“Julie’s insight, numerous examples, illustrations, and approach towards understanding the design and the elaboration of customer driven strategies are quick to understand. This book is a must if you are serious about improving the execution of your digital transformation” Daniel Lambert

I’m a big Daniel follower so with his review I thought let’s give the book a go and Daniel is spot on about the examples, illustrations and approach. For those things alone the book is worth it.

But I took far more from the book and how it can help anyone in the world of EA or business change think about the core drivers and levers of change.

We all know it’s about the Why, What and How and Julie takes us on a journey through each step and brings alive how important every step is.. you won’t get success without considering all three, we know that but how often do we jump to the HOW.

We love models as EAs and Julie pulls out 5 key model areas

1. Mission model

2. Business model

3. Value model

4. Operating model

5. Transformation model

And the book is full of stages that every change goes through to go from immature to mature.. it shows us all how complex an organisation is and how joining up the dots to get the best from the enterprise as a whole takes coordination, takes management and takes leadership.

As someone who is obsessed with operating models the Operating Model Capability Maturity index describing the characteristics to look out for across the layers of the business and across the stage of maturity is a great source of insight… navigating through the layers and the maturity assessment could help any EA assess how much there is to do to get to the predictive and intelligent operating model.

Julie pulls on strategic concepts that those studying business modules on degrees and MBAs will be familiar with and she pulls on forward thinking design thinking models emerging from the EA and business model consultancies and she then provides frameworks of her own based on her experiences and exploring use cases from which the models flow.

However from Julie’s perspective the book is just the start – in the next step section of the book you get to see her vision for The Strategy Journey – an online community it forums and associates sharing stories and models and continuing to learn and evolve the thinking.

I wish Julie luck and fortune from her Strategy Journey concept – the book and the online community could be the start of something far bigger but for now the book is worth it – take a look and let Julie know your thoughts – she wants feedback and is proud of what she has achieved to date.