Strategic Engineering

Jacques Arcade

• Éditeur: Wiley-ISTE
• Année: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781119821311
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Technik & Maschinenbau
• Sous-sujet: Elektrotechnik & Telekommunikation

In the face of increasing complexity, uncertainty and difficulty in the design and implementation of reforms, companies, organizations and institutions must strive to capitalize on the prevailing disarray by acting wisely in overcoming it.

Strategic engineering is part of an integrative, tool-based approach, inspired by the life sciences and creative recursion. This book is structured into three parts, which correspond to the three main phases of the strategic engineering approach: observe and discern; judge and arbitrate; act and intervene. Strategic Engineering has wide appeal, relevant to senior leaders, decisionmakers, managers and practitioners within businesses, government and local authorities. It is also intended for those who wish to develop their capability in anticipatory or transformative management within economic, sociopolitical and strategic contexts.

PART 1
Observing and Discerning: Contextualizing the Situation and Recommending a Consistent Set of Options

1
Understanding the Strategic Landscape

It is not possible to grasp and resolve a critical or difficult situation without first trying to put it into context, and in particular, within the immensely complex interplay of its main participants. Moreover, the strategist must also take into consideration the lines of force that tend to overdetermine the situation, as well as the way in which it is approached and perceived. All of these elements are part of what we will call the “strategic reference”.

From this point of view, it is necessary to adopt a global and synoptic representation of the situation as well as of the strategic landscape – that is to say, of all the aspects involved – in which they take place. On the other hand, this frame of reference must also be penetrating and sharp enough to meet the needs of the analysis. Indeed, it must allow a telescope-like access to the characteristics of the different essential components of the situation, including the ability to dig deeper and “zoom in” on the strategic landscape, depending on the circumstances.

It is important to enrich this view with a “phenomenological” dimension, which must be able to integrate the mechanisms by which the components of the context and the strategic interventions would be able to be coupled, or even combined, in order to evolve together and adjust to each other. Finally, this reference grid should also include a dissipative dimension, so as to account for the emergence of richer and more subtle properties. This will be the same, as we move towards more global components, located at high levels of aggregation.

In order to guarantee the set of requirements imposed on this vision, and thus on the approach they infer, we have chosen to articulate the representation of the strategic landscape around the concept of “nested frames”.

1.1. Understanding the decision-making situation

First of all, the environment of the decision must be taken into account. Made up of different facets, it must be considered from its “salient points”, that is, the critical and decisive elements for the entirety of a problematic situation. Any situation of crisis needs to be mapped in order to provide an intelligible representation of its context and the nature of the system to be studied. The context will be referred to here as the “strategic landscape”. By avoiding the trap of an overly exhaustive approach, a structural analysis can help identify the particularities of the situation and clarify the configuration of its main facets. The strategic landscape is made up of three macrocomponents: the strategic frame of reference, the future general environment, and the specific context or theater of intervention. Once the strategic landscape has been established, it must be represented using a figurative approach by means of a succession of nested systemic frameworks (or components).

1.1.1. Identifying the variables and factors that make up the situation

The first course of action is to place the limits of the field of reflection or study. For this, the first step is to reach agreement on the question that forms the basis and justifies the reflection. In fact, on the one hand, we cannot expect to provide solutions to false problems, and on the other hand, there is no system that can act as a mode of representation of a reality without a prior intention, even if only implicit. It is therefore important to list all the variables and/or factors, both internal and external, characterizing a system or likely to affect its evolution in the prospective horizon. At this stage, it is important to be as exhaustive as possible, taking care to avoid gray areas in the description of the system or its seeds of change. In addition to the collective reflection and brainstorming meetings, it is advisable to foster and support the establishment of the variables through directive interviews without leadership, especially for particular areas where the group lacks expertise, as well as with personalities with particular knowledge of the presumed actors within the system.

In the second step, the list of variables is then formatted, completing it if necessary, but also grouping or breaking it down, or even eliminating it, in order to arrive at a list with a sufficient level of homogeneity.

After first classifying the variables according to categories that allow for a more precise distinction between internal and external elements of the system, an effort is made to formalize their meaning within a multidisciplinary group created for this purpose.

The formation of this group is carried out both on the basis of the professional responsibilities and the intuitu personae skills of these presumed members. This will primarily involve facilitating comprehension using simple headings to avoid any misinterpretation by persons outside the group. For each of the variables, we then add:

• – its definition in the perspective adopted by the group;
• – a mention of the problematic elements that it raises (highlights) and any indications of its retrospective and possible future evolutionary trends;
• – an appreciation of possible trend breaks, whether presumed, desired, or feared.

It is important to mention that any discussion of problems that may arise during the collection of variables may feed into the rest of the process. This phase is fundamental because it is an excellent opportunity within the group to build a common reference to represent and in this way understand the system. Moreover, it encourages the decompartmentalization and cross-fertilization of different points of view. The potential identification of the relationships between the variables that form the core of the structural analysis is substantially improved, which helps to stimulate the appropriation process within the group.

1.1.2. Detecting the context of the situation through structural analysis

How, and in what way, can the application of a structural-type analysis help, beyond the construction of the information base necessary for the modeling of the strategic landscape, to reveal context through the identification and assembly of relevant nested components?

1.1.2.1. Main steps

In order to answer this question, we will limit ourselves to recalling the main steps of the method known as “structural analysis” (see Box 1.1), in order to focus on the interpretation and visualization of the results obtained.

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Box 1.1. A three-step analysis

1. 1) Identification of the variables and factors making up the system.

• – Review of available information and studies concerning the system.
• – Identification of factors of change and key variables.
• – Detailed formulation and establishment of the glossary of variables.

1. 2) Development and processing of the structural analysis matrix.

• – Systematic reconstruction of the direct influence relations between the variables.
• – Establishment of the synoptic table of cross-influences corresponding to the structural analysis matrix.
• –Computer processing of the structural analysis matrix.

1. 3) Visualization and interpretation of results.
2. – Keys to interpreting the influence/dependency plan.
3. – Summary and taking the results of the structural analysis further.

An illustration of our argument using the case of a “developing country” allows us to reconfigure the cloud of variable points, which constitutes t...