Build a JEDI strategy in 10 steps

Understanding your stakeholders is essential for good project management. These stakeholders can be colleagues, team members or superiors. What is important is to make an exhaustive list of all the people that will need to be involved in your JEDI project.

Start with your colleagues and team members which will help you manage the project and should be involved from the beginning as you work through the steps.

Task 1: Note down all the team members of your JEDI taskforce (Excel or Word will do)

Task 2: Organise a meeting with those team members (Visioconference will do) to explain the purpose of the task force and why you chose them to be part of the team. Make sure to ask for other time commitments as well as their motivation for being part of this. An unmotivated team which has no time is not what you want!

Task 3: Brainstorm together with your finalised team, who the stakeholders will be for this project. This will be a preliminary list. You will need to reexamine that list later in the process. Who do you need to influence or have on board to make any changes happen, no matter the topics that will come up later in the process? Make sure that very important stakeholders are either part of the team early on or are invited to be part of the 4 next steps.

Your company will most probably have a vision and several missions posted on their website or available elsewhere. In this step, you will want to make sure that all your team members have a common understanding of the company’s (association or other works as well) mission and vision. Why? Because you will want to align the JEDI goals with your company’s goals.

Task 1: Discuss Vision and Mission with your team members by having everyone separately write down what they believe the vision and missions are of the company in their words.

Task 2: Each team member should present their understanding of vision and missions and how they perceived those being implemented within the company.

Task 3: Build a common understanding which everyone on the team can agree to and feels comfortable with.

Task 4: Write down the official vision and mission as well as your interpretation into a document accessible to all (Teams, OneDrive, Google) and incorporate the text in your JEDI deliverables at the end of beginning to give the document the right context.

Your personal values and the personal values of your team are just as important than a common vision and mission. Why? Because DEI is very much about values and can be very subjective. You want to make sure that the sets of values in your team are well recognised, documented and a link to the DEI mission and project is being made for each and everyone.

Task 1: Ask your team members to write down their personal values (max 10)

Task 2: Everyone should share their values in the group by explaining why those values are important to them and how those influence their decision making. After presenting, everyone should pick one value presented and give feedback on how they see the presenter live that value.

Task 3:  Note down the values you all have in common (if applicable) or that you can agree to as a group

Task 4: Make a link between the values that you have in common or have agreed upon and the DEI project. How do they intersect with the desire to be part of the DEI project.

Of course you could just google the term JEDI and copy/paste a definition but that would not buy you the right engagement from everyone.

It is important that you make the definition of JEDI your own and that starts with the team. Through discussion and by looking at the vision and mission of the company and the values you each represent, I want you to create your own definition for JEDI.

Task 1: Everyone in the team should take about 10-15 minutes to think about what JEDI means for them including the reasons why the have opted for the definition. (max 4 sentences)

Task 2: Everyone should present their own definition of JEDI including explanations. After each presentation, the group can ask questions to make sure that each detail is clear and well defined in the minds of the group.

Task 3: Building on common ground, the group should be able to build a JEDI definition which gets buy in from each member. You can start with the smallest common definition and build a more robust definition from there.

Task 4: Make a link towards the vision and mission. The group should make the link between the definition and vision and mission together.

Task 5: Then, each member should take 10-15 minutes to make the connection between their own values and the definition and present it to the group. Why? You want to make sure that everyone is on board with the definition. And that you can do best when everyone makes a link to their own personal values. This will make it easier for each team member to feel responsible for the JEDI definition.

Task 5: Write down the agreed upon definition including how it links to the vision and mission and add it to the end of each document for the JEDI project.

After having defined what JEDI means together with your team, you need to build a strategy around what elements you wish to change through your JEDI strategy. The JEDI definition provides the framework for this step. This step will help you assess which concrete challenges you wish to tackle through the JEDI program you are looking to set up.

Task 1: Using the JEDI definition as your framework, ask each team member to write down which challenges they believe the company needs to address when it comes to JEDI. The list should not include more than 5 items. Ask everyone to prioritize if necessary.

Task 2: Let everyone present their list, including concrete examples within the company where they have seen challenges arise due to the missing, incomplete or misunderstood existing JEDI strategy.

Task 3: Using Padlet or any other tool (flipchart will do too), cluster similar ideas together until everyone on the team agrees to the remaining large topics.

Task 4: Depending on the time availability of the team, choose a realistic set of goals you wish to achieve within a 12 months period. Don’t be overambitious! It is better to finish in style than to hurry through the motions.

