Category: Strategy Knotworking

Rewilding Strategic Knotworking with Lynda Frost

A guest post by my friend and colleague, Philip Clark (bios at end of post for Philip and Lynda!)

Image of Lynda Frost

“Here is a test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.” Richard Bach 

Within the larger Liberating Structures network there is a community of practice devoted to the development and understanding of Strategy Knotworking (SK), a set of six questions, often explored using various Liberating Structures (LS). SK lends itself to complex contexts and where there is a desire to engage everyone in planning. 

This is the third installment (here is the first, here is the second) of takeaways from the various conversations that we have been fortunate to have with seasoned practitioners on Strategic Knotworking (SK). The entry focuses on Lynda Frost.

One of Lynda’s distinctive professional marks is her vast competence and experience in both strategic planning and facilitating Liberating Structures (LS). In fact, when it comes to LS, she undoubtedly falls in Everett Roger’s “early adopter” category. Her use of LS is not only fluent, it can be pervasive.

So it is worth paying attention when she remarks that SK is not primordially a strategic planning tool. People familiar with prior blogs may remember that the issue of execution, or operational savvy or action planning were matters of concern for other practitioners as well. For Lynda, SK essentially serves to explore, share and socialize important, critical strategic content but is not geared to finalizing a written strategic plan. Other tools do it better. To use her own words, SK is a great way “to navigate the strategic process.” 

Different questions different insights, different LS different tones

New tools bring new questions and new outlooks. For instance, David La Piana – Lynda’s inspiration for strategic planning for her nonprofit clients – talks about Comparative Advantages [His exact expression is “competitive advantage” but Lynda prefers “comparative advantage”] i.e., the unique skills that an organization possesses which Lynda uses to articulate Context. 

This switch is not neutral since the notion of Comparative Advantage has deep strategic roots ever since Michael Porter’s article in 1979; more importantly it shifts the attention from external influences by linking them to internal capacities.

Lynda’s interview offers a wealth of insights. Here are 3 takeaways: 

  1. The importance of preparation (sponsorship, leadership, planning team, and the use of LS) 
  2. The centrality of Purpose and its extension to mission and values
  3. Insight about SK: a) with regard to strategy and strategy planning, and b) about the choice of LS. 

Process 

Like most significant consulting interventions, obtaining approval for a participatory strategic workshop usually involves a series of critical steps. Here are some elements worth considering. 

Step 1 with the executive team: the job consists in understanding the group dynamics, setting clear goals, checking for commitment, and evaluating the compatibility of the organization’s culture with the LS mindset among other things. 

One of the most important factor is group dynamics, that is the level of cooperation between people.  If an organization is marred with conflict, tension, infighting, any approach to collective action should start with some form of reconciliation. In this context, Appreciative Interviews because it describes situations at their best can be an effective structure to build (or repair frazzled) relationships while gaining substantive insights to inform the planning process. Group’s dynamics will also impact how groups will be formed: will they be a mix people and functions, or will they follow the organization’s chart?

Step 2 the Planning team: It’s function is to lay out the retreat’s purpose, structure, goals and participation. At this stage, it is key to have diverse perspectives within the group.

This is when Lynda will introduce LS both as a canvas (or metastructure) and/or as a set of tools. As it is, Purpose to Practice can provide the overall blueprint whereas individual LS will be used to address specific instances such as scoping, setting rules, principles, participation, etc. As a result, the planning team will be somewhat familiar with LS before the start of the strategy meetings.

Lynda will also walk the Planning team through more complex structures that she will use during the strategy sessions; often these include her two favorite LS : Ecocycle Planning and Critical Uncertainties (CU).

The Planning team should meet 2 to 3 times before a 1-2 day workshop to ensure thorough preparation. 

Step 3 facilitating the retreat: the intensive phase of the work is often an in-person or virtual retreat between a half day and 1.5 days over a weekend, with smaller online co-planning meetings leading up to the retreat and following up as a debrief and accountability tool.

It matters what matter matters 

The second characteristic of Lynda’s practice I chose to share with you concerns Purpose writ large. Purpose, you’ll recall, is step 1 in SK. It is also the 10th principle of LS “Never start without a clear Purpose” which, experience shows, especially resonates with nonprofit organizations. 

Lynda will spend a fair amount of time making sure a good purpose statement or mission statement will resonate with the participants. Like she says : “ I want them to really feel like they’re looking at that mission, they’re reading it and they’re thinking about it before we get into anything else.” 

