last 30 years, many organisations, including Toyota themselves, have recognised the need to add a third component to their lean business systems – essentially defining how the organisation manages systematic innovation in its business model. This third component – which in the ABS we call Breakthrough Management - leverages the Hoshin Kanri methodology – a systematic approach to implementing game-changing breakthroughs which is based on applying the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle at a strategic not just problem solving level.

Most leaders would acknowledge that implementing strategy is not easy. Our experience is that there are three core reasons why this is the case.

The first is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately convey the strategy, or more importantly the actions that it implies, to every individual in the organisation. Typically, a small fraction of the organisation (some researchers suggest under 10%) understands the strategy, even less what it implies for them individually. As a result, the vast majority of the organisations’ effort is not directed towards its achievement.

The second is that it is also difficult to stay focused on the important in the midst of the urgent. Few organisations achieve the level of stability and consistency in the daily operations that means that firefighting is the exception. For most organisations, most employees – even senior leadership – find themselves in a constant “whirlwind” which sucks their time and attention away from strategic priorities.

Finally, our observation is that most organisations lack the early warning systems that alert them when strategic actions are not having the expected effect or assumptions underpinning the strategy are not playing out. Without such early warning systems – typically in the form of leading KPIs with targets set based on the assumed impact of the strategic actions – organisations struggle to course correct in time to avoid the “super-tanker” running into the rocks.