StratGen SI 2 Dynamic Services

Leaders and consultants with no local ties can’t come up with all the great ideas. the StratGen Strategic Innovation 2.0 (SI 2) Platform is about the tools and space in which great ideas can happen while we cope and coordinate on the crucial issues of this time… where we live… in Our Municipalities.

Where SI 2 comes from is an R&D process that took many years. The lack of a idea generation process connected to project management and social media capability would seem like a common innovation ecosystem practice. It’s not. It’s all expensive and difficult to disseminate. An innovation ecosystem connecting US municipalities is otherwise nonexistent besides SI 2.

The research comes from reading thousands of articles like McKinsey and Company’s Six problem-solving mindsets for very uncertain times and books on subjects like strategic management. Subject Matter Experts like mayors and municipal managers can compare notes in the SI 2 Lab on what Municipal Strategic Management looks like today and what more is needed. McKinsey has been given a lot of attention from many external parties in recent years on its ethics with examples from authoritarian clients to out-of-control opioid marketing.

After substantively influencing outcomes in American municipalities for decades, what organization like McKinsey ‘does new’ is worthy of examination. In the meantime, a lot of the insights from organizations like McKinsey can be useful.

SI 2 Service Arenas

  • Strategic Communication
  • Human Ecosystems / SI 2 Lab
  • Center of Gravity and Maneuver Reports
  • Advising and Coaching
  • Solution Design Workshops / Special Events
  • Leadership / Operations Assessments
  • SI 2 Foresight
  • Strategic Innovation Mind (SIM) Leadership

SI 2 Foresight

One big idea with the basics of Solution Design starting with the divergence-convergence Center of Gravity and Strategy Statement Development models is strategic foresight. If there are missing practices like a lessons learned capture function in your Strategic Management platform and no ‘Red Team’ critical thinking / scenario development effort, leaders are just generating disconnected consultant reports and initiatives. SI 2 Foresight is about reusing the effort of the SI 2 starting Center of Gravity and Strategy Statement Development points to answer urgent strategic needs and stay ahead of the curve and take the high ground as to the next quarter, 3-5 years out, and of course beyond the short term.

About SI 2

The SI 2 is for leaders who are ready to do new by working outside their municipal, congressional, or other existing mission confines so we can continuously communicate, share insight, and develop actual game-change strategy and innovations that shape the future… more than ensure pure profit goals. StratGen is for our municipal experience. There’s been enough Business-as-Usual. 

By leaders, the StratGen definition is anyone in economic, political, social, education, legislative / legal, technology, healthcare, scientific, and/or environmental decision making roles; or as to any component of successful civilization. The subjects of strategy and innovation are general purpose and are not just about corporations and technology. A book that covers the subject of corporate strategy is the Boston Consulting Group title Your Strategy Needs a Strategy. Rather than a list of the past strategy and innovation tools and practices, Strategic Innovation 1.0, SI 2 looks at the past and uses whatever is necessary while being an orchestrating platform.

Another ‘game-change’ book is The Imagination Machine: How to Spark New Ideas and Create Your Company’s Future. There may be a complimentary book that’s about Municipal Strategic Management; and if there is we should be talking about it.

The idea of public health and cultural community asset mapping had a lot of merit. But like listing priorities, the Intellectual Capital / Value Creation practices within strategic management and innovation were missing; especially as to anything related to the concept of a municipality… and more importantly coordinating municipalities all coping now with resilience and sustainability issues. Ideas like innovation ecosystems are not only a corporate domain. NASA, NOAA, the National Laboratories, and National Academy of Sciences are public good examples of platforms that interface with innovation ecosystems.

Ecosystemizer and The Platform Canvas are just two resources that give twists on innovation ecosystems and platform innovation.

There are five core aspects of SI 2:

  • Strategic Communication (SC) Services: Strategic communication is purposeful communication to advance mission. Rather than subtopics of communications — like what marketing and advertising is about — SC is about those tactics connected to larger aims. A lot of what communications is about is quantity over quality messages connected to tangible value. So, going to the high level to start matters most in any case. SC was developed by academics more so several years ago and most leaders who would benefit most likely focus on all the communications options available today; and stuff like common social media spaces. We’re talking quality of idea with SC. Then we can move ahead with connecting to stakeholders.
  • Collaborative-Collective Intelligence drives Strategic Innovation options and whatever is being said as to purpose and mission with SC.
  • SI 2 Delta System Driven Initiatives: Delta Systems is a key StratGen deliverable to clients. iStrategy and Solution Design engagements are starting points. Human Ecosystems and Open Project Management combine with other StratGen SI 2 options as options for new client Delta System environments of their own. Completely customizable and other ideas from other sources and what individual and organization capabilities have already generated can combine in new hybrid Strategic Innovation 2.0 platforms.
  • Strategic Innovation Analysis: As we develop our new way of mixing strategy and innovation for the sake of where we live — our municipalities — we gain an intelligence capability not dissimilar from how the CIA does things. The CIA and other parts of national security make all kinds of innovation recommendations. Things like the next generation of spy / armed aerial drones are always on the way.
  • What our municipalities need most are solutions to Climate Protection and a version of the VA for every American in need: America’s National Health Service.
  • Strategic Innovation Mind Leadership (SIML): SIML is the professional development component of SI 2. There are a lot of options as to tactical level development of skills in SIML related practices like Design Thinking (see StratGen Solution Design). However, developing integrative strategist and innovator capabilities is more rare.

