What the heck is strategy work?46 days beforeI am realizing that I’ve been gabbing on and on about strategy…Dandelions and Elephants, Illustrated

Adult Development Primer2020Over Thanksgiving break, I wrote another one of those flip-through decks. It’s…Over the holiday break, I made a thing for you to enjoy. It’s an illustrated deck, similar to the one I’d done for Adult Development Theory. It’s about Dandelions and Elephants:

https://glazkov.com/dandelions-and-elephants-deck

Dandelion or Elephant?2022The discovery of the dandelion/elephant framing was exciting and my fellow FLUX…Dandelion/Elephant Strategy Rubric2022For the environments where the shape is well-known, with no new space…

The Four Needs Framework2020The stories we tell ourselves shape how we see the world around…Unlike other framings and lenses that I had come up with along my path through 2022, this one was by far the most resonant and interesting. I still get new insights from studying it. This deck is an invitation for you to do the same. I tried to write it as concisely as possible, yet leave enough room for nuance – and of course, a lot of room for further exploration.

The deck is meant to be consumed at your own pace, and some slides are denser than others. I think of it as a kind of holiday treat tin: some items are rich truffles and some are one-bite wafers. Give it a try.

The deck consists of four chapters. The first chapter introduces the dandelions and elephants framing, roughly following my exploration from earlier in 2022.

Generating ideas and strategy coherence2022I’ve been talking about dandelions and elephants for a while now, and…The second chapter zooms out our perspective, asking a larger question: what makes up environments that lead to dandelions or elephant idea formation?

Normative, Informative and Generative Voices2022Within this lens, the constant struggle between the two – and the…The third chapter expands on the idea of tensions that I mentioned in my writing, and tries to make a more cogent argument about the forces that tend to batter us when we engage in persistent idea generation.

Asymptotes and Value Niches2023I have been thinking lately about a framing that would help clarify…The final fourth chapter ties the framing to pace layers. This one probably has the most new ideas that I haven’t expressed elsewhere, or ideas that I’ve talked about but haven’t connected to the original framing.

Stages of project forking2023I’ve been thinking recently about how to design an open source project,…No ship umsfive days afterI’ve been thinking about the path that software dandelions take toward becoming…Throughout, I tried to use concrete examples to ground the ideas. I recognize that the concepts might still feel somewhat abstract, especially outside of the software and organizational development situations that I’ve described. So here’s another invitation: if you’re curious about the concepts, but are struggling to apply them in your particular environment, please drop me a note. My email is at the end of the deck. I’d love to hear from you.