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Where Strategic Planning goes off the rails...
I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but after consulting Claude and others, and reflecting on lived experience I reckon you could safely say that around 75% of strategic plans fail to deliver. That is an extraordinarily high number given that a strategic plan is meant to be the primary mechanism for achieving and driving change and business transformation. That after all is why businesses invest time and money into developing one – right? So where does it all go so wrong? The
Chris Aitken
May 302 min read


What is Market Place Design?
Market Place Design answers the following design questions: Where in the market do we want to position our business? ... and How will we differentiate our business in the minds of customers? Market Place design connects your purpose, brand, market positioning and value proposition. The design process requires you to define the following: Market offerings – i.e., the product and service categories your business will deliver Customer segments – sized and categorised according t
Chris Aitken
Mar 162 min read


What is Service Portfolio Design?
Service Portfolio Design is two things. Although it certainly includes 'traditional' service design and service blueprinting, it's scope is much wider. And while the term 'Portfolio' does sound geeky, there is specific intent in using it. Service Portfolio Design asks the following two design questions: What services do we need to best meet customer need (i.e., the customer job to be done), customer experience expectations and convey our intended market differentiating brand
Chris Aitken
Mar 62 min read


What is Sustainability Design?
Sustainability Design is the less-talked-about but equally existential partner to Purpose Design. Sustainability Design, like Purpose Design, asks an equally important macro-level question about a business: "How can we design a business that is financially, environmentally and socially viable in equal measure?" Answering that question requires clarity about the Purpose, Brand, Operating Model ecosystem and Financial Model. The answer is inextricably linked to your stated purp
Chris Aitken
Mar 62 min read


What is Purpose Design?
dsfsdf Purpose design is a business design process that addresses the question "What problem does your business exist to solve?". Behind the answer to this question sits another that also needs to be addressed and that is "What is your testable hypothesis regarding your ability to solve this problem better than anyone else in the market?" Purpose design is usually undertaken by executive management teams, and the more enlightened of these also include others from across the o
Chris Aitken
Feb 42 min read


Recent Updates
We intend to provide updates on the book and toolkit via this page. So please bookmark and check here occasionally to keep up to speed on latest developments. The Tool Kit: Some recent toolkit updates and changes: Purpose Design To better support the strategic planning design process outlined in the book we're add the following: Goal Ideation Worksheet - generate goal statements in reference to your drivers Goal Worksheet - a tool to evaluate and prioritise your goal statemen
Chris Aitken
Sep 11, 20251 min read
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