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As members of this site will know all too well, there are loads of tools out there to help you develop a strategy and a strategic plan.

Ever since we started work on our guide to managing change, From Here to There, my team’s been interested in approaches and exercises that help organisations think through how to implement changes to their organisation.

In our experience, one of the outcomes of a strategic planning process is that a group of staff conclude they need to make changes to the organisation in order to deliver their new strategy. Strategic planning tools might help open up options or compare and contrast different opportunities and external trends. Most good practice advice stops short of helping you with implementing your strategy or changing your organisation.

There’s good reasons for this. Organisations are complex things and it is hard to generalise about how to implement strategic change without just stating the obvious.

One approach I’ve seen recently that I liked is McKinsey’s 7-S framework.

It is a tool that highlights different factors that influence an organisation’s ability to change. These are described as,

• style – culture and informal practices
• skills – both institutional and individual
• strategy – what you are trying to achieve?
• shared values – bedrock of your organisation
• structure – how you’re organised and where authority lies in your organisation
• staff – all the different people in your organisation and how they’re developed.
• systems – processes used in managing the organisation.

All these factors are interrelated and on an equal footing, underlining the point that significant change in one aspect of the organisation will be difficult to sustain without planning or accomodating change in the other aspects.

It doesn’t work any magic, sadly, but it can provide a useful reminder about the different issues to consider when planning strategic change in an organisation.

I can be allergic to some private-sector strategy tools. I have found some to be filled with jargon, over-complicated and focusing people on completing the exercise rather than finding and agreeing a solution to a problem.

While this framework isn’t a neat and easy solution to the complexities of change management you might find it a useful tool to add to your planning processes and discussions, whether you’re using it as a simple checklist or working through the framework systematically in planning meetings.

You can view a short narrated introduction to the framework on the McKinsey website here

That’s an interesting question Stephen. The ‘disintermediation’ question came up many times when we were working on the ICT Foresight project. In relation to giving we concluded that intermediaries would not necessarily be cut out, but that new kinds of intermediaries would be required. Here is the relevant extract from ICT Foresight: charitable giving and fundraising in a digital world (download PDF)

Future organisational models

This report has explored how the internet can facilitate connections between donors and organisations, and between donors and beneficiaries. It has also explored how the internet can potentially empower donors to make an informed choice about which organisation to support, to choose where to direct their money, and to use their networks to fundraise for organisations. If indeed power does shift away from organisations and towards individuals then this will raise questions about the most effective models that organisations can use to direct donations towards their work on the ground. As Nick Booth and Andy Dearden discuss, some organisations may shift from being deliverers to facilitators and market makers:

Nick: What we’re describing in terms of the network means that charities become a couple of things: firstly a safe place to store money, and secondly a network to distribute other resources, but not much else. In the future you could imagine a model whereby beneficiaries are telling the stories and are nominating a safe place to store donations, so they’re saying ‘if you want to help us please do it through this mechanism’. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a charity, it could be a bank. Obviously there are issues with this model but it could mean that potentially the role of charities is shifting or there’s a gap for a new kind of charity.

Andy: If we go back to the comparison with ecommerce we can learn from what Tescos do. Tescos don’t buy products to sell; they rent out shelf space to their suppliers who then compete. The Tesco brand operates simply to bring people to the market place; they’re the market makers.

Nick Booth and Andy Dearden (roundtable discussion, June 2007)

These new intermediaries already exist. Chipin.com provides a safe place to store money, raised for any purpose. Realitycharity.com connects donors directly to individuals requiring help. In the future VCOs may need to become aggregators of projects and allow donors more choice over who they give their money to, or else risk new intermediary organisations, which may not even be charities, moving into the gap.

We are gathering together analysis, views and evidence on the impact of a recession on the sector. You can find all the sources we’ve identified here, on our delicious site (delicious is a ‘social bookmarking’ tool which allows you to collect and share web links)

According to this viewpoint by JRF, museums are experiencing their biggest cultural shift in 150 years. Since my last news post which highlighted four potential scenarios for museums in the future and explored how museums were changing in response to challenges from technology and shifting ideas about authority and hierarchy, I’ve been thinking about some of different ways in which museums are changing. As museums encompass particularly traditional ideas of culture, heritage and history, the rapidly changing external environment and the drivers operating within it are more likely to have a considerable impact. And with museums making up a significant sub sector of civil society (about an eighth of civil society to be more exact), I thought it might be interesting to explore some of the changes affecting museums in this forum. Those of you working in museums might want to add your thoughts about how you think museums are changing and how you think they are likely to change further in the future, or I’m sure most people have been to a museum at some point in their life so can add their thoughts from another perspective.

The viewpoint explores whether we have moved into the age of the social museum or the “post-museum” and considers whether museums are now the powerful force in social and urban regeneration they have promised to be. It contains some detailed case studies of current initiatives, looks at how far museums now go beyond the display and interpretation of collections; their potential role in regeneration; and whether they can create a space where social issues can be examined in a way the public finds accessible. The case studies show that some of the scenarios I linked to before might not be as far away as people might first think.

Some of the key points in the viewpoint are worth a mention and a good example of how some of the main drivers affecting all VCOs can interlink and have an impact on different subsectors:

• Museums are playing a key part in social change, addressing a range of social issues such as crime prevention, this reflects the changes we have seen in the opening up of different spaces to tackle social change, generate social cohesion and as such play a valuable role in the workings of civil society.
• As a free meeting place, museums increasingly provide a friendly meeting place for young people to meet off the street. Are the days when independent meeting places were limited to the community centre gone? These shifts are not that far removed from the world of the forum scenario.
• Curators are coming from a range of different backgrounds, reflecting the trend for multiple careers as well as the widening of career opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds.
• Curators are increasingly aware of their role in making sense of history, and are aware that any curatorial choices they make need to respond to other voices within the community. This reflects the increasingly diverse make up of UK society as well as the rising expectations and assertiveness" of citizens.
• Museums are also increasing becoming central spaces of mutual understanding where cultural identity can be developed, driven by either museum professionals or communities. Such identities may reflect recent social change or previously unacknowledged histories.

However, the view point also highlights some challenges for museums in the modern world:

• Convincing other agencies of museums’ role in tackling social change;
• Reflecting the speed of social change which may require adapting complex organisational structure;
• Acknowledging concerns about traditional curatorial remits;
• Exploring legitimate ideas that some still feel are too sensitive for social history;
• Addressing the physical accessibility of older museums.

It is interesting that these challenges which arise from changes in the world around us are pretty much affecting all VCOs, not just museums, albeit in different ways.

• What challenges do you think are facing museums?
• Do you have any examples of how they are increasingly reflecting our changing society?

Hi Dave
That’s brilliant, it’s amazing that we went from this
to that! I’ll have to explore the Reuters Calais thing more soon..
(more pics here and don’t worry about the teething troubles)