To insure adhesion, she will avoid “mission or purpose language” preferring a more oblique approach. For example, she may start with something like “what is the fundamental value of your organization?” or “how did you first get involved with the organization?” or even, in cases where there are a number of new people in the room, with a prompt on their engagement to insure their inclusion and boost their confidence. 

If the group is small, she will use Impromptu Networking to gather stories, perspectives, ideas. If the group is larger, she will opt for 1-2-4-all. If it is online, she will favor Chatterfall . 

In a longer version, she will favor 9 word purpose statements over 9Whys. Purpose, mission or vision are so central for Lynda that her final report will rate each strategic initiative based on its alignment with the mission as well as other key criteria identified by the group [For example, a strategic initiative might be rated based on 4 criteria: the consistency with the mission, the organization’s competitive advantages, the organization’s capacity to implement, and the financial viability of the initiative]. 

Jamming with SK

Exploring new prompts

I said it several times before, one of the greatest feature of SK is its malleability. With Michelle, we saw that when an organization is fraught with tensions, history could provide a good basis for reconciliation. Context then is not just “What is happening around us that demands a fresh approach?” It can be “where do we come from and what has been lost that could be rekindled”. With Lynda, as we have seen, Context can become “what is/are our comparative advantage(s)?” In other words, “what is it that we do or have or built that is unique and attractive to our clients or users or beneficiaries?”

Mixing asynchronous and synchronous activities

Because time is precious and thinking slow, Lynda doesn’t hesitate to mix asynchronous work with synchronous activities. This is the case with the comparative advantage. Participants are asked to look at adjacent organisations prior to the workshop to get a sense of what they do differently. Once in the workshop with the content ready at hand, they can quickly discuss what makes them unique (smoother communications, quicker decision making, better delivery, etc.…) and converge using 1-2-4-all. 

Favorite structures

Lynda’s favorite LS for strategy work are Ecocycle Planning and Critical Uncertainties (CU)

As a rule of thumb, she wants to get Ecocycle up and running as soon as possible in the workshop, usually at the end of the morning. Ecocycle allows people to map their activities whether they are just talked about, getting traction, fully mature and running out of steam. It is all about doing. It can also level-set the group, informing newer members and giving long-term participants a place to gather historical and current initiatives.

CU will come in to get a broader view, and guide strategic planning, not just built resilience. One remembers that CU consists in two perpendicular axis. The first one is about uncertainty: what is most uncertain and what is less in your situation. The second is about criticality: again what is most critical and what is less. 

When working with nonprofit organisations, Lynda suggests money for the uncertain axis. In other words, will money be available or not. And for the critical axis, the policies in place; are they enabling or are they limiting. This brings a strategic layer to Ecocycle and allows for the selection of activities going forward according to the scenarii discussed in CU.

Keep it simple keep it moving

If I were to summarize Lynda’s approach to Strategy, the words that come to my mind  are “keep it simple, keep it moving”.

Simplicity starts with using the right kind of language. It then translates into the use of simple LS such Impromptu Networking, 1-2-4-all, Conversation Café. For example, 1-2-4-all can be used to determine the comparative advantages, the values of an organisation or even purpose, and/or its ambitions. You can also simplify the process by fully taking stock of what a given LS can give. For example, ambitions can also be derived from Ecocycle. And Conversation Café turns out to be very effective at identifying existing and emerging priorities.  

Now of course Lynda’s repertoire is much larger than this and she will, given the right opportunity, include User Experience Fishbowl  to bring lived experience into the process, and 25/10 and Shift and Share to decide on which initiative to pursue. More playful structures in development can serve other purposes. A favorite one is Drawing Monsters to address concerns or fears about changes associated with a new strategic plan.

The simplicity of these structures also allows for a nice rhythm to set in. But it seems to me that the real momentum is due to a focus on concrete actions from the get go. First, there is what can be called a standard operating model applicable to almost all small and medium nonprofit. Then there is the marriage of specific planning tools – themselves streamlined – with LS. For example, selecting priorities is made easier by the customized “strategy screen” measuring each potential initiative on a scale of 1 to 5  around key criteria such as alignment with purpose, enhancement of comparative advantage, feasibility, and financial viability.

The switch from Context to Comparative Advantage also emphasizes concreteness by zooming on known strengths and/or developing news ones. The way Critical Uncertainties is designed with its 2 distinct phases and its orientation towards operations definitely also leans toward action.

