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Transforming Agile Strategy
A guide to letting go of linear futures
bearbnb
What’s a Strategy?
A plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim
Source: Google Search
Common Approaches to Strategy1. Forecast years into the future2. Assume relative stability and predictability 3. Craft a vision of a desirable future state4. Establish a set of ambitious company-wide goals 5. Develop an implementation plan, including change management efforts to get
buy-in and alignment around ambitious goals, sub-goals, sub-sub goals ad infinitum
Digital Transformation
What Causes Complexity?● Fast flow of information● Global competition● Increased power of startups● Sinking costs to start a business● Sinking marginal costs● Easier scalability
What’s Scrum?
What’s Scrum?Scrum (n): A framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.
Strategy
Progress
Unused potential
Unused potential
So What to Do?
Strategy
The ‘No Plan’ Approach1. Don’t forecast or only for a limited timeframe2. Assume unpredictability3. Focus on incremental improvement4. React to external factors and market dynamics5. Focus mainly on a product scale
There’s Something Else
What Do We Want?A strategy that
● Not only doesn’t flatten complexity but takes advantage of it● Continuously looks into the future but is firmly grounded in the present
moment● Includes more voices in shaping it
Single MonolithicOver-controlled: one way flow from the top down; engaging only a select few in strategy-making
No PlanUnder-controlled: infinite possibilities; too uncoordinated to shape direction
LiberatedDistributed control: flow from any point; direction is shaped by participants out of local-global interaction
Liberating Structures exist to
● replace unwitting practices that exclude, stifle, and over-control people
● unleash everyone to work at the top of their intelligence
liberatingstructures.com
Liberating Structures
Strategy Knotworking
• …• …• …
4. Baseline: Where are we starting, honestly? (What3, TRIZ, CU)
•
2. Context: What is happening around us that demands a fresh approach?(Mad Tea, What3, CU, DAD)
5. Ambition: Given our purpose, what seems possible now? (25/10, CU, What3)
3. Challenge: What paradoxical challenges must we face to make progress? (WQs, TRIZ)
• …• …
6. Action: How are we moving away from the current state toward the future? (Ecocycle, 15% Solutions, WINFY)
1. Purpose: Why is this work important to you and the larger community? (9 Whys, 1-2-4-All, Drawing Together)
• …• …
• …• …• …
• …• …• …
• ____ exists to…
Purpose
Purpose
The fundamental reason for a group or an activity to exist
Examples● ___ exists to provide bears and their owners with a home on the road, while
strengthening the bear community and promoting animal welfare.● ___ exists to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and
information instantly, without barriers● ___ exists to improve its customers’ financial lives so profoundly, they couldn’t
imagine going back to the old way● ___ exists to build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business
to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis
Purpose
Actions Intentions
Sample String
Sample String
Why is the work you are doing important? What is the deepest
need you serve? How do you justify it
to others?
9 WhysMake the purpose of your work clear LS exist to
replace unwitting practices that exclude, stifle,
and over-control people
LS exist to unleash everyone to work at the top
of their intelligence
Plausible
Unfolding Futures
2018-2028
Need for bear-friendly BnBsBearnormous
Need for bear-friendly BnBsLow
Strong Global competition
Weak Global competition
Scenario 1Get the Honey
Scenario 2Break the Bearriers
Scenario 3Bear Market
Scenario 4Bear With Me
Plausible
Unfolding Futures
2018-2028
Global Energy DemandHigh
Global Energy DemandLow
High New Technologies
Low New Technologies
Scenario 1Live Now
Scenario 2
Source: http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2018/01/24/royal-dutch-shell-lower-oil-prices
Scenario 3Brave New World
Scenario 4
Score25
24
23
22
21
20
19
Revisit WINFY commitments
quarterly
User research collected by
everyone everyday
Launch a research +
customer care squad
Daily stand up meetings +
coordination
Refresh cross-functional
Ecocycle monthly
Form creative destruction unit to free up space
1 App
2 Website
3 Partnership with bear owner clubs
4 Collaboration with zoos
5 Collaboration with circuses
6 Social media initiatives
7 Lobbying
8 Online advertisement
9 Print advertisement
10 bearbnb forum
11 Biannual fundraiser
1
2
3
4 5
67
8
9
10
11
Function A
1. In functions, formulate top needs to operationalize your strategy 2. Elect a leader to share your needs in the Fishbowl3. Develop & share your top needs as individual requests to each of the other 6
functions or roles4. Answers limited to: Yes, No, Huh?, Whatever
What I Need From YouCross-Functional Knot-Working
B
CF
E
G
D
A New Definition
A New Definition of Strategy
Strategy is a collective activity designed to make progress continuously
on a worthy yet elusive purpose by focusing on and sharpening the interplay of actions and intention
Next StepsFor strategists and experts of all stripes, we are inviting you to:● accept that surprise is inevitable rather than the consequence of faulty
forecasting● move from a small circle of the usual suspects forming strategy to including
every voice in shaping the future● trust you are shaping the future responsibly without knowing precisely what
will unfold
Read moreComing soon: the Liberating Strategy white paper
liberatingstructures.eu/strategy
Thank you!
Keith McCandless
@KeithMcCandless
Johannes Schartau
@IntegralAgile
