Below you will find a short explanation of the four accelerators and 16 building blocks:

Accelerator 1, CHOOSE, applies to the organization as a whole. It describes the process of developing a broadly supported strategy.

1. Building block 1: AMBITION. Your objective is to formulate an undiluted, purely content-focused strategy. Make sure you do it right, but spend a lot less time than you’d be inclined to. No matter how much time you spend on deciding your strategic direction, spend just as much on deciding whether your strategy is effective, agile and fast.
2. Building Block 2: SELECTION. This is where you translate strategy into a portfolio of initiatives. Be highly selective, so that you can set clear assignments and unambiguous requirements in terms of their execution.
3. Building Block 3: APPEAL. This is where you ask for feedback on your strategy and then enrich it to ensure that it becomes a living, breathing plan. That takes more than one-way communication. The strategy’s justification, or the why, must be perfectly clear. And the best way to convey purpose is to tell an appealing story.
4. Building Block 4: ACTIVATION. Your goal is to foster true ownership of the initiative. Leaders play a key role in this. Senior management must all read from the same script. Ensure that all assignees and key actors willingly assume ownership. Without engagement you may as well pull the plug.
5. After the first accelerator—the first four building blocks—your focus shifts from organization-wide to the particular project or program devoted to a single strategic initiative.

Accelerator 2, INITIATE, describes the process of analyzing, designing and starting execution of an initiative.

1. The first building block in this accelerator is Building Block 5: MUST-HAVES. What are the basics every initiative requires? A clear mandate, a sense of excitement and a sense of urgency to carry out the initiative, an answer to the “small why”, a business case and a hypothesis-oriented analysis.
2. Building Block 6: BREAKTHROUGH deals with why content matters: it’s the backbone of any initiative. The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) you develop must be based on at least one innovative breakthrough.
3. This brings us to Building Block 7: EXCELLENT START. Using the execution cycle, which consists of a series of steps in a fixed order, the MVP is executed by an initial group of employees. In this first execution wave, your priorities are fast failure and success.
4. Building Block 8: PSYCHOLOGICAL CHECK-IN deals with garnering true ownership. The Execution Lead (the project or program manager) and the other key actors in the execution coalition psychologically check in to the initiative and its objectives.

Accelerator 3: HARVEST, describes the process of reaping benefits, continuous development and scaling.

1. Building Block 9: BENEFITS, is about benefit realization. Now that your MVP is in its first execution cycle, you can start monitoring and reaping benefits. Develop some metrics and introduce a benefit tracking system. Let yourself be led by the numbers.
2. Building Block 10 is about CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT. Develop your resources down to implementation level and set up a business case monitoring system. It should become second nature to constantly align with other initiatives and disciplines. Continue to develop the MVP based on customer needs and responses.
3. Building block 11: SCALING. This is where you select, concretize and operationalize scaling and rollout methods. You may need to scale up from 15 to 1500 employees at this stage. Just be grateful not all 1500 were involved in the initial analysis and design.
4. And in Building block 12: BRIDGE-BUILDING, Senior management and the execution coalition clear away any obstacles and make sure successes are celebrated. The point is to add value and be a positive influence. Any professional with skin in the game now becomes an avid ambassador, helping to make the change irreversible.

The fourth and final Accelerator, SECURE, describes the process of securing the benefits and learning from the execution process.

1. Building Block 13 is about ADJUSTMENT. Professionals need room to set their own priorities. Self-monitoring is more effective than supervision. The business case monitoring method you have chosen will help them do just that. Make use of visual management wherever possible.
2. Building block 14: OPEN ARCHITECTURE, advocates using a simple, open architecture for the description of processes, technology, knowledge, competencies and conduct, because this is conducive to continuous development. That’s how self-evident and easy maintenance and development of the MVP should be. The new method, the design, is secured, monitored and adjusted where necessary.
3. Building block 15: LEARNING, is far more important than it’s usually given credit for. Organizations seldom take the time to learn from completed initiatives. This needs to change, because learning increases your execution capacity. Organizations that do bother to learn from each initiative get better at strategy execution by applying the lessons learned.
4. And finally Building block 16: THE EXTRA MILE. Ultimately, every initiative is handed off to the benefit realization managers in the line organization. They become the owners of the goals and the new business model. Successful securement depends on their integration into your organization’s primary processes. The best way to ensure this is by going the extra mile.