More takeaways from The Strategy Design Festival

In the first post from the Strategy Design Festival, we argued that strategy is a verb, not a document. In the second, we suggested that most “theories of change” are really untested stories, and offered ways to turn them into living hypotheses. In the third, we made the case that strategy is ALWAYS about power, especially the power dynamics inside organisations.

This piece zooms in on the most practical thread of all: how to keep strategy alive in the organisational day-to-day, instead of watching it quietly slide back onto the shelf.

Why strategy dies between meetings

At the Festival, one phrase kept surfacing in different sessions: “We don’t need another strategy that sits on a shelf.” People weren’t saying that strategy is pointless; they were saying that the way we usually hold strategy doesn’t match how work actually happens.

A few patterns showed up again and again:

Strategies get developed in big bursts, away‑days, consultant‑led processes, board retreats, and then barely revisited until the next big cycle. Daily work moves on, and the document stays where it was last saved, unopened.
Plans are over‑engineered and under‑used: lots of priorities, indicators and workstreams, but no simple way to connect them to Tuesday afternoon choices. Staff don’t have time, headspace or permission to keep referring back.
Strategy “lives” with a small group, usually senior leaders or a project team, while everyone else implements. When pressure hits, people understandably fall back to local priorities and firefighting.

The result is a familiar split: strategy sessions feel energising, but the everyday work feels the same. The question is less “How do we write a better strategy?” and more “What rhythms would let strategy keep breathing between meetings?”

Principles for keeping strategy alive

Focusing on a few clear principles can help keep strategy active and relevant, making it easier for teams to stay engaged and aligned.

Little and often beats big and rare. A short, well‑held monthly conversation about 2–3 strategic questions will do more for your organisation than an annual away‑day that nobody revisits.
Make sure your strategy rhythms directly influence decisions, so staff see their daily choices as part of the bigger picture.
Treat implementation as a staff‑owned function. When staff see their role as vital to strategy, they’ll feel empowered and more committed to keeping it alive. Design rhythms with their input, not just handed to them.
Tap into aspiration, not just obligation. When staff see how their daily work connects to a shared vision of success, they’ll feel motivated and more engaged in keeping strategy alive.

In the rest of this post, we’ll share a few lightweight practices that help with that.

Four simple rhythms to keep strategy alive and real

You can adapt these to whatever cadence and format fits your organisation. The point is not to copy them perfectly, but to have something that keeps strategy in the conversation.

1. Monthly strategy huddles

Use monthly strategy huddles to reinforce ongoing engagement with strategic questions, ensuring strategy stays part of daily work.

A simple agenda might be:

What’s changed in our context since last month?
What did we try, and what did we learn?
Given our strategy, what do we need to start, stop or adjust next month?

Keep it light on slides and heavy on conversation. The test is whether people leave clearer about how their next few weeks of work connect to the bigger direction.

2. Decision tests on your task list

Turn your strategy and theory of change into 3–5 “decision tests” you can apply to new requests and ongoing work.

For example:

Does this move us towards one of our strategic priorities?
Does it align with our theory of change about how we create impact?
Does it reinforce or challenge the power dynamics we’re trying to shift?

Encourage staff to use these questions when shaping their own task lists and when saying “no” (or “not now”) to work that doesn’t fit. Over time, this builds a shared habit of implementation as a staff function, not just a leadership concern.

3. Aspirational check‑ins every six months

Twice a year, invite staff to name their own hopes and dreams for the next 6–12 months, in relation to the organisation’s strategy. This can be as simple as asking everyone:

“Looking ahead six months, what would ‘success’ feel like in your part of the work?”
“What do you hope we’ll be able to say we achieved together?”

Capture those aspirations and make them visible. Then, six months later, revisit them and ask:

“Have we achieved our dreams? Why or why not?”
“What did we learn about our strategy and our context from that?”
“Given that, what needs to change in our plans for the next six months?”

This doesn’t replace formal planning, but it grounds strategy in staff aspiration and lived experience. It also creates a built‑in learning loop: people see themselves as contributors to the strategy, not just implementers of someone else’s plan.

4. Regular stress‑tests against shocks

Every quarter, take 30–45 minutes in an existing meeting to stress‑test one part of your strategy against a plausible shock: a funding cut, a political shift, staff turnover, or backlash.

Ask:

“If this happened, what would break first?”
“What would we protect at all costs?”
“What would we need to change quickly?”

This keeps strategy connected to reality and surfaces risks and power questions before you’re in full crisis mode.

Common pitfalls to watch for

Even well‑designed rhythms can quietly drift back into old habits. A few traps to watch for:

Turning rhythms into more bureaucracy. If your huddles and check‑ins feel like extra reporting rather than helping people make better choices, they’ll die quickly. Keep them focused on decisions and learning, not status updates.
Overloading the agenda. Trying to cover every project and indicator in each meeting is a fast way to exhaust people. It’s better to go deep on one or two strategic questions than skim over everything.
Ignoring power and burnout signals. If the same voices dominate every conversation, or staff are consistently too stretched to engage, that’s data. It may mean your rhythms are exposing power imbalances and overload that need attention, not more discipline.

The point isn’t to run the “perfect” process. It’s about creating enough regular, honest touchpoints that the strategy can keep evolving with your people and your context.

How we’ll work on this in the Strategy Design Cohort

If you recognise these gaps in your own organisation – energising strategy meetings followed by business as usual – you’re not alone. They’re exactly what we’ll be working on in the Strategy Design: a cohort for civil society leaders – a 6‑session online programme for NGOs, charities and civil society organisations who want strategy to be a shared, day‑to‑day practice.

In the cohort, we’ll take your real context and:

Turn your theory of change into simple decision tests staff can use on their own task lists.
Design strategy huddles, learning loops and stress‑tests that fit your capacity and culture.
Build in power‑aware “checks” so these rhythms support staff rather than burning them out.

If this is a live issue for you, this post can be a starting point for conversations with your team: which one or two rhythms could you try over the next three months, and what would “success” look like if they worked?

If this post resonates, join the Strategy Design Cohort

In the next (and final) post in this series, we’ll turn to the other thread that surfaced strongly at the Festival: why people don’t just want tools, they want peers, and what that means for how we support each other to do strategy in practice.

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