Category Archives: Cognitive Strategy

Strategic Planning is more than Gap Analysis

July 12, 2014Cognitive Strategy, Cultural Strategy, Design Strategy, Entrepreneurial Strategy, Environmental Strategy, Planning Strategy, Positioning Strategy, Power Strategy, Strategic Planning, Strategyterop

Strategic planning is more than just gap analysis. What’s more, there is no single accepted definition of what it is.

Some say that its a top down approach, a rational approach. Others say its fluid, that the macro environment is the major determinant. Still others have a organization-centric resource-only based view toward strategic planning.

What’s your view? What’s your approach?

Is yours & your organisation’s approach to strategic more of a cerebral, formalised, top-down. Or is it more entrepreneurial. That its the visionary leader who “will take us there”.

So, given then that the word “strategy” is derived from the Greek word “Strategia”, meaning “art of war”, the implication is that its part art, part science. Part feel, part intentional design.

And given that strategy has to do with the direction of your organisation & its scope of activities, what are the questions you need to be asking? What are the timelines you are talking about? How much information do you need for you decision making process?

What are your values?

What then is your vision?

For, it all flows from your vision

For more, visit Dellium Advisory, follow on Twitter, connect using LinkedIn, or review my IT-centric blog.

Molitor’s “Emerging Issues”

July 12, 2014Cognitive Strategy, Futures, Strategic Foresightterop

At a conceptual level Molitor’s (2010)“22-step Model for Tracking and Forecasting Public Policy Change” can be applied to areas other than public policy. For, as he states in the article’s abstract “Things don’t just happen. A cascade of incremental developments and pressures coalesce and help to shape destiny”.

Broadly, his model has three stages:

Framing topics: situation, ideas, events
Advancing change: change agents, communication, catalysts
Resolving issues: informal acceptance, general accommodation, rule establishment

Schulz (2006) argued, using an adaptation of Molitor’s model, that the weak signals of emerging issues are indeed the portents of change that are experienced by all. That there is indeed a lifecycle of an issue and that this lifecycle has a path from its genesis through catalysts to being an accepted aspect of life.

So, for the purposes of issue capture threshold, the stages of Molitor’s model provide guidance. For an issue to be classified as emerging a pattern of related events, of which the public is generally unaware of, needs to be identified. This identification process views the progression of idea, to innovation, to event as a continuum. Thus it can be seen that an issue that is already publicly accepted, or indeed in the process of creating change, could no longer be classified as an emerging issue.

Molitor argues that this process of issue tracking can reveal fundamental empirical and measurable quantitative forces for change. He states that a solid understanding of the issue’s context is foundational in realising high quality forecasts.

One of the difficulties of this model is in the precision with which one can place an issue. One needs to be fully cognisant of the extent of the issues acceptance in order to arrive at a suitable classification

Although there are problems with this model, it is a valuable tool from a Strategic Foresight perspective in terms of determining trend timescales and impact scope of any particular issue.

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Molitor, G. (2010). “Timeline 22-Step Model for Tracking and Forecasting Public Policy Change”, Journal of Futures Studies, March 2010, 14(3): 1 – 12

Schulz, W (2006). “The cultural contradictions of managing change: using horizon scanning in an evidence-based policy context”, Foresight, vol 8, no 4 pp 3-12]

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For more, visit Dellium Advisory, follow on Twitter, connect using LinkedIn, or review my IT-centric blog.

An Introduction to Environmental Scanning

July 11, 2014Cognitive Strategy, Futures, Futurist, Innovation, Strategic Foresightterop

Based on extracts from one of my recent essays: “What is the impact upon donations of this technological age”?

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Choo (1999) states in the seminal article “The Art of Scanning the Environment” that “environmental scanning is the acquisition and use of information about events, trends and relationships in an organisation’s external environment”. It, environmental scanning, is broader than competitor intelligence and competitive intelligence, which are used to analyse a competitor’s actions and the shared market environment respectively. In fact, environmental scanning is used to scan every sector of the external milieu.

From the perspective of further understanding environmental scanning it is helpful to differentiate between the scanning modes. These modes broadly viewing and scanning. Of the two, scanning is more deliberate and focused:

Undirected viewing: information used for sensing
Directed viewing: information used for sense making
Informal search information used for learning
Formal search information used for decisions

So, for the purposes of categorisation, the scanning modes that you use could be a mix of directed viewing and informal search. Perhaps because you know what the area of strategic need is, undirected viewing isn’t appropriate. Likewise with formal search. As the output won’t be directly used for decision making, the formal search category won’t be used.

Now, with respect to the process of environmental scanning, using directed viewing to gather a breadth of information about the area of strategic need and informal search to strengthen the case for further understanding of the initial hits. For example, a “scanning hit” on philanthropy was the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Analysis of the work they do, giving for specific outcomes, should lead to informal searches returning articles about this topic.

It is through its outcomes that the value of environmental scanning can be realised. It can be seen that the outputs of environmental scanning or the same as information acquisition in the sphere of Organisational Learning (Sanchez, 2008). Sanchez goes onto to conclude that the activity of organisational learning creates value in and for the organisation.

However, as Choo points out, the quality of environmental scanning may be affected by internal perceptions of either the information source’s credibility or relevance of the information itself.

Therefore, by being cognisant of the both the inhibitors to scanning quality and the process of scanning, highly relevant outcomes, or hits, can be realised.

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Choo, C (1999). “The Art of Scanning the Environment”, Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, Feb-Mar 1999 p21-24

Sanchez, J (2008). “Organisational Learning and value creation in business markets”, European Journal of Marketing , Vol 44, No 11/12, 2010, pp1612-1641]]