Definition:
Concept Number: *-047
English Master: Strategy-Noun
Synonyms, Variations & Acronyms: Architecture Means Design-Idea Idea
Design Solution Strategy Process-Improvement-Suggestion Systecture
Detailing
If the “means” to satisfy one defined objective is a set of one or more other objectives – which, if themselves satisfied, will contribute to the satisfaction of the first objective; then those next Level of objectives are also classified as strategies – from the point of view of the first objective. They are however classified as objectives from the point of view of the strategies defined to satisfy them. The key to classification is the Stakeholder point of view and the Process point of view, not the specification itself, generally.
Illustrations
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Type
Design Type
Domain
Engineering Design Strategy
Examples
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Notes
Source: The conventional dictionary definition of Strategy points out that it is a military term relating to positioning forces Before a battle so as to have advantage. Current management use of the term is far looser, and includes almost any Idea!
“They set only the broadest of objectives and emphasized seizing
unforeseen opportunities as they arose…. Strategy was not a lengthy
Action plan. It was the Evolution of a central Idea through continually
Changing circumstances.”
Said by Von Clausewitz in “On War” about Von Moltke and the Prussian
General Staff.
Quoted in [Welch01] p448
“Intended strategies have no value in and of themselves; they take on value only as committed people infuse them with energy (to paraphrase Selznick, 1957)” <- (“Leadership in Administration”). <- [MINTZBERG94:172]
Usage: The term Strategy is appropriate in business management Planning, but not in other kinds of design and Planning (Engineering for example would have many other preferred terms like “design”, “Architecture”, “technique”, “component”, “structure”). I felt that the word Strategy was too specific for general use in this book. But, if your culture uses “strategy” and is comfortable with it, use it as your specific term for what this book calls “Design-Idea” or “design”.
“Nor is there any evidence of a smoothly flowing deductive cascade of strategies. Budgets easily divide and Add up arithmetically; strategies do not. How could they, when even the Planning literature has failed to distinguish objectives from strategies? Strategies are not sharply-defined entities to be stacked up like crates in a warehouse. They are unique Conceptions that only exist in people”s minds.” <- [MINTZBERG94:75]
To which I feel obliged to Add that Value-Decision-Tables give us the possibility of adding up the effects of strategies.
Keyed-Icons
[<Strategy-Tag>]
square brackets symbolizing the Solution rectangle Drawn-Icon. It contains a Design-Specification tag, underlined.
Drawn-Icons
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Related-Concepts
History-of-Concept
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This Concept entered by Diane O'Brien.