I’ve been trying to come up with a better name for Strategy Deployment for a long time. One that has stuck with me recently is Continuous Strategy.
What’s wrong with Strategy Deployment?
I’ve never loved Strategy Deployment as a name, although I much prefer it to the Japanese term Hoshin Kanri. People misinterpret “deployment” as pushing or forcing the strategy down on people. It is more about moving strategy to where people can use it. I like Directed Opportunism as an interesting alternative from Stephen Bungay. However, people still misunderstand “directed” as people being given instructions rather than shown direction. And “opportunism” can be misunderstood as people being taken advantage of rather than taking advantage of their own situation.
Why might Continuous Strategy be better?
Naming things is hard. Let’s look at why Continuous Strategy might be a good name.
- It’s positive. It describes what it is for, rather than what it is against. That’s one of the reasons I’m not a big fan of things like #NoEstimates and #NoProjects as names. I am a fan of the ideas behind them.
- It aligns with the general pattern of names such as Continuous Testing, Continuous Deployment, Continuous Delivery etc. If things are hard (and strategy is hard), do them more often and more continuously. This creates faster feedback and enables greater learning and improvement.
- It hints at strategy as something emergent over time. This differentiates it from the common view that it is something which can be planned once a year.
What’s wrong with Continuous Strategy?
It’s not a perfect name though.
- It misses the aspect of solutions emerging from “people closest to the problem” that is meant by deployment.
- It misses the aspect of strategy as guiding policies that enable people to make their own decisions about what to do.
- It misses the aspect of idealised design where those decisions are about what to do for the present time, as opposed to an imagined future state.
Having said that, it’s probably difficult for strategy to be continuous without it being inclusive, emergent, and in the present. I’m sure I’ll continue to change my mind and come up with alternative ideas. For now, I’m continuing to experiment with the term Continuous Strategy.
Postscript: The image of the desert was chosen to depict both a continuous landscape and one which is continuously shifting and changing.
Karl, been looking over your X-Matrix stuff again and ran across this post. Glad to see you are still thinking of this stuff.
I don’t have an answer per se for a name, but wonder if Gemba would make a good fit for representing getting getting strategy to those doing the work. It might just be conflating the concept though…
Cheers,
Paul
Hi Paul, I like the idea of bringing in the concept of Gemba. My concern would be the use of another Japanese term. I wonder if there’s a more accessible equivalent that could work though? Something to think about. Thanks!
I am with you about strategy deployment or strategy execution. I have carried on using the term and added emergence to it. Strategy Deployment+Emergence and I have also stated that strategy becomes iterative.
Another term I quite like is, strategy coherence. It uses the term coherence from complexity with the idea of connecting what’s happening to an overall direction. The idea of emergence is in-built.
I am not a big fan of Continuous Strategy, even if what I talk about is quite continuous compared to how people do strategy typically. I think that there is value to take pause / regroup / refocus / progress and learn. I see this iterative rather than continuous. If making it continuous, I think it would dilute the strategic thinking for operational planning … and continual improvements, which in most places still needs to happen.
Hi Philippe,
We’re in agreement on the need to pause etc. I describe that in a post on cadence. Without that, then I’d argue it’s not even strategy, but just tactical thrashing. Iterative Strategy has potential though.
Thanks. Karl