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Crises :: Politics :: Society :: Economics :: Geopolitics :: Science :: Environment :: Business :: Technology :: Culture
When you don’t know :: what you don’t know :: but you do know :: that you need to know
Consultancy Services to: Government :: Consultant Teams :: Business
in: Strategic Planning :: Research + Analysis :: Future Risk Analysis :: Urban + Regional Planning :: Urban Diagnostics
"The world we have created today, as a result of our thinking thus far, has created problems that
cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we created them.“ -- Albert Einstein
Planning is useless unless you know what to plan for. -- Mike Flehr
An Introduction to Urban Strategic Intelligence:
The world you knew changed direction again in 2007. Do you know how it changed? Do you know why? Do you know what to do about it?
We live in interesting times. The rules of the global economy are changing again. Recent geopolitical pressures are causing a fundamental restructuring of the international economy which will play out over
the next decade or so. In addition, the world is facing widespread crises in terms of climate change,
energy security, housing, and food security.
After two decades of relatively predictable conditions, the rapid and fundamental changes happening around us make strategic planning a critical priority for government and business. An understanding of
the contexts in which these changes are occurring provides the basis for meeting and surviving these waves of change.
This is the role of Urban Strategic Intelligence – to advise on how the world is changing, how it is
likely to will affect you, and what options you have to do something about it.
"Telling the future by looking at the past assumes that conditions remain constant. This is like driving a car by
looking in the rearview mirror.“
-- Herb Brody
So, what can Urban Strategic Intelligence do for you?
USI is primarily oriented to providing advice relating to Strategic Planning, Strategic Intelligence, Research &
Analysis, and Policy Development in both public and private sectors. We also provide advice on future risk analysis, and generalist Urban & Regional Planning. Urban Strategic Intelligence offers:
- extensive experience with anticipating and planning for societal, urban and regional change;
- constant research into the interlinking of global and local changes, trends, and influences happening now or in the foreseeable future, and
- we monitor Crises, Politics, Society, Economics, Geopolitics, Science, Environment, Business, Technology
and Culture – and report the stuff you really need to know about, but don’t have the time to look for.
"No amount of sophistication is going to allay the fact that all your
knowledge is about the past and all your decisions are about the
future."
-- Ian E. Wilson
1. STRATEGIC CONTEXT & PLANNING:
Planning is organizing to meet the future. Strategic Planning is an art for anticipating the future in such a way that your needs can be met no matter what the future brings.
1.1. Strategic Planning Advice: analysis identifying possible and preferred options - urban + regional planning, Section 30 reports & Strategic Management Plans in SA; portfolio development, investment strategies.
1.2. Strategic Context: many organizations break their Strategic Planning down by functional areas, or limit it to corporate planning. In many cases, such planning lacks an overarching strategic context to act as a firm
foundation on which to build downstream strategies and policies. USI can provide that context as a tangible and relevant basis for policy development.
1.3. Policy Development: following on from 1.1 – development of urban & regional planning and related policy along with implementation options. – the fine detail of strategic planning – making sure it works on the
ground, and keeps working.
1.4. Strategic Assessment Reports: an assessment responding to a strategically or globally oriented question either internally or for clients. Think of it as a Strategic Risk Analysis. Such opinions may inform tenders,
project proposals, existing projects, client investment strategies and portfolio development.
1.5. Strategic Conversations: the process of resolving questions affecting a project but generally larger than the scope of the project. An in-house resource for staff with concerns relating to global events or trends that
may impact during the life of their project.
1.6. Strategic Urban Intelligence Update(s): an on-line or email publication featuring the top 10 things an urban professional needs to know this week, based on the “Urban World Journal”. This can be tailored for in-house
use, be a branded publication, or be subject based for urban, policy, architecture, design, etc.
"Knowledge is realizing that the street is one-way, wisdom is looking both directions anyway"
- Unknown
"Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what no one else has thought."
- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
2. RESEARCH & ANALYSIS: Your decisions are only as good as the intelligence you have available to you. USI
specializes in applying its global intelligence on, and knowledge of, the world’s cities and regions to local
planning. Our advice is provided with practical implementation and local application in mind.
How many projects run over budget or into problems because initial Research & Analysis was rushed or not
well enough informed? How often do you wish you had known “that”? In skilled hands, teasing meaning out
of data can save time and money. We perform:
- Problem identification, analysis, and solution recommendations;
- Policy development;
- Projects: Land Use Surveys and analysis; KPI development; Policy option analysis; Census research and analysis;
- Internet, literature, and other research;
- Geographic Information Systems (GIS – 10 years experience); and
- Database development and management (20 years experience)
As the quote says, the trick is in noticing what others may not see. Coming from a very broad and connected knowledge base often allows me to see things that specialists miss.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the
kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
3. FUTURE RISK ANALYSIS: Not speculation, just informed trend analysis. FRA goes further out in time than a Strategic Assessment,
and surveys urban development trends in the context of technological, social, economic, geopolitical and cultural trends. In short, an FRA attempts to identify what is coming that may either create problems or
provide opportunities for the astute.
One of the marks of great delusions is that nearly everyone tends to share them. It is a sorry tale - any
delusion gives rise to a rude awakening in due course. -- Antal E Fekete
You got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.
- Yogi Berra
SOME THOUGHTS ON STRATEGIC PLANNING:
The Oxford English Dictionary defines Strategy as "generalship, the art of war; management of army or
armies in a campaign or war, art of so moving or disposing troops or ships or aircraft as to impose upon the
enemy the place and time and conditions for fighting preferred by oneself". Strategy is enacted through
the use of tactics, which are defined as the "art of disposing military or naval or air forces especially in
actual contact with the enemy". The distinction between Strategy and Tactics is an important one.
In the slightly less bloodthirsty worlds of government and business, strategy is a process where the use of resources such as capital, personnel, ideas and equipment are directed to achieve their efficient use for
the benefit of a diverse community in the face of a changing future (the enemy). In this sense, tactics are the processes of resource management and the development of day-to-day procedures or specific projects.
In practice, there is a lot more to Strategic Planning than creating a wish list of motherhood statements and an action plan in the hope of achieving context defying goals. It is bad planning to rely on miracles.
A good Strategic Plan tells us:
what from the past is important to know;
what trends are impacting now (both globally and locally:
- what is likely to impact in the near future;
- what is likely to impact after that;
- what the long and short term goals are;
- how and why projects and actions are linked and matched with what is impacting now to meet the goals;
- what resources are needed to deal with all this; and,
- it spells out, in general terms, just how the goals are to be achieved.
Do what you can with what you have where you are. -- Theodore Roosevelt
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