In fact, Lynda’s clients benefit from both world: the world of planning oriented towards actions and the world of creativity and collective intelligence brought by LS.

Our Guest and Guest Author

Lynda Frost, J.D., Ph.D. Lynda has lived and worked on four continents, but calls Austin TX home since 2003. She’s committed to helping foundations, nonprofits and other agencies maximize their impact in improving health, human services, education and criminal justice outcomes for the most vulnerable communities. She’s passionate about fair and effective process, with expertise in facilitating groups to maximize the engagement of each participant to apply what we know to make positive change on the ground. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndaefrost/ )

Philip Clark: After running his company -a digital design firm – for 10 years, and the innovation department of Orange Business Services, Philip now teaches innovation and change  at the university of Applied Science in Lausanne Switzerland. He also facilitates organizational transformation with a special emphasis on complexity designed tools and methods (Liberating Structures, Cynefin, Estuarine, Sensemaker…) promoting collective intelligence and distributed leadership. Contact Philip to collaborate and share ideas (https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-evans-clark/)  

Rewilding Strategic Knotworking with Fisher Qua

A guest post by Philip Clark
(Nancy’s Note: Philip and I are members of this little community of practice focusing on the use of Liberating Structures in strategic planning and work. He has been generously taking the lead of crafting and building on these summaries of our learning sessions. THANKS, PHILIP!)

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely,…”

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Image by Paula Fagerberg of the six knotworking questions
Image by Paula Fagerberg of Visual Acuity

Within the larger Liberating Structures network there is a community of practice devoted to the development and understanding of Strategy Knotworking (SK), a set of six questions, often answered using various Liberating Structures (LS). SK lends itself to complex contexts and where there is a desire to engage everyone in planning. 

This is the second installment (here is the first) of takeaways from the various conversations that we have been fortunate to have with seasoned practitioners on Strategic Knotworking (SK). Today, the celebrity is Fisher Qua.

Fisher started the session by recalling the beginnings of SK, reminding us that somehow Liberating Structures do not come out of hat or fully dressed like Athena from Jupiter’s head. 

It started, he reminisced, with the incorporation of Core Prime questions as part of Celebrity Interview Riffs and Variation prompts options. Questions like : what is happening around us that demands creative adaptation? Given our purpose, what seems possible now? As for the first visual representation, it stemmed from the graphic gameplan of David Sibbet of the Grove and evolved into a mash-up of several approaches to strategy that Keith called Strategy Safari. (For the deeply process geeks, see here and here.)

Something changed for Nancy and others when she started looking at the process as a narrative weaving together the 6 questions to create a storyline that everybody could own and operate. Somewhere along the way, it got its name. Nancy wrote several blogs about it. Keith and Johannes wrote a long article, and then our community of practice got together. 

Nancy added the Ecocycle to the arrow which provided a structure to record things (questions, answers, observations, etc). At first, the idea was not to define a deliberate sequence but to use a bunch of LS to collect the responses so that people could see them.

Like most beginners I reckon, I first believed that SK was a somewhat linear process evolving from Purpose to Action and Evaluation in a series of well defined and logical steps. Listening to Fisher, Michelle, Lynda, and Barry (our other guest practitioners) I am amazed to see how malleable the structure is. The structure itself  invites a large array of questions and prompts (see Michelle’s account), and can utilize many combinations and a variety of tools. It is malleable in how it can roll out over time, from 2-3 hours to days, either in a single session or spread over time. In the case discussed by Fisher (that of a business school) the process lasted 9 months with a medley of formats and both synchronous and asynchronous work. 

Fisher’s story of a business school 

The project explored all 6 questions and included quite a large design or core team (about 20 people) bringing together concerned stakeholders: undergraduate and graduate students, business school administrative staff, a couple local business owners, a couple of alumni, and associate, adjunct and full-time faculty fulfilling the need for requisite diversity and participation and, at the same time, embodying the first principle of LS “include and unleash everyone”. 

The delivery was intricate. 

The first part aimed at gathering people’s view on the various components of the SK process (Purpose, Context, etc) To do this, the Core team was invited to self-organize into pairs or trios and were tasked to interview at least 10 people in each of the areas of SK. For example, regarding purpose, they were asked to interview 10 people using 9-Whys. The same approach was applied for Context, Challenge, etc…

A half day online workshops were planned every two weeks to harvest and make sense of the material gathered during the week. 