Value to clients and stakeholders can start with any of the other SI 2 Components:

  • iStrategy
  • Solution Design
  • Open Project Management
  • Human Ecosystems

SI 2 Lab

If you’ve ever attended a panelist event or conference and wondered why there was no followup engagement to go further with the insights on whatever important topics; join the SI 2 Lab. Let’s connect with a coalition of the willing and see who else across the nation is working on similar angles. Join the SI 2 Lab.

Solution Design

SMI + Intellectual Capital

DSDI Graphic

SIL Graphic

TRLs, SDFM, and Challenge Portfolio Matrix

Expect more content on StratGen.org including white papers and videos. At the same time, it’s not always necessary to broadcast how to do new with empathy, an ethic, and as much individual and collective genius… until the iron is hot. Stealth and surprise are excellent inertia shift tactics. Please get to know each other and join the SI 2 Lab to collaborate.

Delta System Driven Initiatives

More to follow

SI 2 Service Context

It may be a struggle to make the American strategy statement in the Preamble to the US Constitution something very utilitarian in common municipal life as well as the Out of Many, One national motto; but if it is good to design purpose and make corporate culture healthy for profit, then why wouldn’t the places corporations and small businesses employ staff and do commerce also have a big Unity Future mindset?

The first Human Ecosystem, the StratGen SI 2 Lab, is the place for leaders across the nation to be in that Unity Future mindset. Unity Future is the name of an initiative I am developing. There’s a national impact 501c3 nonprofit that works in parallel to StratGen. The SI 2 Lab is where members work with StratGen on collecting Intelligence relevant to where we live; and as to national relevancy like how the Modernization of Congress is coming along.

The business world and government examples of innovation ecosystem practices include how Apple and NASA generate large amounts of value. Today, accessible technology like Mighty Networks and Podio give StratGen the capability to shift past intentions about innovation ecosystems into a public good space with Human Ecosystems.

McKinsey and Company has been written about in a controversial new book. I don’t have any motive to back McKinsey; but I read their articles often. As a matter of fact working with their partners and setting a new standard for management consulting is part of the for-profit and for-purpose meaning of StratGen Delta System Driven Initiatives.

The McKinsey article Into all problem-solving, a little dissent must fall connects to a strategy development process like StratGen Solution Design. It ties into themes like Unity Future and the rest of the MODCON Opportunity Departure Point. One would think there’s a common orientation for all US legislatures where strategy, innovation, and the corresponding value render culture. Sounds like a StratGen initiative!

Members of Congress and congressional staff are welcome to join the SI 2 Lab. After some iStrategy essentials I have the starting point for a program called Strategic Innovation Mind Leadership. Big multibillion dollar consulting firms like McKinsey have a lot of brain power. At the same time the strategic innovation practices they and others like Boston Consulting Group share with clients are not secret. It takes some work; but the StratGen SI 2 Platform is a good distinction to the way the consultive model such as McKinsey’s has influenced the world around us since 1929. Nonprofits and many aspects of government have a consultive value creation model.

Leaders knowing how to work with challenges, solutions, and outcomes in a “Think Different” way versus whatever Big Data is and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and thousands of other stand alone techniques and platforms in a jumbled way is valuable. Handing a client and their stakeholders yet another strategic report and taking off with the money is demonstrably an obsolete way of being about ideals like sustainability.

Common folk read about municipal consultant engagements; go to the design charrettes; fill out the surveys… and then ask what happened when the transformation part is lackluster… or everyone goes back to the start of the Failure of Imagination and Rework Hamster Wheel dynamic.

Since StratGen works with the innovation of strategy as Science of Change; restructuring, reconfiguration, reorientation, and realignment are comfortable concepts. Going in with a script or plan is  always best. At the same time the exploration of solutions and identifying the true nature of challenges and outcome possibilities is a vital search mode many don’t want to or cannot have patience with. Rather than open ended projects with no scope control StratGen develops Human Ecosystems at relatively low cost, off the shelf web technology with great apps. These Human Ecosystems allow for ongoing targeted conversations and data screening. ‘Data Screening’ the mass of content available today in the form of articles and reports we are all exposed to but most of us like to get second opinions on. This Data Screen mode is a classic place where innovation occurs. But if there is a lack of aligned actors of conscience who are willing to share insights; the ‘innovation ecosystem’ experience is

Solution Design Arenas are an exceptional alternative to conventional workshop practices or a panel event covering current events. Many times a more conventional approach to strategy workshops and producing leadership events is not available… or those practices seem inadequate for these times.

Contact Grant Millin, Strategy Innovator and StratGen CEO, to discuss a co-created project: grant@stratgen.org