Designing a Target Operating Model Alignment Workshop to Unite Business and Technology Priorities

Why a TOM alignment workshop has become a strategy execution control point

A Target Operating Model (TOM) is often described as the bridge between strategy and execution. In banks, the bridge matters because strategy is implemented through a tightly coupled system of decisions: product design, architecture choices, delivery governance, operational processes, control evidence production, and talent allocation. When those decisions are not coherently aligned, execution risk is not a vague “change management” problem. It appears as duplicated investment, unstable releases, elevated operational risk, and forced reprioritization under supervisory or incident-driven pressure.

A TOM alignment workshop is valuable because it forces the right conversation at the right altitude. Instead of debating individual initiatives in isolation, leaders can agree how the organization must be configured to deliver intended outcomes reliably: which work is standardized versus differentiated, which services are shared versus embedded, where decision rights sit, and what quality and resilience thresholds are non-negotiable. The workshop’s output is not a slide deck; it is a set of design commitments and sequencing logic that reduces ambiguity in later prioritization forums.

What a TOM alignment workshop should produce for executives

A shared storyline that links strategy to daily operating decisions

Alignment is not achieved by consensus language. It is achieved by a shared storyline that connects strategic intent to operating model choices that business and technology leaders will actually fund, staff, and govern. In banks, that storyline must also clarify how operational resilience, data and cyber controls, and regulatory obligations are embedded into delivery and run practices. If leaders cannot explain how the operating model will create control evidence and support safe change, the strategy is not yet executable.

Explicit trade-offs and decision rights across business and technology

Many operating model discussions fail because they avoid trade-offs. A workshop should make them explicit: speed versus control depth, centralization versus business-line autonomy, reuse versus customization, and build versus modernize. Once trade-offs are named, the workshop should assign decision rights and escalation paths so that the portfolio does not revert to committee paralysis. The outcome should be a repeatable decision pattern, not a one-off compromise.

Key components of a TOM alignment workshop

Vision and strategy alignment

The workshop should begin by confirming the mission and the specific outcomes the future operating model must support. In banking, outcomes should be expressed in a way that is testable: customer journey improvements, resilience objectives, cost-to-serve reductions, and compliance or risk outcomes. This step prevents a common failure mode where technology teams interpret strategy as platform modernization while business teams interpret it as feature delivery, leaving both disappointed and neither accountable for end-to-end outcomes.

Layered design analysis across operating model dimensions

Layered design frameworks are effective because they prevent the discussion from collapsing into org charts or tool selection. Approaches such as KPMG’s six-layer view—Process, People, Service Delivery, Technology, Performance Insights, and Governance—help leaders see interdependencies. For example, “Technology” changes are not credible without “People” and “Process” changes to sustain them, and “Performance Insights” are not meaningful without governance mechanisms that use them to steer priorities.

For banks, the layered view also surfaces risk-bearing seams: handoffs between change and run, ownership boundaries across lines of business, and third-party dependencies. These seams often drive incidents and audit findings because accountability is unclear and evidence is fragmented. Treating seams as design objects is one of the workshop’s highest-value outputs.

As-is versus to-be gap analysis

A credible TOM is defined by the gap between today’s capabilities and the future state required by the strategy. The workshop should avoid generic gap lists and focus on the few constraints that will dominate sequencing: delivery throughput, platform readiness, data quality and governance, control automation, resilience and observability, and the maturity of decision forums. In banks, gaps that affect control evidence production are especially material because they can trigger supervisory concerns and impose non-discretionary remediation work that displaces strategic investment.

Stakeholder buy-in anchored in accountable ownership

Buy-in is frequently treated as alignment “energy.” In practice, buy-in means committing to ownership: who funds shared capabilities, who owns run outcomes, who accepts risk exceptions, and who is accountable for benefits realization. A workshop should end with clear ownership for the transition journey, including named executives for key capability domains and explicit interfaces to risk and compliance governance.

Steps to conduct an alignment workshop that withstands execution reality

Define attendees to match the operating model footprint

A TOM is cross-functional by definition, so the workshop must be cross-functional by design. Attendance should cover business leadership, technology leadership, operations, finance, risk, compliance, and HR or talent. The objective is not to create a larger meeting; it is to ensure that the model can be executed without later vetoes from control functions, funding constraints from finance, or capacity constraints from talent and operating teams.