The second part of the project consisted of 2-day in-person sessions with rotating groups spending 3 hours at a time in structured interactions. For example, on day one, members of the business community and undergrad students came together and explored Context. In another session full-time and adjunct faculty had a chance to work on Purpose. There were other sessions where everybody came together simultaneously in the room and worked through Ecocycle. This took 2 x 3 hour half day sessions.. 

An interesting development happened around Purpose. 

It was this writer’s bias that the purpose of an organization would be one and shared by all, but in the case of the business school different stakeholders had different purposes; for example between students and faculty, but also between faculty and the representatives of the business community. One can easily imagine a desire for employability versus an interest in academic inquiry leading to different purposes. At any rate, they ended up with multiple propositions which, after some consideration, were shown to express different positions at different scales within different contexts creating a sort of stepping stone towards Panarchy. 

The same thing happened when Ecocycle was used to map the Baseline. The final result was four Ecocycles. One was Business School relationships, another Departments program, a third around different practices, a fourth related to curricular elements 

Considerations  

  • SK can not only address the main elements of strategy (purpose, context, etc…), it can do it on several scales which, as far as I know, is uncommon and much-neglected in more traditional frameworks. 
  • Ecocycle can map different things such as activities, tasks, actions etc. It can be paired with Panarchy to look at the effect of scale on a given topic and look at progression/development over time, but it can also be used to zoom in on a single item within an specific Ecocycle if it appears too large or too obscure or too complex. 

Execution is the Achilles heel

When the process ended at the business school, committees were created to carry on the actions identified in the sixth step of the SK process. But, as it were, things got “lost in translation” since nobody was willing to take operational responsibility. We had seen something similar in one of the cases that Michelle described, reminding one that if decision makers are often responsible for crafting strategy they are rarely involved or even interested in execution. This is all the more wicked that, at the outset of strategic work, the general expectation of teams and management often revolves around planning with little or no patience for introspection, connections, relations, or inquiry. 

Given this state of affair Fisher muses about the possibility to add a macrostructure that would weave execution into SK. He calls it “Strategy Knotworking and Operational Knitting.” It consists of replicating the patterns used in the strategy design phase – core team, regular cadence of meetings, structured interactions – in the implementation phase. In his words, “to make sure there is an operational “function” with the organization that can pick-up knotworking where it leaves off.” 

Practitioners like Lynda Frost use non LS strategy planning tool (in her case David La Piana’s Strategic Planning template) and a couple of follow-up meetings with the management team to ensure that actions are undertaken and monitored. And then, from  a purely LS process, we have Henri’s meeting macrostructures. AsI would be very interested to learn about other ways to provide/integrate a scaffold regarding execution within or without the realm of LS. 

Relational coordination 

There is a sense among some practitioners that SK does not really make the grade as a strategic tool or process because it lacks mechanisms for implementation and allocation of resources. Said another way, SK may be good at strategy-thinking not at strategy-doing. But is this true? 

It is indisputable that the tactical side of strategy is its ultimate validation. Without actions and measured outcomes, strategy remains a pie in the sky. But there is another side to strategy which Fisher calls relational coordination inspired by the Relational Coordination Research Collaborative at Brandeis University that few organizations pay real attention to and yet, as we shall see later, directly impacts performance.

In Fisher’s words relational coordination is “the practice of tuning into context, revisiting purpose in a way that multiple people are invited to respond, dramatically increasing people’s sense of shared awareness about themselves as a system.” “As a system…”  in other words as a complex network of agents, activities and architectures that are in fact the substrates of production and creativity. 

By increasing the density and the quality of relationships, SK also develops better adaptability and responsiveness. The strategic shift here is toward resilience as a driver of delivery. Borrowing the syntax from the Agile Manifesto, we could say “discovery and tuning into where we have a higher capacity to respond to the world around us as it changes” over process and planning. 

Secondly, if SK does not directly address how decisions are made or how resources are allocated, that does mean that we are left bereft of solutions. There are several ways to deal with this. Within the LS tool box one could, at the end of the process, add some form of project management using Purpose to Practice (P2P) or, if looking for engagement and commitment, something around What I Need From You (WINFY). 

So what makes SK so incredibly useful?

For Fisher the value of SK is not so much the answers given at any one moment of time  to the 6 questions as it is to help us ““understand the relationship of one’s work to other people’s work or one’s work to the constituencies we are working for” to quote Nancy.

