Strategy
Strategy is the thoughtful deployment of resources to
achieve a goal.
Our strategy engagements usually evolve through several
distinct phases.
Issue/Problem
Definition and Process Design
We spend time up front with a client to hone a set
of clear, manageable, and strategically relevant central
issues. In addition, we outline a strategy development
process with the client that is tailored to their
situation. The product of problem/issue definition
is often a project charter.
Analysis
and Synthesis
Once the issues are specified, we explore them with
the client. This may encompass a scan of the operating
environment, targeted assessments of the client organization
and its competitive positioning, and/or research into
critical market, policy, legal or other areas.
As information is produced from these inquiries it
is evaluated and synthesized through working sessions
with the client, either on-site or off. Sometimes
scenarios are employed to highlight divergent opportunities
or crucial challenges. A strategy emerges through
an iterative process of discussion, reflection, and
distillation.
Resolution of Implications
We help clients explore and resolve the implications of
a strategy sensibly and sensitively. The implications often
range from the need for new initiatives, skills and systems,
to hard choices about budgets, organizational structure,
and programs.
Implementation
We help clients deliver strategy by aiding in implementation
planning and, where appropriate, ongoing management of broad
change efforts.
SAMPLE ENGAGEMENTS
Large national foundation — Helped develop a five-year
strategic plan for more than $80 million in grantmaking.
Designed and launched initiatives that implemented the
strategy.
Global
nonprofit organization — Helped design and facilitate
strategic assessment, and provided analytical support.
National
nonprofit organization — Designed and facilitated
review of current strategy culminating in board strategic
planning retreat.
Initiatives
Initiatives
put
strategy into action.
We
help clients implement their strategies with successful
initiatives, programs and ventures. Our approach concentrates
on designing for action.
Design
Unchanneled aspirations can lead to impractical initiative
designs. We ground design in a series of deliberate
and deliberative steps. These generally include building
a mission-based program objective, conceptualizing
ways of achieving the objective, researching and testing
the feasibility of alternative concepts, exploring
relevant organizational dynamics, and fleshing out
a recommended concept.
Action
Successful implementation of an initiative results
from thorough planning, systematic execution, and
flexibility when necessary. We help establish and
maintain these elements. When needed, we have staffed
and led launches of new programs and ventures.
Large national foundation — Designed and implemented
$40 million national initiative comprised of a series
of multi-state grants each with multiple components.
Large
national foundation — Researched, designed and
helped implement national, state-based policy initiative
yielding several billion dollars for target sector.
Large regional foundation and regional nonprofit —
Helped design a $3.5 million loan fund and directed
fund during launch.
Family
foundation — Advised philanthropist during formalization
of family foundation, including due diligence on program
areas, organizational design, and program launch.
Evaluation
Evaluations
reflect upon action and crystallize strategic choices.
Many
organizations answer the question "What should
we do?" with imaginative strategies and bold
initiatives. However, institutions that thrive pause
amidst action to ask: "Is it working?" Our
approach to assessment typically involves three-stages.
Scoping
We begin by investing effort up front to define with
the client a focused set of relevant issues to be
assessed.
Information Collection and Synthesis
We gather both hard facts and valuable stories that
help clarify crucial issues.
Check-ins/Refinement
We synthesize initial impressions and work with the
client to refine findings, insights, and implications.
Regional
foundation — Evaluated $10 million initiative.
National foundation —
Evaluated
$14 million initiative across two states.
National
foundation —
Evaluated
$4 million state-based initiative.
Transition
Transition
is change effected through multiple steps.
Turning
aspiration into action involves connecting several steps
in the action cycle — strategy, initiatives, and
evaluation. Our transition engagements span two or more
of these steps. While it is possible to begin transition
at any step, the most frequent patterns to/elements
of our transition work are:
Strategy
— Initiatives
Evaluation — Strategy — Initiatives
Strategy — Initiatives — Evaluation
Transition
commonly takes place at moments of leadership change
or organizational crisis, however, it also may occur
within stable management regimes and organizational
structures.
Large
regional foundation — Conducted program evaluation,
advised management on strategy shift, and helped shape
new initiatives.
National nonprofit organization — Designed and
supported division-level strategy development process,
and returned later to evaluate initiatives launched
to implement the strategy.
International nonprofit organization — Counseled
new CEO and senior management on strategy and subsequent
effort to set new geographic and programmatic priorities.
Process
Process
facilitates shared insight and movement.
Our
process work centers on careful designs of events, which
integrates
a number of core elements:
—
A clear objective
— A detailed design/plan
— Participant leadership
— Action
— Variety of group size and activity
Successful
incorporation of these elements helps contain many of
the concerns participants bring to events, and produces
authentic experiences and constructive outcomes. We
have
applied this approach to events of many different types
and scales, including management and board retreats,
workshops and convenings, and multi-step processes such
as panel-based reviews.
National
foundation — Designed and facilitated workshop
National nonprofit organization — Designed and
facilitated board/senior management retreat
National foundation — Designed multi-step program
review process
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