Establish design principles that function as decision anchors

Design principles should be limited in number and specific enough to resolve conflict. Principles such as customer-centricity or scalability are useful only if they translate into operating choices, for example: “reuse before build,” “controls by design,” “single accountability for run,” or “standardize commodity capabilities.” These anchors prevent the workshop from producing an aspirational model that cannot guide real prioritization decisions.

Map value streams and identify where the bank must converge

Value stream mapping is most powerful when it reveals how work flows across functions and where bottlenecks concentrate. In banks, value streams often cross multiple platforms and control checkpoints, which makes handoffs and evidence production central to performance. Mapping should therefore include both business value creation and the operational and control steps required to deliver it safely. This helps leaders decide where convergence is necessary—shared platforms, standardized processes, common data definitions—and where differentiation is justified.

Draft the operating model canvas as an enterprise-level contract

Tools such as an Operating Model Canvas help translate discussion into a high-level visual representation of the future model: macro-structures, shared services, governance forums, and key interfaces. The canvas should be treated as an enterprise-level contract, clarifying what will be centralized, what will be federated, and what service expectations and control obligations accompany those choices. In banking, the canvas should also make explicit how resilience and security are operationalized—ownership, processes, and performance signals—not just described.

Build a prioritized roadmap that reflects sequencing constraints

The workshop should conclude with a roadmap that leaders can fund and govern. Prioritization should be based on sequencing constraints, not optimism. For example, migrating critical processes before establishing observability and incident response maturity increases risk exposure. Similarly, accelerating product delivery without standardizing release and testing practices increases defect escape and remediation cost. A credible roadmap therefore includes milestones for piloting, measurement, and refinement, with explicit gates tied to operational performance and control evidence readiness.

Why alignment is critical in banks

Strategies often fail not because the target state is wrong, but because the operating model cannot deliver it consistently. Without explicit alignment, departments optimize locally: product teams push for speed, technology teams protect stability, finance constrains spend, and risk demands evidence. The result is a portfolio that moves, but does not converge—creating hidden risk and delayed benefits. An alignment workshop reduces this failure mode by forcing leaders to align on how the bank will operate, not just what it intends to build.

The governance value is equally important. When a TOM defines decision rights, accountability for run outcomes, and the mechanisms for continuous performance insight, leadership can prioritize with fewer escalations and less rework. This is also where operational resilience improves: clearer ownership, fewer handoff failures, and better visibility into whether change is outrunning control capacity.

Strategy validation and prioritization by aligning leadership on an executable operating model

A TOM alignment workshop is most valuable when it is treated as a feasibility test for strategic ambition. If the future-state model depends on capabilities the bank does not yet have—standardized delivery practices, reliable risk evidence automation, mature platform governance, or sufficient talent depth—then prioritization must shift toward building those enablers or moderating the pace of change. This is the essence of strategy validation: ensuring that plans are grounded in demonstrated digital capabilities, not implied ones.

Comparable, enterprise-wide insight into those capabilities strengthens leadership alignment because it replaces opinion with evidence. In that context, the DUNNIXER Digital Maturity Assessment can be used to benchmark the maturity of governance, operating processes, technology foundations, resilience practices, and execution disciplines that a target operating model assumes. This helps executives align on priorities that are realistic, sequence operating model changes to reduce execution risk, and increase decision confidence when trade-offs between speed, control depth, and investment efficiency are unavoidable.

Reviewed by

Ahmed Abbas

The Founder & CEO of DUNNIXER and a former IBM Executive Architect with 26+ years in IT strategy and solution architecture. He has led architecture teams across the Middle East & Africa and globally, and also served as a Strategy Director (contract) at EY-Parthenon. Ahmed is an inventor with multiple US patents and an IBM-published author, and he works with CIOs, CDOs, CTOs, and Heads of Digital to replace conflicting transformation narratives with an evidence-based digital maturity baseline, peer benchmark, and prioritized 12–18 month roadmap—delivered consulting-led and platform-powered for repeatability and speed to decision, including an executive/board-ready readout. He writes about digital maturity, benchmarking, application portfolio rationalization, and how leaders prioritize digital and AI investments.