ScanMagazine, Issue 100, May 2017

Successful humans at work

The leadership tool ActionPlanner empowers employees and makes plans come alive. Ensuring successful implementation of business plans and objectives, this is execution management at its best.

 

By Malin Norman

Founder Victor Veloso has an extensive background in strategy implementation and business management. During his many years in management consultancy, he saw a gap between forming ambitious corporate strategies and translating them into action. “It’s easy to drown in operations,” says Veloso, elaborating on the execution challenge. “Many companies are struggling with mobilising their strategic plans. Basically, they don’t see the progress they want. This execution gap is a global issue and it caught my attention.”

 

This is where ActionPlanner comes into the picture, translating good intentions into something more concrete – making plans come alive. The application converts strategic plans into visual roadmaps with tangible initiatives. It facilitates keeping momentum in both developing and running the business.

 

Align, empower and progress

Built around the Nordic leadership style and empowerment of employees, ActionPlanner turns responsibilities into initiatives and breaks them down into goals, milestones and deadlines. For instance, the Priority List is an interesting feature: this is a digital version of the typical to-do lists of employees, now visualising and making it easy to realign expectations.

 

According to Veloso, the tool ultimately helps people be more specific in their communication, across organisational levels. “ActionPlanner creates transparency and alignment,” he says. “It gives a real-time overview of actions and reports, flagging potential challenges and giving employees the support they need. This is progress in an agile way.”

 

ActionPlanner is particularly useful for companies with either multiple organisational levels, a geographical spread or an ambitious transformation agenda that needs to be executed. The webbased system offers enterprise grade security for its clients, currently including prominent names such as Nordea, Danske Bank and MT Højgaard. “Because data security is paramount, we can even offer to host our application within the client’s firewall,” Veloso explains.

 

Having purchased the software, clients will be supported in getting started successfully, including workshops with ActionPlanner certified trainers. Veloso highlights the importance of proper on-boarding: “At the end of the day, it’s not about software, it’s about people and helping them be more successful. Everyone wants to be successful. Achieving what you set out to achieve just feels great!” he smiles, as his personal motto is: “As happy as possible, for as long as possible.”

 

Link to online article.