Leadership Triangle

Transformation 2.0 Methodology

May 9, 2024

Dirk Krafzig

Three Key Skills To Lead Initiative

The Leadership Triangle is a small team that assumes overall responsibility for a large-scale endeavour. It has the mandate, the skills and the capacity to coordinate and align the people required for the success of the initiative.

The Leadership Triangle embodies three key competences that it leverages for the initiative:

Coordination of the people involved
Requirements analysis, including business vision and target picture
Solution design, including the technical target picture

The Mandate Of The Leadership Triangle

The Leadership Triangle is given the task of implementing an initiative from start to finish together with the entire organisation. To do this, the Leadership Triangle must be given access to all teams, and stakeholders and the right to demand at least involvement in the planning.

The Leadership Triangle therefore interacts with all groups that are relevant for the success of an initiative.

Working With The Sponsors

The Leadership Triangle works on behalf of the sponsors. It assumes undivided accountability for the implementation of the initiative. The sponsors, for their part, provide the Leadership Triangle with the mandate and the necessary resources.

Typically, there is very close collaboration in the preparation phase, during which the parameters of the initiative, goals and requirements are worked out.

When deciding on an exact solution variant and releasing the funds, the Leadership Triangle moderates between all parties involved and then stands up for the agreed result.

In the implementation phase, the Leadership Triangle reports on progress and works together with the sponsors to remove any overarching obstacles.

Working With The Delivery Teams

Measured in working hours, the Leadership Triangle’s work with the delivery teams accounts for the largest share of working time.

During the preparation phase, one of the Leadership Triangle’s most important tasks is to identify all contributors to the initiative and work with them to define the solution.

The delivery teams can come from an agile organisation, be task forces set up specifically for the initiative or externally hired teams (see VEO).

During implementation, the Leadership Triangle coordinates the work of the numerous teams and ensures that all solution components fit together and that there are no gaps or duplication of work.

Working With Other Stakeholders

There are potentially many different stakeholder groups that do not contribute directly to the solution but have a strong influence on the objectives and progress of an initiative – e.g. security officers, board members, customers, enterprise architecture teams, strategy departments, investment committees, IT operations etc.

The Leadership Triangle typically reports on progress to these stakeholders, obtains or organises approvals and requests support.