Organization and Strategy

Booz Allen Hamilton provides clients with many different elements of strategic thinking to ensure mission success. We offer a comprehensive toolkit of approaches to help clients with specific needs regarding mission excellence, rapid changes in the mission environments, and linking strategic intent to mission results. We help our clients craft corporate and operating unit strategy to not only reposition their organizations for the future but also sharpen their ability to execute on their mission.

A highly effective organization is the key to achieving mission success. As strategic initiatives are implemented, the executive team must ensure that the organization is ready for the change—“how” it will achieve its mission. Adapting to change may require organizational transformation, new organizational designs, more efficient processes, better human resource management, or renewed emphasis on learning and strategic communications. We have worked with hundreds of clients to improve performance across all of these dimensions.

Built on extensive experience in the public and private sectors, Booz Allen offers expertise in the following areas:

• Strategy Development.  We help our clients formulate strategies that enable them to meet their mission and goals by taking advantage of the opportunities presented in highly uncertain and rapidly changing environments—while also managing the risks. We provide clients with a suite of tools, frameworks, and planning and decision-making processes—proven in the public and private sectors—that help them make solid strategic choices, especially in a resource-constrained environment. We help clients incorporate a long-term perspective into their strategies, while focusing on the best way to get results.
• Strategic Planning. We leverage commercial best practices to help our clients reinvent their strategic planning processes.  We help provoke questions and facilitate conversations rather than create documents, rely on facts to make key decisions, and involve those expected to implement the strategy in the planning process.  We help clients decide where to focus and how to allocate resources.
• Organization Model/Design. Organizations, like natural organisms, must function in relationship to their environment; therefore, the organizational design should suit the organization’s purpose and environment.   Our approach to organization model and design begins with a full assessment to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the current organization model and progresses to designing the organization to fit the mission.  Booz Allen helps create organizations whose people and processes are appropriately aligned with the organizational purpose and environment.
• Transformation and Change Management. Booz Allen has a proven approach for executing large-scale organization transformation focused on achieving improved results.  Transformation Life Cycle (TLC) addresses the four dimensions of change (i.e., People, Process, Technology, and Physical Infrastructure) that enable capabilities.  It describes the activities, methodologies, and techniques needed for transforming the organization through the entire life cycle, from vision and definition through rollout and deployment.
• Organizational Efficiency and Process Management. Booz Allen has complementary disciplines, tools, and techniques to study an organization’s mission, value proposition, strategic focus, and stakeholder requirements and then to envision, define, design, develop, and deploy measures for improvement.
• Strategic Human Capital Management. Booz Allen’s approach to Strategic Human Capital Management helps clients design, implement, and evaluate formal systems to ensure the effective use of human talent to implement business strategy. The skills of creativity, innovation, and insight, which organizations need to thrive in these times—all depend on managing human capital wisely. This capability helps clients understand what human capital programs they need and how to manage human capital to achieve improved organizational performance.
• Learning Systems. Booz Allen’s progressive view of learning incorporates training, education, and performance support as an integrated, comprehensive set of capabilities. We help clients build new capabilities and increase workforce performance through competency identification and assessment, design and development of learning programs and curricula, and delivery of education across multiple methods (e.g., classroom, workplace, and desktop).  Booz Allen also provides strategic consulting to improve the learning development function’s effectiveness and efficiency. Booz Allen's integrated learning solution anticipates the need for new learning strategies, knowledge management services, training content, and timely delivery. 
• Strategic Communications. Booz Allen helps clients build the understanding, buy-in, ownership, and action needed to achieve their mission objectives.  This effort often requires strategic communications that engage key stakeholders at the right time, in the right manner, with the right key messages and responsiveness.

Additional Information

• What It Takes to Change Government: A Booz Allen Leadership Study — Booz Allen teamed with Harvard University Professor of Public Management Steven Kelman to identify the best leadership practices used by successful government executives to transform their agencies and achieve mission goals.
• Cyber In-Security: Strengthening the Federal Cybersecurity Workforce — Study finds that the federal cybersecurity workforce is significantly challenged by serious shortages of highly skilled cybersecurity specialists and an absence of coordinated leadership on cybersecurity workforce issues.
• Helping Injured Soldiers and Their Families: The US Army Wounded Warrior Program—This case study outlines how Booz Allen led new communications and collaboration initiatives that connected and invigorated the US Army Wounded Warrior Program (AW2).
• Transformation for Change: Defense Telecommunications Services-Washington (DTS-W) — Booz Allen collaborated with DTS-W to reduce overhead fees by $75 million, increase both customer and employee satisfaction, and expand its customer base.
• Capturing the People Advantage: Thought Leaders on Human Capital — This book reflects the increasingly widespread conviction in global corporations that people are a primary asset and competitive advantage, and that a compelling people strategy is required to fully realize their value.
• By Balancing Best Practices with Specific Needs, Booz Allen Helps Federal Agencies Cut Overhead Costs —  Overhead Optimization is one way Booz Allen is helping the U.S. government is reducing administrative expenses by hundreds of millions of dollars.
• Untangling the Potential of Web 2.0 — Booz Allen experts weigh in on the promise—and peril—of the swarm of new social media technologies.
• The Performance Gene:  Unleashing the Human Element of Organizational DNA — Never has human resources been more relevant to the quest for success at organizations around the world.  
• “Aligning IT and Business Is Priority for Public CIOs." On April 14, 2008, Government Technology’s Public CIO cited Booz Allen Vice President Robin Portman in an article about how CIOs are working to ensure their IT projects meet or exceed business users' expectations by aligning overall strategy with business processes.
• “Health Care’s Fresh Look at ERP.” On March 24, 2008, Government Health IT cited Booz Allen Vice President Robin Portman and Booz Allen Senior Associate Eric Michlowitz in an article about how organizations are choosing enterprise resource planning to help manage resources from inventory to employees.
• National Institutes of Health (NIH) TLC Case Study—Optimizing Warehouse and Distribution Functions With a Holistic Approach.  This case study examines a project that was able to steer its ERP implementation back on track by taking into account the interplay among people, process, and technology, the key elements of a successful transformation.
• On November 27, 2007, CIO magazine cited Booz Allen Vice President Michael Farber in an article about strategies for mitigating the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business.
• Modernizing WMATA Systems – A Transformation Success.  This case study examines a project that began as an ambitious technology replacement and evolved into a multi disciplinary transformation that affected people, business processes, and technology at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
• Booz Allen Vice President David Humenansky is the author of the article "The Maze of Change," which was published in the June 1, 2007, edition of Government Executive.  In the article, Humenansky champions taking a life-cycle approach, which can map positive initiatives.
• The July 23, 2007, WashingtonTechnology article "Get Me to the Station on Time" highlights Booz Allen's work with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Other Related Web Pages

>> See Components of the Transformation Life Cycle: Booz Allen Hamilton’s Transformation Life Cycle (TLC) simultaneously addresses the four dimensions of change: people, process, technology, and physical infrastructure.

>> See Transformation Life Cycle Podcast: The TLC podcast series features in-depth discussions of topics related to the four primary dimensions of change.

>> See An Expert Partner in Transformation: Booz Allen offers clients expertise across every stage of transformation, from vision to execution.

>>See Learning Systems: Booz Allen provides the tools, technologies, and processes for supporting new learning techniques, knowledge management requirements, learning content, and training delivery.