Agile Strategy Lab Update: April 2019

The Hague: Master Class

We continue to build out our networks in the Netherlands and Belgium. We completed a 2.5 day training in the Hague in February. We are planning another training in the Hague June 12-14.

You can check out a video of our work below.

Fraunhofer: Innovation and Technology Management

For the past five years, we have been working with Fraunhofer IAO in Stuttgart, Germany. Our focus involves the integration of our agile strategy disciplines with their technology and innovation management tools and frameworks.

As companies move toward more open innovation schemes, universities are landing a new opportunity to provide guidance to these emerging ecosystems. In Europe, the notion of Open Innovation 2.0 explains the evolution of these ecosystems. For the past five years, we have been working with the New Jersey Innovation Institute to pilot these integrated models. We are now starting to integrate this work more broadly with other partner universities. First up: the University of Puerto Rico and Kansas State.

Below is a timeline of our partnership. Our work continues...

Communicating Complexity

We've enjoyed working with Purdue Engineering students to introduce CommPlexity. a Lab initiative that teaches professionals how to communicate complex topics in a clear, engaging way. The International Student Peer Coaching Program at Purdue sponsored the training. Effectively communicating complex ideas and solutions requires a special set of skills and insights. Scott Hutcheson leads this initiative for the Lab.

Opioids: Tippecanoe County

We are working with the Tippecanoe County Opioids Task Force and Purdue Health Care Advisors to bring new, more productive approaches to managing the complexity of opioid prevention, treatment and recovery. We have trained the core team of the Task Force in the disciplines of Strategic Doing, Next step: introduce this new discipline to the wider task force.

North Carolina: Coastal Cleanup

We continuously surprised about how people are taking the tools, frameworks and models that we have developed in the Lab and used them. Here's a great example. Cleaning up coastal debris in North Carolina. Read more.

Cognitive Diversity: Helping Purdue Students

With our partners at Human Insight in The Hague, we are introducing powerful new team-based assessments. The key point: We now have the tools to assemble cognitively diverse teams; and these teams perform better.

Scott Hutcheson, who leads this work for the Lab, recently met in Chicago with Sebastian Hamers from Human Insight. Together they made a presentation to a large insurance company.

We integrate this work into our student assessments, as well. In the College of Engineering, Darshini Render from the Lab is working with students to help them understand how they can best contribute to a cognitively diverse team. This work on cognitive diversity is also closely aligned with the concept of "psychological safety", Amy Edmondson developed but at the Harvard Business School.

We see a tight connection with Amy's work. She endorsed our new book on Strategic Doing. Check out her new book, The Fearless Organization.

Both cognitive diversity and psychological safety are fundamental to our agile strategy discipline, Strategic Doing.

Opioids: Fayette County

We are also introducing Strategic Doing to the core team of civic leaders in Fayette County. Right now, this team risks burning out. They do everything. Now, with a deeper understanding of network mindsets, they are focused on activating their networks to expand their impact. None of this will happen quickly. Trusted networks form slowly, as leaders learn new skills by doing.

In this rural county, the tight tie of opioid addiction and the economy is clear.

A recent report from the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank illustrates how opioid addition can have a devastating impact on employment prospects.

"[P]rescription opioids can account for 44 percent of the realized national decrease in men's labor force participation between 2001 and 2015." Read more.

New One Unit Course

TECH 39900 (CRN 13423)/ENGR 39600 (CRN 13429) The Science and Practice of Complex Collaboration launches this summer.In this one-credit, online course students will gain insights into how to apply the 10 Rules of Complex Collaboration and the science behind why they work. They will learn how to guide a team to address complex challenges. The course is featured on the FutureLearn platform.

This platform will enable dynamic interaction among students. The platform will also enable us to scale the course. Read more about the course here.

Maternal Morbidity: NJ

Our work is designed to enable professionals to address wicked problems through collaboration. Increasing the human ingenuity to address these challenges requires a collaboration discipline. Through our network of universities, we assist each other with major challenges.

One example: New Jersey Innovation Institute, an offshoot of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, called us to help on a wicked problem in New Jersey: maternal mortality. It turns out that New Jersey ranks near the bottom in addressing this complex issue.

Using Strategic Doing and a three hour workshop, we began designing pilot projects that could strengthen collaborations across health care providers, social service organizations, and patient advocacy groups. Read more about NJII's work here.

East Stroudsburg University

We continue to build out our international network of colleges and universities interested in adopting the disciplines, tools and frameworks developed at Purdue. East Stroudsburg University has enthusiastically embraced the discipline of Strategic Doing, and they are on the path to affiliate status with our spin-out non-profit, the Strategic Doing Institute.

East Stroudsburg is rapidly integrating this training into their Monroe 2030 Action Team for Monroe County. Their action team is moving ahead with 30/30 updates which are already scheduled through August.

Amgen: The Netherlands

Now In a one day workshop with the top management team at Amgen in The Netherlands, we introduced concepts of agile strategy in networks and Strategic Doing. We learned after the workshop that the team was very enthusiastic about Strategic Doing, and they were already trying to use it on a number of topics. We will follow up again in June when we return to The Hague.

Flint and East London

In June we will be conducting a 2.5 day training at Southampton Solent University in Southampton, UK. At the same time, two members of Parliament have reached out to the Lab. They want to know how our work in Flint could help them transform the economy in East London.

Scott Hutcheson explains in the video below.

Our Sister Land-grants

We continue to build our collaborations across our sister Land-grant Universities.

New Mexico State is joining our affiliate network to teach Strategic Doing. This work is housed in the statewide engineering network. One area of potential application, the work the university is doing in cross-border collaborations with Mexico.
Colorado State is deploying Strategic Doing across Colorado's workforce system. Workforce development boards are charges with the responsibility of developing "sector partnerships" with industry. Colorado State will be leading a presentation of our partnership at the annual meeting of the National Association of Workforce Development Boards.
At Ohio State, we are seeing take up of our work in three areas: Engagement, Univeristy Industry Partnerships and the College of Pharmacy. At Ohio State's invitation, we will be participating in two national conferences:
- The National Organization of Research and Development Professionals. This conference is sold out. We have been asked to conduct a four hour workshop. Originally scheduled for 30 participants, the demand was so heavy that they increased the workshop size to 80 participants.
- In the Fall, we will be conducting a workshop in Columbus with the University Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP) conference. Again, this session will be a four hour introduction to Strategic Doing.
At Kansas State, we are continuing to introduce Strategic Doing to Kansas through training at their Olathe Campus, on the edge of Kansas City.
At Michigan State, we are continuing our seven year collaboration to rebuild neighborhoods in Flint, Michigan. We will be conducting another training in Flint in July, focused on the special challenges of black inner city neighborhoods in legacy cities. You can learn more about our Flint work here.
At Mississippi State the Stennis Institute hosts the Strategic Doing activity at the university. Their Strategic Doing work focuses on rural communities, non-profit organizations, and regional agencies.

Rural Ecosystems

Through a collaboration with James Madison University, we are introducing new approaches to developing startup ecosystems in rural communities.

You can read about our collaboration with James Madison University here.

We are using the lessons we have learned in designing and guiding rural ecosystems. In an upcoming paper, we explain the methodology we have developed for designing and guiding these ecosystems.

You can read the paper here.

Platforms and Ecosystems

In a paper for the Australia New Zealand Regional Science Association, we have outlined how regional strategies are rapidly moving toward platforms and ecosystems. These two concepts, which are still developing in the academic literature, have been organizing frameworks in the Lab for a number of years.