Systems-Aware Strategic Planning

Strategic planning works best when it accounts for the system within which the strategy must live.

A systems-aware approach recognizes that strategy is not a static document. It is focused, consistent behaviour practiced over time and refined as conditions change.

This work builds plans that remain active and adaptive rather than fixed and fragile.

A Systems-Aware Approach

Traditional planning often assumes a stable environment and clear lines of control.

A systems-aware approach acknowledges:

  • Interdependence across stakeholders

  • Changing conditions and emerging forces

  • Multiple time horizons

  • The relationship between strategy, governance, and capacity

Strategy is crafted with an awareness of context, incentives, and structural realities.

The result is not simply a plan. It is a shared understanding of direction and coordinated action.

The Planning Arc

While each engagement is customized, the work typically unfolds across four structured movements that parallel a design process

Design –> Diverge –> Converge –> Align

These movements provide structure while allowing flexibility within each stage.

1. Design

The design stage focuses on intent and architecture.

Together we:

  • Clarify the scope of the planning effort

  • Identify key questions to explore

  • Design participatory processes appropriate to the organization

  • Establish timelines and governance for the engagement

This stage ensures that the planning process aligns with expectations and capacity.

2. Diverge

Divergence expands the field of possibilities.

Through structured ideation, futuring exercises, environmental scanning, and collaborative exploration, participants generate a wide range of opportunities.

This stage often includes:

  • Exploring forces shaping the present and future

  • Surfacing emerging risks and accelerators

  • Generating opportunities across programs or functions

  • Identifying potential areas for innovation

The goal is not immediate agreement. It is breadth and exploration.

3. Converge

Convergence narrows focus and makes choices.

Opportunities are clustered into Big Ideas.
Big Ideas are refined into strategies.

This stage includes:

  • Filtering and testing ideas

  • Identifying which initiatives create the greatest value

  • Clarifying ownership and accountability

  • Ensuring strategies are adaptive to changing conditions

The outcome is a focused set of strategies that guide behaviour over time.

4. Align

Alignment translates strategy into coherent execution.

This stage may include:

  • Reviewing mission, vision, and values for coherence

  • Mapping strategic initiatives to capacity and resources

  • Crafting strategic statements

  • Developing expeditionary plans or phased implementation pathways

  • Establishing indicators and governance structures

Alignment ensures that strategy is not aspirational only. It becomes operational.

Systems Awareness in Practice

What makes this approach systems-aware is not a single tool. It is the integration of context throughout the process.

This may include:

  • Incorporating ecosystem insights where appropriate

  • Considering value dynamics across stakeholders

  • Planning from future scenarios backward to present action

  • Identifying how initiatives interact across functions

  • Recognizing that change in one area affects others

The planning process remains attentive to structure, incentives, and relationships.

Engagement Structure

Engagements typically include:

  • Collaborative design sessions with leadership

  • Facilitated workshops with planning teams

  • Structured ideation and sensemaking sessions

  • Between-session synthesis and documentation

  • Drafting and refinement of strategic documents

Sessions may be delivered virtually, in person, or through a blended approach, depending on context and resources.

The process is participatory and structured. By the time the strategic plan is finalized, alignment is already established.

What This Process Produces

A systems-aware strategic planning engagement produces:

  • A focused and adaptable strategic plan

  • Clearly articulated strategic priorities

  • Defined accountability and governance alignment

  • Documented initiatives and implementation pathways

  • Shared ownership across leadership and stakeholders

Most importantly, it produces strategy that is actively used rather than archived.

Relationship to Ecosystem Work

In some cases, ecosystem illumination precedes strategic planning. In others, planning reveals the need for deeper ecosystem work.

The two services are complementary but distinct.

Strategic planning translates insight into direction.
Ecosystem work reveals the broader system within which that direction must operate.