UPDATE Society Strategy Development (SD7092)

[SDMAIL Kim Warren]

Posted by  "Kim Warren" <Kim at strategydynamics.com>

Sorry this process has been quiet for some weeks. I was somewhat taken 
aback that we had only a short flurry of responses to the original 
request to hear people's aspirations for the field, after which the 
trickle of ideas dried up.
 
Given the strong interest and commitment from so many in the community, 
this is quite a puzzle, so I have been trying to understand what is 
going on. Subsequent enquiries have identified some possible reasons for 
this:
 
1 - Some seem to fear that developing a strategy is a long, complex, 
process of arguing and dispute to arrive at a rather vague document 
about trying to achieve some abstract and/or unrealistic outcomes. 
Whilst that may characterise some strategy initiatives, it is both 
unacceptable and avoidable. The process can be relatively 
straightforward, and should result in series of clear conclusions [a] 
what do we want to achieve by when [b] what has to be put together to 
achieve those things, [c] what has to be done, with what investment of 
effort and cash, over what timescale to put these things together, and 
[d] how are we going to organise to get it done. It's just a little more 
complex in non-commercial cases than in business, because of the 
multiple stakeholders involved, but not impossibly so.
 
2 - Some seem to feel we don't need a strategy - just keep doing good 
work and the world will come to our door, enabling us to make the much 
bigger impact we all believe is possible. Regrettably, the evidence is 
against us. Outstandingly good work has been done by excellent SD 
professionals in many fields over many decades, yet as Professor 
Forrester noted in 'The Next 50 Years' paper "During the last 50 years, 
system dynamics has climbed to a plateau below the mountains that lie 
ahead. The field has spread very widely, but very thinly." [see 
http://www.systemdynamics.org/conferences/2007/proceed/papers/FORRE555.pdf] 
In effect, we face a marketing challenge, a solution to which must 
feature in the strategy - other ideas and fields have done this well, 
e.g. try typing 'Balanced Scorecard' into Google and look into what 
comes up.
 
3 - Others think we don't need a strategy because everything is going 
along just fine - we only need sustain single-digit annual growth for a 
few more decades and SD will dominate. The evidence is again not 
encouraging. Membership is small for a professional body with so many 
decades of history, especially given the wide range of application areas 
involved. And professions can certainly emerge and grow much more 
strongly. More worrying is the heavy churn [e.g. where have all the 
big-name consulting firms gone?] If a growth rate of 5% is made up of a 
win-rate of 25% and loss rate of 20% [or more], not much has to change 
for modest growth to turn into stagnation or decline. A strong strategy 
would both win /and/ retain people.
 
4 - Some individuals and small groups may feel they are getting on just 
fine in their own back yard, and don't see a need to get involved in the 
wider effort. ... but many others are not, and nearly all struggle to 
build two things - on the demand-side, clients who want their services, 
and on the supply-side, professionals who can do good work. It is often 
useful in fragmented, early growth situations to think of a 
'pre-competitive' stage, in which it is in everyone's interests to 
collaborate in increasing the size of the cake, rather than keep hunting 
for a few small crumbs. We should be beyond this early growth phase, but 
unfortunately we are not.
 
The question we started on some months ago was ... “ What achievements 
would make you – and [importantly] outside observers - feel that 
celebrating progess of the field is totally justified, and how would you 
measure each of those achievements? ... “ I hope it was clear how 
answers to this question would form the essential first part of the 
strategy-development process outlined above. If we don't know where we 
want to get to, it's going to be tough knowing what to do to get there.
 
To make this more concrete for you, I can share the types of outcome 
that emerged in a project I am carrying out for another professional 
body right now. Their answers included e.g.
- XXX Universities offering recognised courses in the subject,
- XXX graduating students per year,
- XXX job adverts per year specifying that candidates must possess the 
capability and/or qualification 
- the existence of a certified training program [with specified 
content], and Chartered status for experts ['Chartered' status is a 
publicly recognised stamp of professional achievement in the UK and 
elsewhere, separate from University degree qualifications],
- XXX Certified and XXX Chartered practitioners in the field,
- XXX Professors of the subject, 
- a library of XXX powerful case studies of professional use of the 
subject, of which YYY are under 3 years old,
- XXX citations per year in the general press regarding the profession 
and its work,
- Govt specification that the method is required in relevant contract 
awards,
.. etc. etc.
 
Getting back to our own challenge, we will make the best of the limited 
number of views we received regarding your aspirations for the field and 
come back to you shortly with the next step. The strategy group will 
then be meeting to work on the challenge on the day before the Athens 
conference. 
 
Meanwhile, all direct contributions to the strategy itself are welcome - 
where we should be trying to get to and how to get there. But please can 
we not spend more time debating what other questions we should be asking 
instead, what other processes we should be using instead, how difficult 
it is to making change happen, the philosophy of strategy and system 
dynamics, or the meaning of life in general - at least not on this thread?
 
thanks in advance for your contributions - Kim Warren
 
Posted by  "Kim Warren" <Kim at strategydynamics.com>
posting date  Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:37:07 +0100