Executive Summary

The story here is pretty straightforward - strategy informs everything that we do. If for example we decide our business strategy is “acquire new customers”, that defines the competences that we need, what Goals and results we need to achieve, what activities we value, the systems required for success, and, of course, the business outcomes.

Viva Goals is the tool to capture the organization's strategy. Once captured, it informs all of our activities – and what the other Viva modules need to support.

For example, once we know our strategy we can determine what competency is we needed for each role - only then can we use Viva Skills or Learning to enable the correct learning and development supports and resources to execute this strategy.

Once you have Goals implemented, then you can then pursue any of the other Viva modules (and even Dynamics 365) based on what has the highest strategic priority or is required for the correct foundational elements and sequence.

Goals

When we initially drew this diagram, Goals was at the centre of the Viva sweet. Goals was required for the effective implementation and maximum benefits from each other module.

Now, of course centre stage is shared with Copilot. Just as with Goals, Copilot helps enable each in every Viva module in its own way.

Logical sequence of implementing the other Viva modules

There is no required sequence to implementing the Viva modules. Your Account’s best sequence is based on two principles - first, where is the highest strategic need, and secondly is there a required sequencing within this organization.

“Strategic need" is the relationship between what the strategy requires and the current level of the organization's capabilities. Obviously an area that is a strategically priority (our example of acquire new customers),but the current capabilities are weak, is higher strategic need. Conversely areas with low strategic priority and high current capabilities have a low strategic need and would not require Viva support.

Once you've identified the areas of high strategic need, then you need to see if there a logical sequence. For example, it may make sense to implement Topics before implementing Skills in order to quickly enable in-the-flow-of-work-learning (Topics)  before building a more comprehensive competency model (Skills).

For the purposes of this blog post, we have grouped related Viva modules as their relationships with Goals is similar, but that does not mean they need to be implemented in tandem.

Communicating your strategy

Once an organization has established its strategy, and even after each quarterly strategic refresh, the strategic choices made need to be communicated. For example, perhaps in the next quarterly refresh we decide that we now have enough new customers and we want to shift our focus to “earn more revenue from each existing customer"

Goals will capture the shift in strategic priorities and new outcomes/targets. The organization then inform all stakeholders (investors, employees, customer, etc.) which Amplify can help with. Amplify will ensure that a consistent message is shared with all stakeholders, but the information is appropriately filtered in adjusted for each stakeholder. Copilot will give you some support in getting the content and rephrasing correct.

In most cases new or refreshed strategies tend to introduce new concepts into the organization. Topics helps us capture those new concepts and ensure that they are all understood across the organization and people and educational resources are available, in the flow of work, to onboard these new concepts faster and more consistently across the organization.

Without Goals we would not know what are the core strategic elements to be communicated and how they manifest in the organization. Goals sets the communication framework.

Employee development

Every new strategy and strategy-refresh puts stress on the organizations’ capacity of available competences. Even the smallest changes in strategy trigger indeed for new and different capabilities. Viva offers several modules too support this transition.

In our experience Graph often needs to be implemented early in the competency building process. Why? Because the data sources for competences comes from many internal and external sources. We may also need to know other relationships like organization charts, job descriptions, etc. It is Graph that captures these connections and data sources. Goals will tell us where the strategic and operational elements are, and Graph well make sure that the correct elements are connected into the model. Without Goals we would not know what elements to include in Graph.

The second step is enabling individuals to develop themselves appropriately. Goals will help define what activities, enhanced capabilities, are required from department, teams and individuals. With this information, Skills is a powerful tool that helps each employee “self-serve” their career and learning and development plans by understanding the gaps between their current competences and the positions they would aspire to. Skills will also help them identify resource is to close those competency gaps.

Likewise, Learning or can help provide the right Learning assets to the individual, given des strategic requirements as set out in Goals.

Without Goals, we cannot get Skills or Learning to point people in the right direction.

Enterprise-wide Strategy Conversations

Goals does an awesome job of setting up the overall objectives and key results, but inevitably “the devil is in the detail”. Department teams and individuals in the organization will have areas of doubt and confusion where clarification is required. Engage allows the team to collaborate and gained crowdsourced knowledge around each topic to furtherflesh out the strategy define within Goals.

Without Goals we would not know what conversations to focus on in Engage.

Employee Wellbeing

Employee well-being is an emerging practice area both based on what is developing into “modern work” which considers the hybrid work environment, as well as the mix of generational and cultural expectations that exist in every organization.

Once again, Goals defines the finish line; what the organization must deliver to be successful…but it's the hearts hands and minds of individuals that deliver those outcomes. Without providing the right supports for the employee - and also guard-rails to help them perform better, and burnout less, the organization will not achieve what it needs.

Insights allows us to get reading on how people are thinking and behaving so that your people managers can provide the appropriate coaching, resource is in support.

Without Goals we would not know which ‘insights’ are most important and need to be supported.

Employee Perceptions

Goals will help us determine what are the important objectives and activities that we should be seeing across the organization. Ongoing key results will be populated by your transactional systems, things like Dynamics365, analysis tools such as Viva Insights, but we still need accurate information on employee perceptions, which is a leading indicator to employee engagement and satisfaction.

So the Viva modules of Glint and Pulse allow us to ask specific questions to employees to get their feedback. This feedback needs to be seen in the context of strategic priorities, as set out in Goals, and correlate it to the actual performance observed, again in Goals.

Without goals we would not know what to survey for nor how to interpret the survey findings.

Always Implement Goals First

This blog is mainly a slightly more detailed explanation of why in our experience the most effective organizations always implement Goals first. The other Viva modules are then implemented in terms of strategic need and logical sequencing.

At pm2 we would love to talk to you about your unique opportunities and how you can help them understand this Goals-first Best Practice. Just e-mail us at Brett@pm2Consulting.com