Task 5: Give everyone 3 (or 5) points to vote for 1 to 3 challenges. 1 challenge can receive all points from one team member if they feel really strongly about this point. Encourage everyone to explain why they gave points to certain challenges/ideas, using their own values, the vision and mission of the company and the DEI definition you agreed upon. The topics (depending on the limit you gave yourself) which receive the most points should be addressed first. Make sure that everyone is on board with the decision by having everyone explain why they feel good about the choice made.

Now that you have agreed upon the main challenges you wish to tackle, we will translate those challenges into JEDI goals using the JEDI definition you have made before. The aim of this step is to create a positive mindset around the challenges you wish to tackle by giving you and others a positive vision around what you wish to achieve.

Task 1: For each challenge, think about the end goal you wish to achieve by tackling this problem. Start by looking at your notes on why you decided as a group that this is a problem within the company. Project yourself into the future and imagine what the company would look like without the challenge. How would you know that the problem has been tackled? Each member should note down all of these points separately.

Task 2: Let everyone present their reasoning, vision and goal for each challenge, one challenge after the other. Each member should be able to convey their idea of the future in detail.

Task 3: Agree upon a vision for each challenge together. Note it down next to the challenge as JEDI goal. Ensure that each goal is in line with the vision and mission of the company as well as the JEDI definition.

For each JEDI goal, you need to start the project management cycle. As in step 1, we started with stakeholders, the first step for each goal is to define the stakeholders. The aim of this step is to make sure that everyone needed to achieve the goal will be involved from the beginning onwards.

Task 1: For each vision, look at your stakeholder list from step 1 and note down who from the list would need to get involved (and why) in order to get to the goal. I would recommend doing this separately and then in the group to ensure that all ideas are heard. Update the stakeholder list from Step 1 if necessary with new stakeholders you may not have thought of at first.

Task 2: Write down next to each challenge and goal, the stakeholders which you have agreed upon that need to get involved to reach the goal you have given yourself. On top of the person and function, add the reasons why they are important to achieve the goal as well your group assessment of how likely they are to help achieve the goal (time constraints, JEDI sceptic or proponent….).

Goals are great but only measurable goals are really achievable! This step will help you be successful by adding numbers to your goals.

Task 1: Each goal you have defined needs to be measurable. Ask your team members to separately think about what they believe would be a good way to measure success for each chosen goal. For each metric, ask them to write down why they believe that it will be a good representation and how hard or easy they believe it will be to gather the data.

Task 2: Everyone presents their ideas and through discussion, decide which (1 or multiple) metrics should be attached to each goal. Hint: Choose easy to measure metrics….realistically, the more difficult it is to get the data, the less probable it is that you will follow through measuring over a long period of time.

Task 3: In your master file with the challenges, goals and stakeholders, add your metrics to each challenge.

The aim of this step is to ensure that each challenge is well thought through including the building blocks needed and roadblocks ahead.

Task 1: Think about possible roadblocks ahead. What push back can you get for each goal? Note down from whom and why separately.

Task 2: Everyone presents their roadblocks and a list is created with all possible roadblocks. For each roadblock, the group should take the time to discuss the possible effect and contingency planning as well as who would be responsible for executing the contingency plan.The result should be noted down in a separate document where it stay accessible to all.

Task 3: Responsibilities within the group should be discussed next. Who will be responsible for which parts of the goals? Will you each be responsible for a goal or multiple goals from start to finish or will you rather all work together on the goals with each having clear defined roles for every goal? Alternatively, you could decide this for each goal separately. Up to you to make a decision, document it, ensure that everyone agrees and make it available for everyone in a document.

You have almost all of the necessary elements together now. The only thing missing is a detailed implementation plan. By now, you should have a master document with challenges, goals, stakeholders, roadblocks and responsibilities. After this final step, you will be able to add to this list a detailed implementation plan.

Task 1: Answer the following (non exhaustive) questions for each goal:

• How will you communicate and inform the necessary parties over the course of the project?

• How do you keep the momentum on the change management project?

• Who will coordinate the logistics for each goal?

• What are the different phases for each goal?

• What are the deadlines you want to achieve?

• Where do you capture the information?

Task 2: Make sure that at least all of the above questions are answered, documented and agreed upon with all members and then also with all relevant stakeholders! Now is the buy in phase that you have been preparing for over the last 9 steps. Make it count!

TIf you have followed all the steps and tasks, you should have the following items:

• Clear understanding of what JEDI means to you and your team

• Who on your team will have time and energy to do which parts of the projects/goals

• List of all stakeholders that will need to get involved at some point in the project

• A detailed list of your JEDI challenges, corresponding goals, involved stakeholders, metrics to be used, building and roadblocks as well as a detailed implementation plan for the next 12 months

The next big step is selling the plan to your stakeholders, executing it, verifying that you are on track through metrics, adapting it when necessary and celebrating your successes!

If you need any assistance setting up your program, get in touch with me.