Online Strategy Management on Bitrix24

The purpose of the article is to show examples of strategy implementation management using a corporate unified information platform on an accessible tool – Bitrix24. The article discusses in simple language the possibilities of strategy management using this information platform. A more in-depth study of the topic requires more methodological development and more detailed technical and organizational implementation, and this is the topic of a separate, larger-scale project.

Coordination and organization of the efforts of all employees in their daily work in the Company should be “saturated” with the strategy, the priorities and requirements that are embedded in it. This is in an ideal situation. In practice, it happens like Alice, who met the Cheshire Cat.

Managing the implementation of strategy online, daily, “interactively”, requires a certain eco-environment, an information platform, and Bitrix24 can well take on this task. I got the impression that the original standard functionality of Bitrix24 is more focused on the operational management of sales, communications, tasks, projects, on the implementation of clear tasks with a short time horizon. But if current affairs are divorced from strategic goals, there is a risk of drifting into routine and vanity. Therefore, it is ideologically correct to fill the task field with strategic goals and operational tasks, with their own time horizons.

Briefly about strategy. Strategy can be understood in different ways (there are different schools of strategy). But no matter how we understand it, the bottom line should be that priorities are designated in the form of some clear long-term goals, indicators (Fig. 2) and ways to achieve them, structured into plans and projects (Fig. 3). Then it is important to communicate priorities to employees, make them visible to employees. For this, the platform under consideration may well be suitable.

I came across a funny example on the Internet. Let’s say Company A is implementing Bitrix24, but at the same time it cannot organize its strategic development process using Bitrix24, the entire result of strategic sessions settles in an MS Word file and is forgotten, does not affect current processes. A natural question is – what prevents us from transferring the results of a strategic session to Bitrix24? A classic situation – “the shoemaker has no shoes”. It is worth noting one well-known approach, the triad: “people + processes + tool”, as a basis for development and change management in an organization. The tool itself will not close all the questions, in the article I consider only the instrumental component of the triad, and give illustrative examples of what and how can be configured in the system so as not to lose the connection between operational activities and strategic priorities.

To work with the strategy, you can create a separate project (see Fig. 1) with your group of participants, and configure it so that it is convenient to conduct all activities related to the long-term development of the company (store documents, set tasks, accumulate useful material, discuss results, plan events, etc.).

Fig. 1. Creating a new project

Bitrix24 has functionality for working with tasks, projects, processes, working groups, and this functionality can be adapted to control the implementation of the strategy. Using tags or custom fields, you can create different groups of goals and tasks – highlight a group of long-term, strategic goals, and a group of current ones, within a year, quarter, month – operational tasks, with different participants in the groups. It is important to think through and agree on a set of rules and requirements according to which the settings in the system will be made in advance. The product terminology does not contain the concept of “goal”, you have to work with the entity “task”, on the basis of which you can create goals, indicators, and tasks.

Bitrix24 allows you to build relationships between tasks, both taking into account nesting (task hierarchy), and link tasks “horizontally” taking into account the logic of their implementation.

In the example, Fig. 2, strategic goals are designated by the tag “strategic goal”.

If we do not adhere to certain rules in the system, over time we will get an “Olivier salad” of goals, tasks, indicators, projects, and after some time the flexible capabilities of the system will lead to an information dump, it will take a lot of effort (time, money) to “clean up” everything that has accumulated in the system, systematize it to a state that is understandable, convenient for the user (manager, employee).

It is useful to link goals and tasks with projects, an example of a link is shown in Fig. 2.

Option 1, we link strategic goals with projects, option 2, the project has its own structure of project tasks.

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 2. Register of goals and tasks
Fig. 3. Register of projects that support the implementation of the strategy.

Let’s say that the company’s development strategy can consist of an accounting and descriptive part. We need the accounting part to measure progress, how we are moving (for this we use various indicators, reporting, evaluate the dynamics). And we need the descriptive part of the strategy so that employees understand what