Greek origins of the word strategy point to “putting the troops in the right places”. As opposed to purely imaginative future-gazing, strategy requires one to start with both feet on the ground, climb up a tree to get to a higher vantage point, look around, generate new potential directions and then come back to the ground to work out ways and means to move along those directions.

We, at Crafitti Consulting, have had the opportunity to work as troops, generals and advisors in various innovation contexts in different organizations. We have, over the years, researched, experimented with and built several frameworks, methodologies and tools to facilitate innovation in these contexts.

Crafitti’s Design Of Strategy (DoS) framework stitches together powerful elements of innovative thinking specifically suited to strategy creation. The macro-elements of DoS are as follows:

1. Understanding the context
Elements of value engineering and systems thinking are used to capture the current needs, functions, structure and behavior of the entity or system in question (organization, team, product etc.). Past and current aspirations are understood, indicators of recent momentum or change are noted (where have we reached, how have we reached and what’s the current mood) and perceived opportunities and challenges are listed.

2. Expanding the context
As the first real step towards strategic thinking, the context defined and described in the previous step is expanded along multiple directions. Value Engineering (Value Net, Value Stream) and Systems Thinking (TRIZ, Dependency Structure Matrices (DSM), Mind Maps, Vedic Principles) elements are extensively used. Interesting new directions are marked.

3. Scenario building
This section flows from the previous section into the next. Scenarios are are identified and created from the expanded context. The scenarios start with “known” data and quickly meander into the “unknown” – multiple new futures are explored. While the exploration further expands the context, new directions also start to simultaneously emerge.

4. Creating new directions
Elements of inventive thinking (TRIZ principles, Use of resources, constraints and contradictions, laws of evolution, Vedic principles) are used to generate new thought directions and to build on the scenarios from the previous section. New needs, functions, structure and behavior are articulated.

5. Selecting key directions
Relevant criteria are identified from the expanded context – the criteria reflect expected changes in momentum identified during the course of the exercise. Strategic directions from the previous step are evaluated with respect to the criteria and relatively prioritized using multi-criteria decision making techniques like the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).

6. Charting road maps
The most promising and relevant directions are articulated in time and space. Elements of Lean Thinking (Takt Time, Set-based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE)) are used to chart road maps to implement the devised strategy.