Strategy Development

Supporting files

5 bold steps Canvas template

Required Materials

• 5 bold steps Canvas template
• markers
• pens 
• post-its

Tips and limitations

It is suggested to use this tool with at least 6 people (and up to 10) and allocate 1.5h for facilitating it.

It is very important for this tools, regardless of the approach you choose to compose your vision, to engage the right groups of participants. This includes the decision makers as well as everybody else! It is vital in order to be able to develop a strategy and realize your vision to have on board to include people or groups of people that can help with the realization. Otherwise, the strategy and vision will remain only in paper.

Instructions

1. Before you start. Arrange a comfortable environment – preferably not a meeting room. Print the canvas on a big sheet of paper and prepare supporting material, such as post-its and markers. 
2. Fill-in the template 
3. Define your vision statement. What is the future of your organisation/project/Urban Living Lab? How are you going to help the citizens? What are the essential themes supporting your vision? Describe them in one or two words. 
4. Discuss the themes. How will the themes show in your organisation? How will the themes make the vision concrete and inspire others?
5. Fill in the template. What support do you need to reach your vision? What challenges obstruct you from reaching your vision? What concrete steps will you take to achieve your vision? 
6. Key values. What are the crucial values that form the foundation for your vision and steps? How can they be aligned?

Sources and references

• UNALAB Toolkit

Supporting files

(Stakeholder) Importance/Influence Matrix template.

Required Materials

• (Stakeholder) Importance/Influence Matrix Template in A0 printed 9 (or online) version
• markers
• pens 
• post-its

Tips and limitations

When using this tool, be precise and concrete regarding what is asked from your participants, and encourage your participants to be as well as concrete as possible when identifying different milestones, obstacles, opportunities or strategies.
Use positive language
Highlight to your participants, when developing a strategy to start with an action verb to ensure a focus on something that can be achieved (e.g. complete, publish, investigate, propose, revise, plan, install). The function of the future image is not always clear. If not immediately linked to backward looking analysis, the tool may become somewhat Utopian in character.                          The function of the future image is not always clear. If not immediately linked to backward looking analysis, the tool may become somewhat Utopian in character.                                           When using this tool, the potential for discussing conflicting views among the participants is limited.

Instructions

1. For the first step of the process, the participants are asked to identify the desired end-point. For that, they would need to think upon and identify the overall long-term goal (linked to/ drawn from your vision) that is intended to be achieved in 10-15 years from now.                                        2. Then, the participants are asked to identify milestones. Depending on the group size of the participants, it is suggested that they work in smaller working groups. For the milestones, they are asked to identify them from the desired end point back to the present. The working groups are asked to identify the intermediate goals/ short-term desired achievements so if the long-term goal X is to be achieved in 15 years’ time, where should the team be in 12 years from now, in 8 years, in 4 years? The participants are encourages in this step to select the time frame and number of milestones.                                                                                                                              3. After identifying the milestones, the participants, again in smaller working groups, are asked to identify obstacles and opportunities. For that, the participants are asked to study the contextual setting  (based on scenario study, trends, opportunities, threats) in order to identify the obstacles (e.g. increase of urban heat island) and opportunities (e.g. increased popular support for addressing sustainability issues) encountered in relation to achieving the desired endpoint.            4. The participants are then invited to join a group discussion, reflecting upon and summarizing the findings of each working group. Then, they are jointly asked to identify (policy) actions/interventions. The milestones, obstacles and opportunities identified in the previous steps, provide a framework for the identification of more concrete actions. Actions are designed to overcome obstacles and lead to the achievement of milestones and the desired endpoint. The actions are plotted on a timeline to show the relations between them, and their relations with milestones, obstacles and opportunities.                                                                                                5. Lastly, the participants are jointly asked to identify strategies. Strategies are a combination of actions with shared characteristics that will be leading to achieving milestones and the desired endpoint. They summarize and cluster and often localize (so where can it take place) a variety of interventions and actions linked to the Backcasting timeline

Sources and references

• Robinson, J.B., 1982. Energy backcasting A proposed method of policy analysis. Energy policy, 10(4), pp.337-344.
• Robinson, J., 2003. Future subjunctive: backcasting as social learning. Futures, 35(8), pp.839-856.

Required Materials

• pens 
• post-its

Tips and limitations

It is suggested to use this tool with 40-50 people and allocate 2 days for facilitating it. Since it is a long process for your participants, it is important to have a clear time planning.                            Since the level of complexity of the discussed topics can be high, it is importna that you provide to the participants a clear overview of the issues to be  discussed, encouraging them to be actively engaged in all of them.

