Addressing Complex and Cross-Boundary Challenges in Government: The Value of Strategy Mapping

These types of challenges run the gamut from the pandemic to economic dislocation, homelessness, and natural and manmade disasters. These major crises have complex causes, and the resources needed to properly address them often transcend the capacity of any single government agency. Addressing these challenges effectively requires what the National Academy of Public Administration calls “new approaches to public governance and engagement.” Such approaches necessitate collaboration or co-alignment across the efforts of multiple organizations.

This report describes strategy management-at-scale, an approach to enable planning that addresses the major challenges facing governments at all levels. Integral to this approach is the use of collaborative strategy mapping—an invaluable leadership and management method to foster direction, alignment, and commitment. Strategy mapping helps leaders understand needed system changes, and to articulate needed interventions. Strategy mapping helps users visualize the cause-and-effect chains in a system and the actions that can be taken to introduce reforms—linking aspirations with capabilities.

To highlight these links, the report offers three case examples of coalitions that used strategy mapping for different purposes and to different effect. While the primary purpose of the strategy mapping efforts varies across the cases, each example illustrates that by using a few simple rules to formulate statements and creating links, causal maps help reveal relevant values, possible goals and strategies, and specific tactics and actions.

Along with describing how strategy mapping works in practice, this report highlights the benefits of this approach. The authors offer insights into how best to implement strategy mapping, leveraging available technology to help scale the application and use of the tool. The report culminates with recommendations and advice on how to start doing strategy management-at-scale by using strategy mapping.

This report builds on the IBM Center’s long-standing research into leveraging new tools and approaches to governance that better position government agencies to address complex challenges that cross or transcend traditional agency boundaries. The report provides practical recommendations on how governments can work with each other and with partners to leverage strategy management at scale and use strategy mapping to address complex, boundary-spanning problems.