OS and strategic planning

[Birgitt Williams]

A man walks into a psychiatrist's office snapping his fingers. The doctor
asks why he is doing this? "To keep the tigers away," responds the man. "But
there are no tigers in New York City," says the doctor. Where upon the man
replies, "Effective, isn't it!"
- Author unknown

It is difficult to convince managers that strategic planning as it has been
done in recent years may not be necessary or even valuable. I have led
numerous organizations through OST meetings for the purpose of creating a
better future. I concur with Ralph that SWOT and other analysis of the
present are about the present, and not about the future. When I do pre-work
with the client in planning for an OST meeting that is about the future, I
ask the planners for their concepts/definitions about what strategic
planning is. I have found, over the years, that there is very little
agreement in a room full of people about what a strategic plan is or how it
will be used. And the statistics say that 90% of strategic planning is never
implemented.

In my conversation with the planning group, I ask them if they would
consider developing something that really is about a preferred future and we
end up with a document called "Preferred Future for....". Within the
document we have the key opportunities for action as well as the reports
from the OST meeting.  The reports themselves generally are insufficient for
a preferred future document. More work needs to be done in an "action
planning" time at the end of the OST meeting to create this. We introduce
"new language/new concepts" to the sponsor and participants when we use
"preferred future" instead of strategic plan and when we introduce the
concept that the preferred future needs to be flexible to take advantage of
opportunities as they arise (this gets the organization away from fixed
concepts such as ---"we can't do that because it is not in the strategic
plan").

Jaime, I encourage you to put in your proposal to use OST--there is no
better way to develop a living document of preferred future. I encourage you
to put in for some extra time to assist the organization in actually pulling
the report into a usable clear focused document. And one other consideration
for you is based on your understanding of OST. I always encourage my clients
to understand that in an OST meeting, passion is stirred and do they really
want activities that are recommended to have to wait until after the plan is
approved. In the case of cities, this could take many months and the passion
for moving things forward subsides.

Blessings,
Birgitt


-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of Ralph
Copleman
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 7:09 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: OS and strategic planning


Open Space does not work for strategic planning because almost nothing does.
Strategic planning, in my long experience, rarely works.

But that's a whole other story.

What's important is that Open Space works GREAT if a system wants to engage
in re-shaping its future or choosing a new one altogether.

What Peggy Holman's story about the Washington State (US) Arts Council says
to me is that people came together all across the state in 20 meetings to
choose how they wanted to be together around an important issue.  They did
not do a strategic plan.

What they did NOT specifically do was identify perceived threats and/or
opportunities in the current landscape and REACT with tactics for the FUTURE
with regard to what was going on in the PRESENT.  The latter has never been,
for me, an effective practice.

When my clients ask me to help with their strategic planning, I bite my
tongue (most of the time) to keep from saying what they want to do is silly
and wasteful, and then I ask them:

1.  Do you want an agenda everyone will agree to?
2.  Do you want action steps to help you move toward those agreements?
3.  Do you want everybody (who cares) going forward together in support of
these two items?

When the answers are "yes" to all three, and they usually are, then we can
open some space (for 2 - 2.5 days).  Of course, if they want to call what
they do a "strategic plan", that's up to them.  I wouldn't object.

I keep my focus on outcomes.

Ralph Copleman

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