Looking at SK this way induced Fisher to become less formal and to use the 6 questions more like a “set of improvisational lenses” than steps in a process. Musing on the last 9 months, he acknowledges that notwithstanding intense preparation, things never followed the intended path with the business school. One reason is that perception varies within the ranks of an organization, and so you work out a detailed agenda with one constituency only to find out that it does not apply to another.  

In this context, the robustness of the process is provided by the quality of the conversations, hence the importance of questions. What is really useful becomes a good library of prompts from which one can retrieve the right trigger at any moment anywhere in the process. Focusing on prompts rather than steps improves the relational capabilities of the group and helps circumvent resistances. 

For example “(If) this group isn’t going to tolerate talking about purpose”, Fisher says, (…) here’s two ways of inviting them to consider purpose without calling it purpose. Right? so that becomes a Conversation Cafe topic. Here’s a group arguing about their shared portfolio, but they don’t have a language of portfolios. And so we’re going to do an Ecocycle to baseline the portfolio of investments.(…) and to conclude “it just becomes a much less structured practice and much more like fluid.” 

Relational coordination is the second pillar of strategy 

I mentioned Fisher’s disappointment with the lack of execution that followed the 9-month work he did with the business school. And indeed, this echoes the experience of many practitioners leading to doubt SK as a full-fledged strategic tool. While we can bemoan this state of affair, things are no better with a traditional strategic plan. The difference is that their actions are undertaken – usually with great ponderousness and miscommunication –  only to be found inappropriate down the line.  

Listening to Fisher I came to the conclusion that there is another side to strategy than setting goals and listing actions. As it happens this is not only my opinion. Keith referred to Jody Hoffer Gittell’s research on what she also calls relational coordination and to her conclusions that indeed it impacts performance (operations). Two remarks follow from this. One is the fact that, to quote Keith, “there are not many mechanisms in lots of organizations where that stuff is built into the fabric.” Second, this aspect of strategy cannot be top-down which may explain its absence in most companies. The reason it cannot be a top down affair is that relational coordination does not fit hierarchical models, it feeds on networks. 

Of course Jody Hoffer Gittell’s attributes of relational coordination are not identical to the 6 questions of SK. Hers are: mutual respect, shared goals, shared knowledge, as well as frequent, timely and accurate communication but it is hard not to see that SK definitely addresses all of them in one form or another.

Strategic Knotworking Across Projects

This post is lightly edited part of a three part series on Liberating Strategy by Keith McCandless and friends. Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

I have been using Strategic Knotworking, a complexity friendly alternative to traditional strategic planning, with cross disciplinary teams in international agriculture development, ecosystems management and mental health. For the most part, these are externally funded initiatives and have requirements both for results (application of the work) and for cross-team learning. Funders have an agenda. Grantees have their agendas. Sometimes there is not useful clarity about how these agendas work in sync. And there is rarely opportunity or support for shared optimization of what has been identified and exploration of what might be possible. 

Traditionally, each team does their own strategy development (a.k.a. “Grant application”), get the grant money, do their work, show up at “learning events” to share what they learned and then go back to their own projects or even parts of the projects. There is a burst of energy at the convening that then dies away. This habit reinforces silos. People tend to focus on their grant, their context.  There is little  opportunity for shared language for strategy, learning, adaptation and evaluation. There is little genuine social connection to support peer support and social learning. 

The six Knotworking questions listed below plus the Ecocycle make it possible for a group to look back critically, assess the current state, and prospectively generate options to move forward, all with shared language and shared structures. Here are the questions.

  1. What is the fundamental purpose of our work (as individual projects/as a portfolio)?
  2. What is happening around us that demands change?
  3. What are the critical uncertainties and paradoxes we must face to make progress?
  4. Where are we starting, honestly?
  5. Based on what we have discovered, what is now made possible?
  6. What are our next steps and how will we know we are making progress?

From answering the six questions a shared language evolves. Fresh ideas across the portfolios come into focus.  Relationships form and deepen creating space for peers to ask for and offer specific help.  Teams can more easily refer to issues across the contexts for optimization. Emergent ideas can be supported across the portfolio of grant funded projects. 