Instructions

1.To use this tool, it is important for the facilitator(s) to carefully select the participants. It is suggested to select experts from various sectors, covering a wide range of perspectives. The selected participants should be invited to the workshops and the scheduled interviews to share their views on future opportunities. 
2. The first step to facilitate this tool for the facilitator(s) to schedule and conduct the roadmapping interviews with a poster showing a timeline for the future (e.g. for 2050). The needs for the future are shown at the end of the timeline. 
3. The participants (interviewees) are asked to identify relevant future options, and to indicate on the timeline when they thought these options would regularly be available. They should also be invited to create a storyline showing the expected developments over time, to gain an understanding of the prerequisites for specific developments to take place. 
4. The facilitator(s) conducting the roadmapping interviews should collect all the information on post-it notes to allow easy reconfiguring of the storyline during the interview. 
5. For these roadmapping interviews, the requested areas of expertise are not specifically their own innovation strategies, but rather their knowledge of important developments in their own fields. The Roadmapping method inspires the experts to use their knowledge to indicate the available options in the shorter and longer term, and to describe the potential developments over time. 
6. For the next step of this tool, the general roadmap is developed. The collected information from the desk study and the roadmapping interviews are used in an expert meeting to identify the most relevant topics. A timeline is created for each of them, showing when relevant options would become available on the path to meet the cities’ needs. All the results of the interviews are used to make a rich summary of the steps on the timeline. A maximum of 15 relevant future options is described for each topic, together with a short title and explanation and where possible including an example. 
7. For the last step of the tool, the general roadmaps of the 3 focus areas should be aligned. In a cross-theme expert meeting the timelines for Smart Buildings, Smart Mobility and Smart Urban Spaces were aligned to gain an understanding of the interlinking areas and potential options across several focus areas.

Sources and references

• UNALAB Toolkit

Supporting files

(Stakeholder) Importance/Influence Matrix template.

Required Materials

• paper
• boards
• pens 

Tips and limitations

Be aware, there is no need to choose one particular scenario and build the strategy around it. Scenario planning is not about choosing just one option for the future but rather dealing with all of the possible outcomes to develop a strategy that will stand the test of all scenarios.
A common trap is to be paralyzed by the multitude of possibilities.
Don’t try indefinitely new combinations of uncertainties to build your scenarios. Keep it simple and focus on two major uncertainties.
When developing different scenarios, try to not look at the short term, or, in other words, the existing or near future situations.
Do not hesitate to look far ahead, anticipating how the current situations are going to be over the next years. And: be creative!                                                                                                              Rapid changes in society may imply that the scenario analysis is easily outdated. Therefore, scenario analysis should not be a single operation, but an iterative process.                                      Data and information from different sources have to be collected and interpreted which makes scenario building even more time-consuming.
It could be difficult not to focus on black and white scenarios or the most likely scenario (wishful thinking) during the scenario-building process.

Instructions

1.To use this tool, it is important for the facilitator(s) to carefully select the participants. It is suggested to select experts from various sectors, covering a wide range of perspectives. The selected participants should be invited to the workshops and the scheduled interviews to share their views on future opportunities. 
2. The first step to facilitate this tool for the facilitator(s) to schedule and conduct the roadmapping interviews with a poster showing a timeline for the future (e.g. for 2050). The needs for the future are shown at the end of the timeline. 
3. The participants (interviewees) are asked to identify relevant future options, and to indicate on the timeline when they thought these options would regularly be available. They should also be invited to create a storyline showing the expected developments over time, to gain an understanding of the prerequisites for specific developments to take place. 
4. The facilitator(s) conducting the roadmapping interviews should collect all the information on post-it notes to allow easy reconfiguring of the storyline during the interview. 
5. For these roadmapping interviews, the requested areas of expertise are not specifically their own innovation strategies, but rather their knowledge of important developments in their own fields. The Roadmapping method inspires the experts to use their knowledge to indicate the available options in the shorter and longer term, and to describe the potential developments over time. 
6. For the next step of this tool, the general roadmap is developed. The collected information from the desk study and the roadmapping interviews are used in an expert meeting to identify the most relevant topics. A timeline is created for each of them, showing when relevant options would become available on the path to meet the cities’ needs. All the results of the interviews are used to make a rich summary of the steps on the timeline. A maximum of 15 relevant future options is described for each topic, together with a short title and explanation and where possible including an example. 
7. For the last step of the tool, the general roadmaps of the 3 focus areas should be aligned. In a cross-theme expert meeting the timelines for Smart Buildings, Smart Mobility and Smart Urban Spaces were aligned to gain an understanding of the interlinking areas and potential options across several focus areas.

Sources and references

• UNALAB KIT

Supporting files

SOAR Analysis Miro Template

Required Materials

• SOAR Analysis Template printed in A0 or online
• post-its
• pens
• markers

Tips and limitations

It is suggested to allocate 1/2 day for facilitating this tool. >The ability to give a specific point value to certain objectives is rather subjective. Keep this in mind, and make sure that the group is working in a cohesive way. In case of smaller working groups, make sure you allocate time at the end of the activity, for group reflection and getting consensus among all the participants, with regards to the final results.

Instructions

1. If the SWOT Analysis has not done before this tool, the participants for the first step are asked to identify the strengths of the group, in relation to the topic/issue at hand (internal environment) and also the Opportunities in relation to the development of the project (external environment). If this has already been done in a previous SWOT Activity, then summarize for the participants the results from SWOT and provide an overview before proceeding to the next step.                   

2. After identifying the Strengths and Opportunities, the participant are asked to step back and review those two lists together, in order to make sure that everything they find important is identified and depicted in the lists.                                                                                                         

3. At this point, the participants are asked to brainstorm upon their Aspirations, what they would want to achieve in the future. It is important for this step to encourage the participants to keep referring to the previously identified Opportunities and Strengths. 

4. Moving to the R part of the Analysis, the participants are asked to explore how they will be able to measure success. This step is related to the metrics that can be used in order to realize the strategy. Again, it is important for this step to encourage the participants to keep referring to the previous step and the identified aspirations. 

Sources and references

• Tools Hero