THE STRATEGIC SANDBOX

What is Strategic Doing?

What is Strategic Doing?

Strategic Doing is a discipline of strategy designed for today’s complex, interconnected world. Unlike traditional strategic planning, which relies on rigid structures and top-down directives, Strategic Doing is a flexible, agile methodology that enables groups to collaborate effectively, even in uncertain environments.

Developed at Purdue University, Strategic Doing has now spread across the globe, practiced in over 140 countries by businesses, governments, universities, and communities. It is especially powerful for addressing "wicked problems"—challenges that are too complex for any one organization or sector to solve alone.

At its core, Strategic Doing helps individuals and organizations harness their existing resources, linking and leveraging them to create new opportunities. It provides a structured yet adaptive framework for designing and guiding complex collaborations, allowing teams to move quickly from ideas to action.

To navigate complexity and drive impact, Strategic Doing is built around four core questions that guide decision-making and execution:

1. What could we do? – Exploring possibilities by identifying assets, opportunities, and potential collaborations.
2. What should we do? – Narrowing the focus to the most promising opportunities that align with shared values and goals.
3. What will we do? – Committing to specific, practical actions that can be implemented immediately.
4. What is our 30-30? – Establishing a cycle of rapid progress reviews every 30 days to assess progress, adjust, and sustain momentum.

This approach fosters trust, accelerates innovation, and produces measurable outcomes. It aligns with ideation techniques and appreciative inquiry, ensuring that collaboration leads to tangible, sustainable results. By focusing on action and impact, Strategic Doing equips teams to navigate complexity with agility, making it an essential tool for today’s fast-changing world.

The Strategic Sandbox can guide a Strategic Doing Workshop/Conversation that at the end of three hours you will have multiple strategic action plans ready to go that address the challenges and objectives of your organization.
The Strategic Doing Practitioner Training is a 12-hour training that will teach how to run a workshop and open the door to becoming a certified workshop leader within the Strategic Doing Institute.

Dates and location of the next Strategic Doing Practitioner Training:

Strategic Doing Practitioners' Training via ZOOM & in person can be brought to your team. Email me at brian@thestrategicsandbox.com to talk in more detail. A training is in the works to be scheduled soon, TBA.

Strategic Doing

Who Could Benefit?

Anyone working in a collaborative setting—whether in a civic organization, community, economic region, or business—can benefit from Strategic Doing. If you need to effectively navigate complexity with agility, build trust, and accelerate action, this approach provides a clear framework to move from talk to results.

Strategic Doing is for professionals who:

• Need a structured yet flexible approach to solving complex problems.
• Want to seize emerging opportunities with speed and precision.
• Struggle with collaboration and advancing initiatives effectively.
• Seek to foster innovation without rigid, time-consuming processes.
• Are frustrated with traditional strategic planning that delays execution.

If you're ready to lead change and drive impact, attend our Strategic Doing Practitioners' Training and become the catalyst for transformation in your organization or community. 

Guiding a Strategic Doing Conversation

Guiding a Strategic Doing Conversation/Workshop

The Strategic Sandbox facilitates Strategic Doing Conversations and Workshops for organizations and communities seeking a smarter, more action-oriented approach to strategy. If you want to move beyond traditional planning that delays execution, Strategic Doing provides a fast, agile framework to develop strategic action plans—ready for immediate implementation.

Why Choose Strategic Doing?

• Replaces rigid strategic planning with a flexible, results-driven process.
• Meets strategic planning standards for accredited organizations such as CARF.
• Engages stakeholders in collaborative problem-solving and decision-making.
• Works seamlessly in organizational and community development—for businesses, nonprofits, civic groups, and government entities.
• A three-hour workshop is able to craft multiple strategic action plans ready to implement.

Let’s move strategy forward—faster and with impact. Contact The Strategic Sandbox to explore how we can guide your team through a Strategic Doing Conversation and create real, measurable change.

Email or call the Strategic Sandbox to explore how we can lead a strategy conversation

and work together to create change and prosperity. 

How Strategic Doing Works?

Strategic Doing is a new way of thinking, behaving, and doing.1  It works with the resources that civic, industry, and business professionals bring to the table. Through linking and leveraging, we create new opportunities to address the challenges at hand. Strategic Doing works in collaboratives/networks with agility, using a quick and systematic methodology to create action. 

Strategic Doing focuses on two higher-level questions of strategy, “Where are we going” and “How are we going to get there?”  

“Where are we going” establishes outcomes that all parties agree on to address the challenge at hand, by walking through two process questions:

• What could we do together?

• What should we do together?

In answering the question, what could we do together? We identify the assets that team members are willing to share to create new strategic opportunities. These assets are then linked and leveraged to brainstorm new ideas/strategic opportunities and move the team into new directions. What should we do together? We will teach you how to narrow the brainstormed opportunities to the one, tangible, and impactful Big Easy project, with outcomes to measure success.  

The second higher-level question, “how are we going to get there” advances two more process questions:

• What will we do together?

• What is our 30/30?

What will we do together will teach you how to move your plan into rapid action by developing a pathfinder project, and a short-term action plan that includes everyone pitching in. What is our 30/30, will teach you how to set a learning loop to build engagement, accountability, and continuous action towards achievement. 

Strategic Doing makes achieving strategy an agile, systematic, and iterative process by moving through 30-day cycles of think-do, think-do. 

An Introduction to Strategic Doing

This is a great way to open you team to approaching strategic thinking using a proven agile tool, Strategic Doing. Your team will experience a “workshop-style” game using a realistic scenario of a community with some wicked complex problems.

The four-hour workshop will expose your team to the key steps within Strategic Doing-“what could we do,” “what should we do,” “what will we do, ‘ and “what is our 30/30?” It is a faced-paced, fun learning experience that will shift your thinking about strategic planning.

This is a great workshop for leadership academies, organizational retreats, or conferences. Call or email for more information and pricing.

Agile Strategy 101

Performance Excellence

Walk the Wall Coaching

A one- to three-day retreat to expose your organization to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria (https://www.nist.gov/baldrige) by doing a high-level crosswalk of the Criteria in relation to your organization’s practices as they stand now and develop a pathway for improvement to begin your performance excellence journey.

The retreat will work with your leadership team in an interactive learning approach that will highly engage everyone at the table. Everyone participates. Call or email for more information and pricing.