Strategy Survival Guide

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A Framework for Strategic Direction A strategy needs to provide a clear sense of direction – based on analysis of different strategic choices and their implications. Defining the strategic direction or desired way forward will often involve a vision, together with aims and short, medium and long term objectives that provide a coherent and consistent framework for co-ordinating government activity: • a vision is a statement of aspirations describing a desired future • aims are the outcomes needed to bring about that desired future • objectives are those things that need to be achieved in order to realise these outcomes. An example from a Strategy Unit project is set out below: Strategic Framework - SU Ethnic Minorities and the Labour Market Project Vision In ten years’ time, ethnic groups living in Britain should no longer face disproportionate barriers to accessing and realising opportunities for achievement in the labour market Aims Building Employability Connecting People with Work Equal Opportunities in the Workplace Objectives • Raising educational attainment • Ensuring that key groups are benefiting from educational reforms • Streamlining outreach initiatives • Tailoring labour market programmes to client needs • Extending programme flexibility • Increasing housing mobility • Increasing vocational skills • Addressing access to childcare and transport needs • Advising and supporting employers’ awareness and action • Increasing efficacy of existing equal opportunity levers • Increasing transparency and awareness In addition to a framework setting out strategic direction, strategies need to provide evidence-based policy recommendations to act as a clear route map of how the objectives will be delivered. Examples of strategies developed across a broad range of government policy areas can be found on the Strategy Unit’s website. The Relationship Between Strategy and Policy The terms strategy and policy are used in many different ways, and sometimes interchangeably. For the purposes of this guide, the following definitions are used: • Strategy is the overall process of deciding where we want to get to and how we are going to get there. • Strategic direction describes the desired future and sets out what needs to be achieved in order to bring it about. It provides the guiding principles that give context and coherence to action. • Policy provides the means of moving in that direction – and often a number of policies need to work together to deliver particular strategic outcomes. Policy design work is concerned with identifying how to achieve strategic objectives, selecting the most suitable policy instruments for doing this, and detailing how these instruments will work in practice. The relationship between strategy and policy is very close, and should be highly interactive. Strategies should be developed together with a realistic idea of how they might be realised, and policies should exist within a strategic framework that explains how they contribute to desired outcomes. Divorcing strategy and policy creates the risk of setting unachievable strategic objectives and allowing policy programmes to develop legitimacy from their longevity rather than their contribution to meeting public needs. Close integration will help to ensure that strategies are implemented using the most suitable policies, and that different policies are not contradictory, but work together towards strategic outcomes. Strategy Survival Guide Page 6
The Relationship Between Strategy and Delivery Strategies and policies that are not deliverable are of little use. Strategy work needs to involve frontline practitioner knowledge from the outset, and proceed grounded in a realistic understanding of delivery capability. Feedback mechanisms are needed from delivery back into strategy and policy design in order to create adaptable learning systems that can evolve in the light of experience and unexpected results. Questions for Strategy Development As the underlying framework that guides government thinking and action, strategy is concerned with asking and answering a number of questions. The diagram below demonstrates that while strategic issues may be highly complex and ambiguous, the questions at the heart of strategy development are searching yet fundamentally simple. This in no way detracts from how difficult it can be to answer these key questions, but provides a valuable anchor at times when the complexity is overwhelming. What is the issue? Where are we now and where are we going? Where do we want to get to? How do we get there? Who do we have to involve - and how? What tools and techniques should we use? The first four questions (across the top of the diagram) cut to the heart of strategy development by establishing an understanding of the world as it is today and determining the desired state of the future. The further two questions (underpinning the process) recognise that effective strategy development can not occur in either an ivory tower or black box, but must occur collaboratively using open and transparent methods and approaches. These questions are closely mirrored by the typical phases of a strategy development project and highlight the importance of the full range of strategy skills. Components of a Strategic Approach In practice, strategic thinking may not be as linear as the above questions suggest, but may involve a more iterative consideration of a number of key components. Vision & Values Evidence & Analysis First Principles Stakeholders Delivery Capability • Vision & Values: a vision of the desired state of the future founded on government’s wider values and principles, that sets priorities, recognises trade-offs and describes the relationship to and fit with strategy in other policy areas. • Evidence & Analysis: an understanding of the current situation, trends and likely states of the future, together with their drivers and causes, and a realistic evaluation of the effectiveness of different policy instruments. This should be based on a broad evidence base including economics, science, social research, statistics etc. and placed within a context of benchmarks and international comparisons. • Stakeholders: a deep appreciation of their views, concerns and perspectives and a plan for how they should be involved in strategy and policy development, and the role they may play in delivery. • Delivery Capability: an evaluation of the delivery system, and the culture and available resources of organisations within it, that highlights potential barriers to change and successful delivery. Strategy Survival Guide Page 7
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development process include brainst
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Reinforcing Loops A + Balancing Loo
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Structuring the thinking - Systems
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Revolution This is creativity at it
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in The Magenta Book) are rigorous m
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• Avoid asking the same question
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Expectations can be shaped by a num
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Collecting data - Surveys In Practi
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Collecting data - Interviews & focu
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Step One: Define the problem explic
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• Are the units correct? Step Sev
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Analysing data - Modelling In Pract
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The Five Forces Framework can be us
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References Structure, Conduct, Perf
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Symbols • What language and jargo
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• Put a contact name, telephone n
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Learning from others - Internationa
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Strengths • Quantitative forecast
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3. Bring drivers together into a vi
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Scenario development In Practice 1:
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Scenarios used in the Strategy Unit
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groups at random. In other words, t
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events. There are a number of diffe
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Multi-criteria analysis In Practice
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Cost-benefit & cost-effectiveness a
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For further material, see the Ratio
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Compelling vision for action - the
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Designing an implementation plan In
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Creating Public Value http://www.nu
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Driver trees 97 Econometric modelli
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management 17, 20, 27, 34, 45 outpu
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Strategy Survival Guide

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