1 The Strategy Journey Map

The Strategy Journey Map

Government agencies and indeed most organisations, struggle with their strategy development processes and creating a strategic vision. It can be onerous, mind-numbing, and overly complex. Many of the tools and processes that are available are opaque and it can be challenging to connect the dots!

We also know that when we can include key stakeholders and those who will be delivering on the strategy, the strategy is more likely to be adopted and indeed likely to be successful. What is shared and co-created is more likely to be actioned!

And once the strategy is developed, sharing the journey and showing the outcomes can be difficult to process and understand.

The Strategy Journey Map process is an interactive and real time way that leaders, key internal stakeholders, and indeed the recipients of the strategy, can be productively and powerfully involved.

Strategy Journey Mapping is a visual, icon-driven, flexible process that enables strategy facilitators and participants to identify, share and link the various components of strategy making. The process begins with a checklist of possibilities, sectioned into the overall components that are potentially possible as inputs to an advanced agency or departmental strategy.

How does the Strategy Journey Mapping (SJM) Process work?

Senior leaders, department heads, ministers, and boards as well, set the overall vision, objectives and ensure that the strategy aligns with the entity’s values and overall purpose. The Strategy Team sets the visual frame for the Strategy Journey Map. For some organisations, the frame might be a checker-board approach. For others, it might be a pyramid, or a mind map.

Regardless, the frame is itself a representation of the entity. Be sure to check what story it is telling! Too constricted and inflexible, and we might be limiting possibilities!

Overall the Strategy Journey Map Frame should be easy to share, it should enable icons within it to move and change, there should be a visual way to link icons, and they should be easy to move and link.