I sometimes sit in board meeting deputising for my boss the CIO. Our domain does have innovation ideas, but we’re primarily a servant of the business.

I can see the list of initiatives by functional area, and I can see the governance level they are being overseen at (platinum, gold, silver), and the method they are being delivered by.

There is a RAG status (current and previous). But there is no priority listed. I can’t tell which ones are most important. More worryingly – I can see descriptions of what each initiative is to DO, but there is little to indicate what each will ACHIEVE.

I stupidly piped up the other day in a moment of carelessness and asked about the priorities. “They are all priorities” was the reply. Even more stupidly I followed up – “surely, some of these are more strongly strategically aligned than others – aren’t some of these local initiatives?”.

No one replied. I later found out the alignment on initiatives is laid out in programme and project business cases, almost as ‘claims’ to alignment but no one actually aggregates all that stuff to make sure it's all coherent.

The CFO only cares if the business case makes sense, the COO thinks he knows best anyway and only sees the need for business cases on stuff others do.

The CEO seems to almost assume that everyone is working to that lovely strategy paper she maintains – or perhaps she has no illusion of the multitude of priorities that there seem to be?

I can see why some aspects to our employee engagement results show change exhaustion, and why sponsorship seems to be nothing anyone really wants to do except for their own ideas.

Is it just me that sees the impossibility of all we seem to have on, and the almost deliberate vagueness of priority setting? It's like a form of gridlock no one seems able or willing to get out of!!