The Living Organisation :

Framework for Design of Strategy Process

Needs vary according to business scale. A helpful Strategy process can be a one day meeting of the Board, or a full “Scenario” process involving different teams and groups meeting over many months.

I hold in mind an overall framework for engaging with current reality, uncertainty and decision-making (in full recognition of uncertainty):

Understanding the Current Reality

What is the current situation of the organisation? What fundamental assumptions are being held? What is the “Official Future,” and what other possibilities does this serve to mask?

Widening the Field of View

Intoducing new voices, perspectives and ideas, asking provocative questions and testing dearly held assumptions.

There are many different possible approaches. One option, the Scenarios process is highly effective in engaging people using vivid descriptions that they create, in experiencing alternative scenarios of the future. These hypotheses serve to highlight the risks and opportunities involved in specific strategic issues and decisions.

Designing the (Uncertain) Future

What decisions will you make? How well do these take account of the key uncertainties you have identified.

Can these decisions be tested, prototyped?

Engagement

How can you get everybody in the business involved in and connected with this process?

The famous example is the floor cleaner at the Space Centre in Houston who told Kennedy his job was to help put a man on the moon. Cooks on well functioning North Sea drilling rigs will know how well the rig is doing against the predicted time-depth curve for the well. This is living strategy.