What shows up repeatedly is how silos get busted or rather become more permeable and even networked.  For example, conversations around the Ecocycle generate shared understanding and disparate elements are woven together. Hearing and learning about other groups’ Knotworking approach stimulates the kinds of cross pollination that their funders dream of.  Simultaneously, through use of the LS portfolio, relationships and network weaving among the participants is building social capital. Two aspects of Knotworking seem most useful in this context. 

Action and Learning Entwined

The first is the provocation of the six questions that allows emergent thinking, grappling with very real tensions and contradictions in full view (rather than furtively worrying about them but NOT discussing them), and the iterative way they unfold. This iterative function keeps monitoring, learning and evaluation as PART of the entire process, not just something tacked on at the end in a report.  Knotworking becomes part of the DNA of the work. It  transforms learning and adaptation as concepts and observation into practical and visible next steps. Action and learning become entwined. 

Exploring Together Generates New Options

The second is the ability to layer Ecocycles and see what is similar, what is different, where there are possibilities alone and together.  One project may excel at moving things from birth or piloting to scaling or maturity. Another may be full of amazing ideas, but get stuck in the scarcity trap. The team that moves things well through that trap may have stories and approaches that break the log jam. Yet other teams may have the great self awareness that shows up in creative destruction to make space for something new. Teams then look to see how to balance their own work and when to collaborate with teams who have complementary strengths in their work. 

Creative Destruction Makes Space

I want to call out specifically how Ecocycle and the first three Knotworking questions help to make creative destruction visible, discussible and even valued, rather than feared. This rebalances the relationship between the grantees and their funders into a more collaborative relationship. And it does this because it is not some abstract thinking, not blaming, but concrete sense making, practical-yet-ambitious dreaming, and actionable, measurable next steps. Once the concept and language of Ecocycle is shared, then more rapid and useful reviews begin to happen. 

For example, a group of researchers leading projects in Africa and South Asia did a traditional face to face kick off meeting, essentially presenting their plans and everyone went home. When the pandemic hit, the next annual  F2F meetings were not possible, so we designed an online gathering that used the six questions with each team doing an Ecocycle mid way through the event. The online interactions were  spread out over three weeks to give teams to amplify their Ecocyles and consult with others. The group did a “virtual tour” through each Ecocycle, positing questions, noting similarities and differences, and noting where they could help each other. This became the basis for their almost-monthly community of practice meetings. They had a basis to want to come together across projects. 

For example, there was a measurement tool they all had to use but few were well-practiced with it, so it was clear that practice needed to get out of the scarcity trap and into the birth phase of Ecocycle. In this case it was in the form of a community of practice (CoP). A couple of CoP meetings and things broke through the log jam. 

Another challenge was replacing field research with online research due to the pandemic  that needed more than a little nudge. AND something had to be removed to make space for new practices, provoking good conversations of creative destruction. So often new ideas and practices are added to existing work, reducing the chances they will take root and even compromising the old, less-than-ideal practices. Creative destruction helps remove the deadwood in a way that shows the value, rather than simply critiquing old practices or punishing those who were practicing them. (“Don’t creatively destruct me out of a job!”)

Resistance, Results, and Movement Forward

Previously, each grant project would appreciate hearing about others’ projects. But it was much less common that making sense across projects, using a shared framework and language, would generate more significant progress for each project and for the larger grant-funded portfolio. There are challenges in doing this. Power and control always show their face when we share our work, warts and all. Resistance to considering creative destruction is a relevant example. 

Knotworking and Ecocycle sometimes raise eyebrows at first. Resistance happens. What changes is when results happen. We know we are making progress when new leadership emerges from junior participants, when the big bosses no longer feel the need to over control the meetings, when the funders find a new, more collaborative role with grantees rather than the enforcer or setter of all agendas. 

Across time, we know we are making progress when cross project teams continue to identify shared challenges and opportunities and act on them.  When people start telling new stories about the work that help others understand the work and want to join, we know we are making progress!  (As our colleague Michael Arena suggests, positive gossip is all abuzz).

When teams have used the six questions to generate ideas, needs and relationships and understood where they are on the Ecocycle, when there is concrete action, we know we have made progress both within and across the portfolios.

NASA’s Salish Sea in the Snow

I’ve been absent from my blog catch up due to flooding basements and such things. Ah, good intentions.

Today I was led to a stunning photo by NASA of the Salish Sea region – where I spend my time – in the snow. Click in to look at it with more detail. It made me think of you, dear readers (all seven of you!)

