August 30, 2013

Collectively "Creating the future" in uncertain times

"The best way to predict your future is to create it". So said Abraham Lincoln.

If you ever wonder why so many of are constantly participating in some kind of community engagement process to develop one kind of strategic plan or another, there's some very cogent reasons.

The 20-year strategic planning cycles along with the 10-year, 5-year and 2-year cycles are all dead, buried by the tsunami of accelerating change.

Take a quick look at this graph. Its the time taken for one quarter of the US population to adopt a new technology. If change was merely accelerating the graph, a logarithmic curve, would be a pretty much a straight line. 


But the graph curves upwards, which means that the rate of acceleration is accelerating. This means we are all in for a very wild ride.

To deal with this kind of change, Maverick & Boutique have developed a new approach to strategic planning that helps us all deal successfully  with accelerating change. It is part of our Complex Adaptive Operative Systems approach to managing learning organizations and complex projects.

We create the future of our own choosing through frequent and iterative cycles of conversations with others, to work out what we can do together that will make a difference, not only to our own  lives, but to our customers, suppliers and our communities as well.

Its the new normal of strategic planning.

The old linear ways of thinking about the world, while still good for machine-like functions such as manufacturing and process plants, are not much help for working with humans, who refuse to operate along straight lines.

Instead we have found that laws of complexity and the features of complex adaptive system help us better understand this changing world, to find new kinds of patterns in the complexity and the chaos, in addition to the linear and algorithmic patterns on which we have relied in the past.

Here's how we approach strategic planning:

We use complexity to deal with complexity: Because the world has become far more complex, with many intersecting and interdependent systems requiring many disciplines to work together, no single person has the knowledge to solve any or perform any task on their own. 

A robust model of the system: We involve as many people in our stakeholder community as possible to help create a rich picture of the system. Once we have a robust model, we can quickly work out how we can influence the development of the system. 

Leveraging the system: We use the laws of complexity, the features of complex adaptive systems, and the most powerful approaches to leverage the system, in order to test and improve every project plan, product concept, leadership approach, co-ordination method, production technique or marketing strategy. Among these tools is our complexity model of change, which is broadly predictive of the features of emerging paradigms. The technologies, skills, rules of interaction and methods. The model is a period doubling cascade, a feature of complex adaptive systems.

Surfing the waves of change: We develop project, product and policy concepts that achieve the highest possible leverage. According to leading systems thinker, Donella Meadows, of the 12 ways to intervene in a system, transcending paradigms is the most potent.

A living plan: From the very moment we start planning, we start to implement. What we learn from doing, we feedback into the plan, devoting more resources to what is working, and abandoning or redesigning what does not.

Start many projects: Nature starts millions of new experiments to ensure a handful of organisms survive. We do much the same. Instead of trying to predict the future, we try out a variety of ways to create it, and then pursue those projects that attract the most political support, customers and interest.

Our stakeholders create the plan: Our staff, customers, neighbors, suppliers, C-suite, community leaders and often our competitors, all play a major role in creating our plan. The plan is not just our plan, it is their plan as well.

Advisory group: We usually establish an advisory group for the planning process, representative of the organization and the stakeholder community. The output from a planning workshop with the group becomes a first-cut strategic plan, including a detailed stakeholder analysis, which informs who else should be invited into the process. The advisory group has a key role at the end of each planning cycle to review the work of other stakeholders and task forces, and raise the strategic thinking to a new and higher level of synthesis, integration and alignment with the trends.

Background information: We feed vital information about the organization as well as local, national and global trends into the planning process to ensure that everyone is well informed.

Ecologies of products and services:  We reinvent our products, services, policies, leadership and co-ordination methods, production and distribution processes, even our governance, decision making and learning methods, in order to create an ecology, in which each of the parts support or benefit each other.

Synthesis and integration: We use the creative differences between disciplines and cultures to create the new possibilities on which our strategic plans depend. We set out to not only synergistically serve each other's interests, but also achieve a greater good for all...the community, the state, the nation or the planet. Win-win-win.

Dynamic SWOT and other questioning processes: Our processes are informed by sequences of rich, open-ended questions that promote robust conversations, generate novel solutions and guide challenging analysis. Most planning processes are guided by a sequence of questions, for example: 
  1. The context: What are the major trends in the world that are impacting on our community/city/state/organization? Think about an describe the impact of global market, economic, social and economic trends? What are some of the local demographic, job, business, education and other trends?
  2. Stakeholder Interests and Bigger benefit statements: Who are our main stakeholders and what are their interests? How could we serve their interests so they/we are more resilient? Respond like this If (name of stakeholder) was to (their interest/description of benefit/outcome) then we would (Greater good benefit, community benefit)
  3. Dynamic SWOT: What are we doing well in our community/city/state/organization that contributes to our resilience that we want to KEEP? What is an obstacle or barrier to our success that we might ABANDON? What new activities or revised activities are we drawn to INVENT/REINVENT?
  4. Projects: What is a project we need to start today so our businesses, government and community are resilient in the face of change (climate, social, economic etc)? 3-5 word snazzy title, 25 word rich description. Think about our new or enhanced services, systems, roles, methods, processes, governance models, funding mechanisms etc.?
  5. What does success look like? What will our community/city/state/organization be known for?  Describe a day in the life of our community, business, government, services, etc that describes our success. (25-50 word description).
Systems maps: We collectively draw system maps to better understand the connectedness of all the parts of the system, and learn where there are barriers to implementation, and feedback loops that reinforce what we want to happen.

Multiple perspectives: We look at our organizations and our stakeholder system in many different ways. We think about functions such as production, marketing, finance, distribution, sales, R&D or talent and people management. Sometimes we focus on systemic issues: leadership, governance, ethics, coordination, teamwork, stakeholder relations, contracting and legal. We think about ways of dealing with issues such as process redesign, design thinking, continuous improvement or process redesign.

Complex adaptive meeting environment: We use a new kind of collaborative tool that allows us all to rapidly share our ideas, develop a robust model of the system, and rapidly reach consensus about what to do. 

Actionable projects: We establish task forces, with participants drawn from the broad internal and external stakeholder community. The task forces create and cost and begin to implement comprehensive project plans and identify the measures of success.
  1. Project Title: Give the project snazzy title in 3-5 words
  2. Project Description: Describe the project is 25 -100 words
  3. Governance: What roles will people play, who will be responsible for or own the project?
  4. Objectives: What will the project achieve?
  5. Stakeholders: Which stakeholders and their interests will be served by the project? Who will make use of the product/service and how? Who will be the suppliers?
  6. What is the time frame(s) for development, implementation etc?
  7. What is the estimated cost range and sources of funding required?
  8. What actions/activities will be required to implement this plan (in detail)?
  9. How will we measure success? (benefits, measurable, clear, simple, actionable)
  10. What professional development is needed?
  11. What resources, technological or facilities are required?
  12. How might we integrate this project with other projects/programs?

* Black Swans: Events we can imagine, but have never seen before. Until Europeans "discovered" Australia, they had only ever seen white swans. But Australian swans are black.

** Unknown Unknowns: Thank you Donald Rumsfeld for this idea. Unk Unks are events that you cant imagine that come to cause considerable grief because you have no understanding of what they are, how they work, or how to deal with them when they show up. Imagine taking a Mercedes Benz Motor car back in time and showing it to a Roman Charioteer.