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The Nine Building Blocks of Innovating New Strategic Alternatives

When organizations consider stepping outside of their traditional boundaries to engage with other players in new types of business innovations, they are often a bit lost in how to go about developing such a strategy process. And indeed, multi-stakeholder collaborations often don’t have the luxury of a traditional leader, as there is no formal hierarchy or power structure. They frequently emerge from a conversation between different players and may have an informal initiator who does not hold a formal position of power. When different participants of different organizations participate in a co-creation event, it is indeed supposed to be a meeting of equals.

However, without that leadership function, it can get confusing who is in charge of what and who makes what decisions. Clarity about ownership and process help in such situations that are unusual for most participants who come from hierarchical structures or have grown up in them before. In our experience, it is helpful to have a facilitator present when holding such sessions in order to ensure that decision-making clarity is present. Such a facilitator allows the initiator to participate with his perspective like any other member of the group.

Not every such strategy process looks the same and it is useful to differentiate between nine basic building blocks of co-creation. These can be grouped into five phases: getting started, gaining momentum, the small innovation cycle, scaling out, and rounding off. With exception of the last phase, each phase consists of two building blocks, see Figure 1.

The book “Five Superpowers for Co-creators” outlines the nine building blocks of co-creation in the context of what it takes to successfully work with external stakeholders to develop new business models and strategies (www.5superpowers.org). The book also looks at the challenges at the individual, group and facilitation levels and suggests practical pathways to progress when the process get stuck.

StrategyDriven Alternative Development Article | Strategic Initiatives | The nine building blocks of innovating new strategic alternatives

Figure 1: The nine building blocks of co-creation

A successful multi-stakeholder process consists of a number of building blocks. These cover three specific activities: those of the initiator of the project, those related to co-creation event and those related to scaling and engagement activities. Each of these can be divided into three building blocks for a total of nine.

The facilitator is mostly involved in the co-creation events and may help the initiator in the activities specific to his role. There is a small innovation cycle consisting of a repetition of co-creation events and prototyping. Combining all nine building blocks is define as the large innovation cycle.

A typical co-creation event consists of a multitude of stakeholder engagement and interaction exercises and workshops designed to balance listening, sharing, visioning, brainstorming, ideation and early prototyping.

A more detailed overview of the objectives of each building block is provided in Figure 2. The building blocks serve as a way to render the process transparent and clear in terms of what needs to happen along the co-creation journey. Clearly, there is no need to use all nine steps. We have indeed provided a pragmatic short-cut of these building blocks as a concise business strategy tool we call SDGXCHANGE (www.SDGX.org) which use only the most essential elements required for business to innovative new strategic alternatives.

StrategyDriven Alternative Development Article | Strategic Initiatives | The nine building blocks of innovating new strategic alternatives

Figure 2: The objectives of each of the nine building blocks

The article builds on extracts of the Book “Five Superpowers for Co-creators”


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Katrin MuffDr. Katrin Muff (www.KatrinMuff.com) is a thought leader in the transformative space of sustainability and responsibility. She is Director at the Institute for Business Sustainability and holds a position as Professor of Practice at the LUISS Business School. She works with leaders, their teams and their boards in the area business transformation towards sustainability. She co-developed the Competency Assessment for Responsible Leadership (). Most recently, Katrin published Five Superpowers for Co-creators (www.5superpowers.org), which features the nine building blocks of co-creation including a pragmatic solution for business organization with the applied strategy tool SDGXCHANGE (www.SDGx.org).

Alternative Development Best Practice 2 – Organizationally Developed Options

It’s hard to find an executive who doesn’t believe that his or her people are significant assets and a competitive advantage for the company. Why then are so few employees involved in the strategic planning process? Engaging employees gains their ‘rubber meets the road’ customer and process experiences and earns buy-in it for the plan’s implementation. Therefore, employee involvement in strategic planning is a win-win proposition; the only question remaining is when and where in the process to involve them.


