Strategy Deployment and Idealised Design

RTF W38, 1952, Alemania Oriental

This post introduces Idealised Design, as described in the book Idealized Design: How to Dissolve Tomorrow’s Crisis…Today by Russell L. Ackoff, Jason Magidson and Herber J. Addison, and explores how it relates to Strategy Deployment.

The post is a continuation of the series on Strategy Deployment And other approaches.

What is Idealised Design?

The basic premise of Idealised Design is to imagine that the current system has been destroyed and to redesign the system for the present time. There are two key implications with this. Firstly, you are starting with a blank sheet of paper unconstrained by the past. Secondly, you are designing a system that will work today, not in a perfect future.

Alongside this premise, there are two constraints:

  1. The solution should be technologically feasible. That means it shouldn’t rely on science fiction fantasies or conceptual inventions which do not exist yet such as vapourware.
  2. The solution should be operationally feasible. That means that it can survive in the current environment, which may include any existing culture, structures, processes or policies.

Finally, there is one requirement

  • The solution is capable of being improved. That means that it is not final or perfect, but the first step in an evolution.

In other words:

“The product of an idealised design is neither perfect, ideal, nor utopian, precisely because it can be improved. However, it is the best ideal-seeking system its designers can imagine now.”

How does Idealised Design relate to Strategy Deployment?

As a reminder, my definition of Strategy Deployment is:

“any form of organisational improvement in which solutions emerge from the people closest to the problem.”

Idealised Design supports organisational improvement. By imagining the current system has been destroyed, the approach is not to tweak and locally optimise the current solution, but to consider the system as a whole.

Idealised Design is inclusive of the people closest to the problem. By imagining the current system has been destroyed, any expertise in that current system becomes irrelevant. This creates an opportunity to include all perspectives and invites a wider group to come up with new solutions.

Idealised Design is emergent. By creating solutions for the immediate present the focus is on doing “the next right thing” (to quote Anna in Frozen II), or as Dave Snowden puts it, “moving to the adjacent possible and then looking again”. Thus Idealised Design is based on setting a direction and gradually moving towards a True North.

How can Idealised Design implement Strategy Deployment?

Obviously, there is a huge amount of more detail about implementing Idealised Design in the book. However, one way of using the approach that I like is articulated in the Ideal Present Canvas (below) from Jabe Bloom and Ben Mosior. Working through these four sections is a great way to frame conversations about the elements of TASTE that can be used to populate an X-Matrix e.g.

  • True North – what is the orientation of the Ideal Future?
  • Aspirations – what do we want to achieve in the Ideal Future?
  • Strategies – what choices will guide us in how to solve the Present Mess, enable the Ideal Future, and avoid the Future Mess?
  • Tactics – what should we do today in the Ideal Present?
  • Evidence – what would indicate that the Ideal Present is (or isn’t) enabling the Ideal Future?
Idea Present Canvas for Idealised Design

The telephone image refers to the story told by Ackoff about the CEO of Bell Laboratories announcing, “Gentlemen, the telephone system of the United States was destroyed last night”.

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