Do you know how to 'find your why' in your strategy, goals and organisation?
Tags: leadership, tutorial, productivity
Published: 2022-09-22 12:48:50

Pause, take a deep breath.  Put away your phone and move away from your monitor.  Have you thought about how to find your why?  Think about what you are working on right now and ask yourself these questions.

- Why are you doing it ? 
- Does it make you happy ?
- Does it have meaning ?
- Will it have a meaningful impact ?
- Does it actually make a difference ?
- Does it relate to the plan for today?
- Does it help your team?
- Does it align to your departments success?
- Will it help profitability ?
- Will it help reduce costs ?
- Will it help your product or service usage grow ?
- Does it help your organisation succeed ?


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/cpn7lat7srv0hhd9qqxi.png)
[Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash](url)
  

## Finding your why and the search for purpose

A lot of people will not be able to answer these questions. They don't know or they don't care about how the work they are doing relates to the overall strategy, goals, KPI's or plans of their organisation. They are just doing what they are told, without asking or caring why.  It is not a nice or healthy place to be.

We believe that the pandemic has been a wake-up call for a lot of people.  Tolerance levels for busy work, meaningless tasks and mis-aligned initiatives with questionable benefit is at an all time low.  And this is a very positive thing as you cannot change what you tolerate.

A lot of people have been examining their lives and searching for a more meaningful, more impactful, more enjoyable, and a more balanced life.

## A Better way

> The ideal that we strive for is that the organisation and the individual have complete alignment between daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and long term work

With many years experience of [digital transformation journeys](https://theserverlessedge.com/driving-technical-strategy-on-the-transformation-journey/) for both startups and global orgs, here at the Serverless Edge we have tried and tested tools and approaches to find your why. 

Two that we have consistently relied on are:

- 1. the [North Star playbook](amplitude.com/north-star(opens in a new tab)), and 
- 2. [Wardley Maps](medium.com/wardleymaps(opens in a new tab)) 

We understand how combining these approaches in the right way can help you, your team and organisation to discovery their purpose and understand their why.  Most importantly the tools make that why clearly visible and actionable to everyone.

The ideal that we strive for is that the organisation and the individual have complete alignment between the daily work and the weekly, monthly, quarterly and long term work.

Imagine if every day, you could answer with confidence that you know how the work you are doing impacts the overall success of your team and organisation. Reaching this level of alignment brings meaning to the work, helps build a sense of purpose with your colleagues and ensures that everyone is pulling in the right direction.

## Finding your why and reduce time to value

With the reduced time to value due to Well-Architected Serverless applications, clarity of purpose and improved situational awareness through North Star and Wardley mapping, the time between a strategic idea and implementation is minimised.

We believe you will have a more purposeful, more meaningful and more enjoyable day if your work is aligned and you can see the results of your efforts in production rapidly.

We have personally seen the amazing results of combining North Star playbook and Wardley maps in the organisations we have worked with.

Now challenge yourself with finding your why?