OpenStrategy consists of a facilitated process of meetings and off-line communications between stakeholders within a community, supported by a web-based software tool.
The OpenStrategy planning system is made up of three key components: an information structure, a prioritisation system, and support systems. The information structure records what is going on and what goals are envisaged. The prioritisation system transforms the information into strategies that can be viewed, used, and influenced by all members of a community. And the support systems connect people in the real world and facilitate the evolution and implementation of the strategies.
The Information Structure
The OpenStrategy information structure is made up of four columns of information - generically called 'items'. These columns can be named Projects, Results, Uses/Applications and Benefits (though the terminology is determined by the participants of an OpenStrategy). People run Projects that produce Results, which organisations or citizens Use or Apply to create Benefits. Our research leads us to believe that this structure has universal application to community strategies; anything a community wants to do or achieve can be addressed by these headings.
This information structure is illustrated in the following diagram:
For example, the Project might be the development of a cycleway. The Result is that you have a cycleway between two points. The Application is that people ride on it, and the Benefits are that they become healthier, get to work on time, and environmental pollution is reduced if they would have otherwise used cars.
Stakeholders enter these items into the system, which are then 'owned' by that stakeholder. This means that that stakeholder is responsible for keeping information about that item up to date, answering questions about it, and accepting or rejecting links to that item.
Stakeholders can also propose links between two items, which means that they believe that one item has an effect, positive or negative, on the other. In the previous example, a stakeholder could create a link between the Project of creating a cycleway, and the obvious Result of having a cycleway between two points. Stakeholders are free to accept (agree that a link exists) or reject links to items that they own.
An OpenStrategy presents this system of information in a structure we call the boxes-and-lines diagram, which has a list of Projects in one column, a list of Results in another column, a list of Applications in the third and a list of Benefits in the fourth. In time, the boxes are linked, so a Project is linked to a Result. It might produce several Results - and those Results are linked to their Applications by stakeholders, and the Applications to one or more Benefits, as illustrated in the following diagram:
We believe this structure is the simplest possible information structure for defining community action and benefits. In an OpenStrategy, this information structure is housed on a website, and its details are available for all stakeholders to view, add to and edit, at any time and from anywhere that suits them.
Because everyone can see the information entered and the links made, they can see what is going on and consult with each other in a fully transparent manner.
The information structure maps actions and results into a plan. It is not just a listing of issues and options and people's random ideas. It is very much focused on actions and results. Key to OpenStrategy's ability to do this is the prioritisation system. The information structure is useful on its own as a format for information storage, but it needs prioritisation before the system attains its maximum possible value.
The Prioritisation System
The OpenStrategy prioritisation system has been carefully tailored to fit the ways in which people want to work in communities. It allows any stakeholder to set priority ratings on any item, indicating to all other stakeholders how important that item is to them based on whatever personal criteria they choose. In essence, they can say 'This item is very important from my viewpoint', or 'I am not interested in this item', or 'I disapprove of this item', or anything in between.
Stakeholders can also view priorities set by all other stakeholders, to weigh up potential and actual contributions of other stakeholders and make judgements about whom it would be worthwhile to work with.
Priorities in OpenStrategy are shown as ratings placed by each stakeholder. They are not averaged or weighted, so that each stakeholder has an equal voice - though the ratings are shown alongside who placed them, so that other stakeholders can make their own decisions about the weight of a particular stakeholders rating. This is illustrated in the diagram below, showing how ratings could be displayed on an item within a Civil Defence OpenStrategy:
As a result of this prioritisation system, it quickly become clear which stakeholders support which projects, results, applications and benefits. As a result, subgroups of stakeholder can cluster together around items of common interest; items which, when linked from projects through results and applications to benefits, become 'sub-strategies' within the OpenStrategy.
SubStrategies
Through use of the OpenStrategy prioritisation system, stakeholders can specify and view SubStrategies (a smaller strategy contained within the entire OpenStrategy). These SubStrategies can be created by stakeholders, based on their own areas of interest, and from whatever set of criteria they specify. For example, within a council planning OpenStrategy, a stakeholder could specify to view all items in the OpenStrategy to do with roading, effectively creating a roading SubStrategy.
The groups of items that comprise a SubStrategy can be selected manually by stakeholders, or by specifying certain criteria (for example, all items that that stakeholder has rated as +3 or more), giving stakeholders the flexibility to create SubStrategies that suit their needs.
The following diagram illustrates how SubStrategies can be selected from items within an OpenStrategy:
The Support Systems
OpenStrategy is additionally supported by real-world communication systems, such as meetings, workshops, emails, and phonecalls. OpenStrategy recognises that there is great value in existing forms of communication, and doesn't aim to replace them - rather, it provides a format in which the key wisdom from these communications can be liberated and captured, and made available to the broadest possible range of stakeholders.
OpenStrategy doesn't aim to capture these communications, but rather the results of them. This allows stakeholders to hold internal meetings, and communicate with one another about the directions they wish to head in and the goals they wish to achieve, and then they are able to enter this information into the OpenStrategy information structure.
OpenStrategy Principles
OpenStrategy is based on the following principles, and incorporates them into the OpenStrategy system and web-tool:
- Communities are intelligently complex, not chaotic. Therefore, they do not require top-down management, and given the right tools can plan their own future in a collaborative, transparent, and strategic manner.
- An effective strategic planning tool needs to be open - to new ideas, to people, to time, space, growth, and change
- Anyone can join an OpenStrategy, and no-one can take control of it
- An effective strategic planning tool needs a common system and language
- An effective strategic planning tool needs to be actions and results oriented
- Communities and groups of individuals can successfully collaborate on large-scale projects following a diverse cluster of motivational drives and social signals - to review and select which resources to work on, for which projects, and with which collaborators
