The Fall Into Strategy series is both a play on the season and a metaphor for how we convert intention into action with a plan, by design. Today, we look at the bigger picture of complexity and its role in strategic design. More specifically, we’re going to look at three words: fumbling, stumbling, and forward. […]
Fumbling and Stumbling Forward: Strategy and Complexity Read More »
Strategy is the means of connecting our aspirations and resources to our actions and outcomes. Strategy is something we design with our organization’s goals, values, assets, people, and customers/clients/patients/partners in mind. Strategic design is the means and positive impact is the end. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be walking through the art and science of
Fall Into Strategy: The Practice of Making Strategy Real Read More »
This final post on Strategic Design in the series outlines the integration of theory and practice, emphasizing its adaptability to complex environments. It describes critical steps including context setting, engagement, and envisioning futures. Strategic design fosters effective decision-making and learning, positioning organizations to thrive amid uncertainty through collaborative and informed approaches.
Setting the Table: The Making of Strategy Read More »
In the previous posts in this summer series, we looked at what it means to understand complexity and how it affects our world. In this post we connect systems thinking, strategic design and transformation together to show how they fit and why its useful to think of them together. Much of our professional world is
Systems Thinking, Strategic Design and Transformation Read More »
In this latest in our series on strategic design in complex times, we look at the ways in which design methods, tools, and thinking can shape systems and channel our intentions. This is strategic design. For more information, check out the earlier posts on complexity, strategy and introductions to strategic design. The aim is to
Strategic Design: Bridging Complexity, Planning, & Evaluation for Impact Read More »
Among the great challenges of compexity and disruption is knowing what to look at and how to make sense of what you see. Without training your senses, you may be going in blind. The idea of seeing things might be natural, but it still requires work. Many natural things require our effort, which is why
The Strategy Blindness Problem: Training Your Senses for What Counts Read More »
Strategy isn’t just about planning—it’s about preparing to meet the future, to shape it, and not just react to what comes our way. In conditions of complexity, the organizations that invest in thinking clearly are the ones that perform better, adapt faster, and lead with confidence. Why engage in strategy making? Just as a sailor
Strategy for Leadership By Design: A Brief Introduction Read More »
In the previous post, we looked at what complexity is and left with a metaphor of sailing to describe the ways in which we can understand complexity. In this post, we look at how to navigate complexity and ask: what does that mean for what we do and how we do it? Complexity is a
Navigating Complexity: Using Strategic Design Read More »
Welcome to the Censemaking Methods Series where today we look at how to apply principles to guiding evaluation and strategy. This builds on our previous lessons on Principles-Focused Evaluation and the building blocks that underpin the approach. What are principles and why do they matter? Principles are anchors between values and strategy that allow for decision-making
Using Principles To Frame Strategy and Evaluation Read More »
Persistent, dramatic changes are taking place that influence our work, communities, and personal lives and understanding what it means to learn, respond, and succeed will take changes in how we evaluate it all. A key feature of change in a complex system is that once its shifted, it never goes back; there’s no ‘undoing’ what’s
Whole System Learning and Evaluation Read More »