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Additional Information

For an illustrative model of an organization’s hierarchical roles and responsibilities, see StrategyDriven’s Strategic Organizational Alignment model.

For additional insights to the involvement of managers and employees in the alternative development process, listen to the StrategyDriven’s special edition podcast, An Interview with Nilofer Merchant, author of The New How.

Choose the Best Equipment for Your Business with These Quick Tips

Choose the Best Equipment for Your Business with These Quick Tips
Photo courtesy of MathKnight

Every business needs some kind of equipment to run. For some it might be computers, for others, it could be heavy machinery. Whatever equipment your company needs, you need to take the time to select the right products. There are several factors you need to take into consideration when you’re deciding. The initial and running costs are important to think about, and so is the efficiency of your business. You don’t want your equipment to slow down productiveness or to produce less than desirable results. Before you make any decisions, take these essential factors into account.

Deciding Whether to Lease or Buy

When you have to buy expensive equipment, you should think about whether you want to rent or buy. Cost is obviously the primary factor in choosing which one is best for you. If you want to buy, you’ll have to have a large sum of money up front. If you decide to rent your equipment, you can make smaller payments. However, you may feel that this is money going to waste. In some cases, you might have the option to rent to buy, meaning you will eventually own the equipment. You need to think about other factors too, however. For example, leasing means you can keep up with developing technology more easily.

Consider Your Requirements

Before you settle on what you’re looking for, you have to have a think about your requirements. It’s best not to start by looking at what other companies use and recommend. That can come later, but for now, it could lead you in the wrong direction. Different businesses have varying needs, so you can’t just copy someone else. You need to think about what you need your equipment to do. Which are the most important factors? Is it how fast they can do the job for which they’re intended? Is it their lifespan and how easy they are to maintain and repair?

Choose the Best Equipment for Your Business with These Quick Tips
Photo courtesy of Mixabest

Think Beyond the Purchase Cost

If cost is important to you, don’t just consider the initial price of your equipment. There is rarely a piece of equipment that won’t also cost you money to run and maintain. It’s essential to look beyond the base price and work out a lifetime cost of using something. For example, fuel efficiency is critical for heavy plant operations. It wouldn’t be much use if you saved on machinery but then had to spend a lot of money on fuel. A cheaper option could require repairs more often too, which would raise the lifetime cost of the equipment.

Comparing Your Options

Once you know what you’re looking for, you can start comparing what’s available. One of the best ways to make it easier is to look for comparison sites. You can also go to manufacturer and supplier websites, where they often have a product comparison function. Choose your most important factors to consider so you can weigh your options against each other.

Choosing the right equipment is essential for your business’s efficiency and bottom line. Make sure you put some time into your decisions.

Alternative Development Warning Flag 1 – Developing Business Cases First

All business leaders are human and some get overly enamored with and excited about a particular business opportunity. These business leaders then direct either a business case or project plan to be developed which is immediately funded; circumventing the organization’s business planning process. In these cases, the initiative’s ability to meet the organization’s business objectives and goals remains uncertain and consideration of competing opportunities is forfeit. In some organizations, entire portfolios are determined in this fashion; leaving leaders blind with respect to their ability to optimally achieve the organization’s mission goals.


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Additional Information

The following StrategyDriven recommended best practices are designed to reduce the likelihood of circumventing the business planning process:

Additionally, StrategyDriven‘s Strategic Organizational Alignment model reveals the typical executive and managerial responsibilities associated with the business planning process.

Alternative Development Best Practice 4 – Common Cost and Value Identifiers

Beginning with the end in mind, it is important for those developing business cases for the organization’s various ongoing operations and proposed initiative alternatives to do so in such a way that leaders can compare the cost and benefits of the proposed activities. Only when leaders can make a one-to-one comparison can they clearly understand the overall value contribution a given initiative and, subsequently, the portfolio of initiatives have for the organization. Therefore, business case developers should use a common, pre-established set of cost and benefits identification standards.


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