Strategic doing is a new approach to economic development strategy that focuses on guiding loosely connected networks rather than top-down hierarchical strategic planning. It works by focusing conversations around key strategic questions to generate strategic action plans and link community assets. This allows a network to quickly develop sophisticated strategies through collaborative workshops. Strategic doing creates transformative change by generating many initiatives focused on a few outcomes through "swarm innovation." It has been successfully used by various regions to develop economic clusters and initiatives.

1. Introducing Strategic Doing Ed Morrison Minneapolis, MN April 14, 2010

3. Key Concept 1: Economic development involves managing three flows of money. A strategy should help civic leaders with practical ideas on how to do that.

4. Beginning in the 1980‘s, civic leaders applied corporate strategic planning frameworks to develop strategies. Corporate strategy models provides the basic approach that communities still use. Strategic planning assumes that there is a hierarchy that will implement the strategy. A small group at the top does the thinking A larger group at the bottom does the doing

5. Strategic planning doesn’t work because communities and regions are networks, not a hierarchy. In networks, no one can tell anyone else what to do. So strategies emerge from a strategic planning framework are very difficult to implement.

6. This insight touches on a deeper transformation taking place in our economy. The emergence of a knowledge economy really means the emergence of networks. We started to see this network economy emerge in the 1980’s, but it has really gained momentum. Peter Drucker, who coined the term “knowledge worker” saw this transformation coming. Every few hundred years in Western history, there occurs a sharp transformation. Peter Drucker, The New Realities (1989)

7. Key Concept 2: To explain this transformation, we talk about the transformation between our Grandfather’s economy to our Grandchildren’s economy. This explanation works with all types of audiences.

8. We need to find the pathways to our Grandchildren’s economy. But old strategic planning methods -- slow, linear and expensive -- do not work well. Starting in 2004 at the Purdue Center for Regional Development, we began developing a new approach to strategy based on guiding loosely joined networks. Strategic doing connects a community’s assets with “link and leverage” strategies

9. Key Concept 3: Strategy in networks requires open participation and leadership guidance. We can guide people to transformative strategies by guiding their conversations. Strategic doing focuses conversations on 4 key strategic questions. As participants answer these questions, they generate all the components of a strategic action plan. On the next slide, you can see how this alignment happens.

10. Key Concept 4: To move in a network, people need both clear outcomes and a practical path to the outcome.. We must translate visions into outcomes that are more clear and concrete. Strategy answers two questions: “ Where are we going?” and “How will we get there?” By focusing conversations with workshop exercises, a loose network of people can come up with a sophisticated strategy quickly.

11. We can govern open networks with a new approach to organizational design. We organize strategy around Strategic Focus Areas and teams. We use one page agreements for each team and project or initiative. This practice assures accountability.

12. Key Concept 5: Strategic doing creates transformative change by generating “link and leverage” strategies and swarm innovation: a lot of initiatives focused on a handful of transformative outcomes. This swarm innovation improves productivity and boosts incomes. Swarm innovation

13. Key Concept 6: To be competitive in today’s knowledge economy, a community or region needs a strategy that balances investments across the five key dimensions of competitiveness.

14. This framework captures all the different dimensions of competitiveness talked about by Tom Peters, Richard Florida, Michael Porter and the New Urbanists.

15. Key Concept 7: Strategy in a network is an interactive process. The environment is dynamic and always changing. Open networks are also changing as some members drop out and others join. Effective strategy takes place with a process in which thinking and doing is not separated. Working groups, each charged with an initiative, report progress regularly. The strategy evolves from version to version, as we learn what works.

16. Key Concept 8: Strategic doing creates increasing returns. Success builds on success. As the skills and habits of collaboration strengthen, new opportunities emerge. This is the “so-called” network effect.

17. Key Concept 9: Not all networks are the same. An open network capable of working on complex transformative initiatives -- an innovating network or “strategy-net” -- takes time to form. Members of the network learn how to accomplish complex projects by following simple rules and disciplines.

18. Key concept 10: Communities and regions move through a set of horizons, as they develop the skills and habits to support open innovation and strategic doing. At each horizon, the community must develop a new set of skills and habits to move to the next level.

20. Strategic doing is fast and pragmatic. The Milwaukee 7 region used strategic doing to build its water cluster. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee drew this map of the cluster’s strategy four months after conducting a three hour strategic doing workshop.

21. Strategic doing is also fun. Purdue and our partners used strategic doing to develop their initiatives for a 14 county region. In four focus areas, we generated over fifty initiatives. Each initiative passed a stage gate process to determine whether it was truly transformative: scalable, replicable and sustainable. Kokomo, IN

22. Cape Girardeau, MO Strategic doing encourages boundary spanning. Southeast Missouri used strategic doing to shape its P-20 Council. The best way to build new habits of collaboration is to focus people on tranlslating transformative ideas into “next steps”.

23. Regions across the country are experimenting with new approaches: open innovation and strategic doing. We need to develop platforms to support these regions. These platforms will be anchored in colleges and universities. across the country.

25. We are developing a platform with our partners -- Purdue, Penn State, The University of Akron the University of Oklahoma Economic Development Institute, the Edward Lowe Foundation and others -- to support strategic doing and open innovation in regions across the country.

26. Thank you! Questions? Ed Morrison [email_address]