Transforming a window of post-its into a strategy

Written by Dave Ferguson

Strategy is always hard.

Or at least it is for me.

Starting with a blank canvas, it’s easy to get forced into a situation where you solely look at what others are doing and forget our own uniqueness. The temptation to copy paste and localise but does this really capture our intentions?

Probably not. So why do we do it?

The answer could be a number of reasons:

1. They were successful

2. We didn’t engage and get people on board

3. It was just to satisfy a directive or legislation

Well, we are not going to do it that way!

We’ve engaged across the Place Board and we all agree our individual strategies and aims have key commonalities and aspire to meet many of the same outcomes. And, so they should we have the outcomes framework agreed across the place and so our strategies should follow.

So let’s do it differently this time!

Our Digital Programme sponsors recently made a visit to Edinburgh for a service design conference and came back enthused and full of ideas, a key one of which was making strategy easy, meaningful with structure and rationale.

Five easy steps

1. Where do we want to be?

2. Where are we now?

3. What will it look like when we get there?

4. How will we get there?

5. What will stop us and how do we remove the barriers?

Try using the window on the train, it is very engaging and people are interested and want to join in.

Use simple language, common sense and above all be realistic.

A great example is the President Kennedy speech.

1. We want to win the space race

2. We are behind the Russians

3. We will have won the space race

4. We will build bigger rockets, plan unmanned space craft and put a man on the moon

5. Costs will be huge but if we do not invest and we plan to spend $$$ over the next 5 years

What does all this mean for North East Lincolnshire and digital?

Our strategy in brief:

1. We want to be a great place to live, work and do business. Enabled by modern technology and digital ways of working

2. We have legacy systems and ways of working which make user journeys difficult — they are designed around our organisation rather than what it is that users need to do

3. Things will be easier, faster, cheaper — services will be reimagined — They will focus on the needs of users

4. We will achieve this by designing better experiences for our users — developing the right skills and culture — continuously improving our services — developing an inclusive and digitally enabled NEL — making better use of data

5. Barriers to avoid are lack of engagement and conflicting cultures across organisations in NEL — we are establishing a strong culture and reputation with great things happening in NEL. We are turning the curve and cultural barriers are being overcome by strong and cohesive leadership across our place

How easy was that? There’s a bit more detail in the full version but that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Have a go for yourself!