We had record breaking cold and snow the last week in December. Seeing it from space was one of those “if I could only look from a new perspective” moments. We need those moments to question what we are doing and want to do. And to just sit in awe of nature.

Speaking of questioning things, Alexandra Samuel‘s remote work newsletter came out today with great reframing questions to consider not just about the return to F2F work, but the very nature of work. It made me want to convene a Strategic Knotworking Session (draft structure description in process to formalize this Liberating Structure here) about work! Worth a read!

Now, back to cleaning up the basement!

Adaptive Strategy Development

Introduction

Designing in complex and emergent contexts challenges the traditional log frame approach. With a set of Liberating Structures we can create a more adaptive and  actionable strategy  for project design and development that contextualizes the plan into a fuller picture of the landscape within which it operates. This is a very belated follow up on the application of the process with the good folks at the University of Illinois for the INGENEAS project where we used this approach in April. 

Liberating Structures are easy-to-learn microstructures that enhance relational coordination and trust. They quickly foster lively participation in groups of any size, making it possible to truly include and unleash everyone. Liberating Structures are a disruptive innovation that can replace more controlling or constraining approaches. They are engaging, easily learned and replicated and “complexity friendly.” To learn more about Liberating Structures, please visit http://www.liberatingstructures.com.

With a fully engaged and flexible approach, challenges such as complex international development projects can work with emerging contexts, rather than struggle against them.  Business with rapidly changing markets can develop a portfolio of approaches to respond quickly and accurately. 

As a process, participants in all parts of a system can engage, probe and sense on the ground, and loop the learning back into the strategy e for iterative improvements. Monitoring and evaluation approaches that require flexibility to work in complex contexts are designed as part of the landscape, not afterwards.

Framing the strategic planning as an adaptive landscape versus a document situates the work in its complex setting. By complex, we mean we may not be able to predict outcomes, even with extensive expertise, and only understand causality after the fact. For example, most international development work operates partially and sometimes mostly in complex settings. So the use of complexity-based approaches helps us work more productively and adaptively in these contexts.

The Six Essential Questions of the Adaptive Strategy Landscape

The strategy landscape, or “knotworking” as it is increasingly called,  is framed around six essential questions and held together through the Ecocycle. These questions frame, drive and help us evaluate our strategy.

  1. PURPOSE: Why, why, why is this work important to us and the wider community?  How do we justify our work to others?
  2. CONTEXT: What is happening around us that demands a fresh/new/novel approach (creative adaptation and change)?
  3. BASELINE: Where are we starting, really?
  4. CHALLENGE: What paradoxical challenges must we face to make progress?
  5. AMBITION: Given our purpose, what seems possible now?
  6. ACTION & EVALUATION: How are we moving/breaking away from the present and moving toward the future? How do we know?

The questions, particularly the focus on purpose and ambition pull a group into possibilities as they make choices and identify next steps.  While they seem linear, there are feedback loops. As the group discovers new things, they may come back and modify earlier “answers.” 

The Ecocycle

The Ecocycle provides the glue across the six questions and helps us recognize that we are always working in emerging contexts. To fully exploit knowledge and practice that has been vetted and ready for scale (maturity), we also have to pay attention to what is no longer adding value (creative destruction), what is needing to be birthed (networking) and then iteratively developing those ideas (birth) until they reach their own maturity. The Ecocycle illuminates the pulling from gestation to birth to maturity to creative destruction where strategy-and-tactics are combined.  A new mindset pops into view. It can also help assess current state of activities, assets, relationships and resources, as well as identify future possible actions. 

Strings for Each Question

Liberating Structures are most often used in a combination. The six questions are engagingly answered through a series, or “string” of Liberating Structures. There are a range of structures that can be used for each question. Here are some examples:

PURPOSE: Why, why, why is this work important to us and the wider community?  How do we justify our work to others?

  • 9 Whys   – Make the Purpose of Your Work Together Clear. When we dig into our assumptions, our true purpose may reveal itself – and surprise us!
  • 1-2-4-All – Engage Everyone Simultaneously in Generating Questions, Ideas, and Suggestions. Thinking alone, clarifying in pairs then building a sense of ideas across larger groups help us step beyond the “usual” ideas and observations and facilitate input from all – even the quiet folks.
  • Drawing Together – Reveal Insights and Paths Forward Through Nonverbal Expression. We tap into different parts of our brain, may reveal new insights and prevent jumping to premature judgement or closure.

