Enterprise strategic alignment method: a cross-disciplinary capability-driven approach

The environment of organisations is changing more rapidly in the recent years, which makes it increasingly more difficult to stay competitive. Organisations need to ensure that when they make transformations, they focus on maintaining or improving their strategic alignment. However, the current research is not sufficient for addressing these needs, mainly due to a lack of cross-disciplinary knowledge. The Enterprise Strategic Alignment Method (ESAM) is designed to help organisations improve their strategic alignment by combining information from four different disciplines, namely Strategic Management, Capability-based planning, Enterprise Architecture, and Portfolio Management. The focus of the ESAM is on the collaboration between different stakeholders within an organisation, with an emphasis on improving communication, facilitating better partnerships, supporting improved governance, promoting an integrated architecture, and ensuring an alignment between the different types of organisational measurements. The ESAM has been validated and evaluated with the help of three very distinct case studies, in terms of organisation type and scope of the case study. The results indicate that the method has had a positive influence on aspects relating to communication, which are identified by literature as enablers of strategic alignment, while other aspects have proven to be situational. The ESAM is also supported by a software tool (a management dashboard template, several canvases, and a strategy design tool) and by two serious games (one board game and one computer game).