We are now less than 100 days from the start of 2023. It’s an exciting time for many as they’ll be ready to hit go on their annual strategic plans. For many companies and organisations, their plans will focus on the pivot from Business as Unusual to Business as Usual.
Whatever the strategy, the BETTER FUTURE WILD Speed Expedition model can maximise your team’s talent, drive innovation and provide informed context. The model serves to help tackle the big agendas within a framework that allows WILD ideas and growth but also helps to keep the team on a timeline with a structure to leverage.
The WILD Speed Expedition model consists of 5 key events; Zero Day, Formation Day, Horizon 1, Horizon 2, and Horizon 3. Over these days, 15-25 sprint sessions enable teams to explore and resolve issues and questions and focus participants on the overall expedition objective.
The Expedition’s participatory model is both agile and sensitive: identifying signals and knowledge to expand and refine the outcome at each horizon. The model uses a 100-day time frame as it keeps the pace up while not overwhelming the team but nurturing a substantial focus.
So let’s walk through how we do it practically. We're currently in the middle of a WILD Speed Expedition for the BETTER FUTURE 2023 and beyond Award Programs:
Zero Day
We determined an objective to ensure we took an innovative/evolutional lens to the existing awards programs. We established there were additional opportunities to shine a spotlight on the projects that accelerate our shift to a better future. It wasn’t a small conversation; it took 3-4 hours to explore and work out the right paths to explore and what not to spend time on. From this, we developed a roadmap that took us out to 2028 and 10x growth in the awards programs – true WILD SPEED.
Formation Day – Day 10
We knew what to explore and who we needed to have on the expedition to help us get the best insights and resolution for the objective. We named the team and their specialist roles on the expedition; the expedition leader, expedition reporter, and experts needed to get detailed knowledge. This was an internal process and a subject area we were familiar with, so we didn’t envisage the need for a futures coach. (Other expeditions that stretch the team can be served by using futures coaching to keep the process at the edge between possible and impossible, credible and incredible).
Horizon 1 – Day 40
Our first challenge was to take a deep look at which awards programs should stay as capital programs, and which should be reconfigured into a regional awards program. The decision in Australia was to keep the Melbourne and Sydney awards programs as awards capital programs, representing around 50% of the Australian population. The decision was then made to create a regional awards program that picks up the other 50% - including Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and beyond.
In 2021 we had to tackle market issues as Hong Kong shifted to being part of the Greater Bay Area; this includes 9 mega cities and 71m people (against Hong Kong's 7.5m). By upgrading the program from an awards capital to a regional program, we could shine a brighter spotlight on what’s driving change in a significant global market.
Horizon 2 – Day 70
The shift in the Australian market freed up a slot for a new awards program. Our second horizon was to explore global regions and see which would be the next-best served. We found the best candidate was the Norden region, thus the NORDEN Design Awards. (Norden is a term familiar to people in and around Scandinavia including Finland, Estonia, the Faroe Islands and Iceland.)
These countries represent a forward-thinking and innovation-focused approach. They are all about a strong economy, a sustainable environment and social equity. A full alignment to the BETTER FUTURE Values, making them the best candidate.
Horizon 3 – Day 100
Our task will be to complete the roadmap, establish the 2023 & 2024 programs, create artwork for the programs, and begin building the community. We have done this more than 15 times over the last 15 years – so it’s a well-developed rollout plan. Our final steps will be to share that knowledge, communicate the roadmap and allow our community an opportunity to plan, leverage and accelerate their recognition strategies based on our expanding programs.
Sharing ideas, methods, and plans is how we accelerate to a BETTER FUTURE. I hope you have been able to pick up some techniques that will help you to accelerate to WILD SPEED for 2023 and beyond. For more information contact:
Mark Bergin
Mark@BetterFuture.Design
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