CONTEXT: What is happening around us that demands a fresh/new/novel approach (creative adaptation and change)?

  • Mad Tea – Connecting with others to reveal surprising truths and action steps. Using rapidly rotating paired conversations, we also provide a smaller, safer space to reveal initial ideas, fears, and issues.
  • Discovery and Action Dialog – Discover, Invent, and Unleash Local Solutions to Chronic Problems. We build on our strengths, even the ones we didn’t know we had!
  • Users Experience Fishbowl – Share Know-How Gained from Experience with a Larger Community. 

BASELINE: Where are we starting, really?

  • What, So What, Now What? – Together, Look Back on Progress to Date and Decide What Adjustments Are Needed.
  • TRIZ – Stop Counterproductive Activities and Behaviors to Make Space for Innovation.
  • Critical Uncertainties – Develop Strategies for Operating in a Range of Plausible Yet Unpredictable Futures. We get out of our “thinking ruts.”
  • Note: The baseline also gives us a starting point for monitoring and evaluation design at the start, not the end of our work!

CHALLENGE: What paradoxical challenges must we face to make progress?

  • TRIZ – Stop Counterproductive Activities and Behaviors to Make Space for Innovation. It is amazing how liberating it is to STOP something. We do too much adding…
  • Wicked Questions – Articulate the Paradoxical Challenges That a Group Must Confront to Succeed. Finding the AND instead of the EITHER/OR.

AMBITION: Given our purpose, what seems possible now?

  • 25/10 Crowd Sourcing – Rapidly Generate and Sift a Group’s Most Powerful Actionable Ideas. Get some initial ideas on the table rather than trying to design the perfect solution. Especially by committee!
  • 15% Solutions – Discover and Focus on What Each Person Has the Freedom and Resources to Do Now.  Empower immediate action, results and iterative improvement.
  • Troika Consulting – Get Practical and Imaginative Help from Colleagues Immediately. Sharpen ideas for launch.

ACTION & EVALUATION: How are we moving/breaking away from the present and moving toward the future? How do we know?

  • What, So What, Now What? – Together, Look Back on Progress to Date and Decide What Adjustments Are Needed. At the micro or macro level, for process and for the actual work or practice.
  • Ecocycle – Analyze the Full Portfolio of Activities and Relationships to Identify Obstacles and Opportunities for Progress. Situate the work.
  • WINFY – Surface Essential Needs Across Functions and Accept or Reject Requests for Support. Identify how we work together practically and honestly.
  • Purpose to Practice – Design the Five Essential Elements for a Resilient and Enduring Initiative. Get the work GOING!

The Visual Canvas

When working in complex contexts, there is often a lot to track and wrap one’s head around. Some of these things are simple next steps, clear data, and identified issues. Others are less certain. We have developed a visual canvas with Ecocycle at the center, surrounded by the six questions for capturing and making sense of the most important findings of the group as they work through the process. Keeping both the questions and the Ecocycle visible throughout the process helps ground and reground as the group progresses. Often post it notes are used so that as new data, insights, and challenges are surfaced, the canvas can be updated. At the end, there is a “story spine” that can support the telling of the strategy story to others.

The visual can be on a large piece of paper on the wall for face to face groups, or a digital artifact online with movable digital notes.

Examples from Other Groups

I have used this approach with a number of groups over the past three years. The results have been:

  • From the Fire Adaptive Communities retreat

    Surprising – One group not only entirely rethought their approach, but the use of Liberating Structures also reshaped their process.

  • Fast – Quick, iterative interactions revealed far more than traditional SWOT approaches. People are usually amazed at how much they can get done in a day in developing their strategy and implementation.
  • Possibly threatening – If one or more people come in to the process thinking they know the outcome and their agenda will prevail, this approach can destabilize them and stimulate sabotaging. It is important that everyone knows that Liberating Structures engage and unleash everyone and if you open that Pandora’s box, you need to be ready to listen to and respond to that engagement.
  • New questions –  Some of the things that have surfaced in this work include: how to mine the past without falling into thinking traps in complex contexts where the past may not help us understand our path towards the future; understand how this approach supports and makes visible the decision making processes and finally, how to weave it into developmental evaluation.

Inspirations/Resources

This was developed off of the initial inspiration from Keith McCandless, co-founder of Liberating Structures, and conversations with Fisher Qua and Eva Schiffer. The first draft was developed to support a strategic planning workshop at the University of Illinois for the INGENEAS project.