Strategy - what is the top storyline? And what is the Portfolio/Enterprise Story.

[mortenelvang]

The inner making of strategy is very well explained with inspiration from Dave Snowden's Cynefin, Roger L Martin's PTW and Tom Gilb's Strategy Ring based on his work on EVO and Value Engineering. See the SGEP section on strategy: https://scrumexpansion.org/scrum-guide-expansion-pack/#emergent-strategy

I suggest that the overall strategy story can be broadened:

1. The agile ambition is to achieve a state of liquidity at the enterprise level - the power and freedom to flow with opportunity. Opportunity being the ultimate constraint.
2. A chosen strategy guides a portfolio and the job of the portfolio is a healthy cost/revenue/load/risk balance.
3. Strategy is the active element and needs to be intentful. In this sense you can talk about a generative approach to strategy navigating tension and surprise as they emerge and keeping the portfolio on strategy.
4. At the heart is SCRUM and the aggregation of SCRUM teams into portfolios (or networks) of shared interests.
5. Using the ideas from Kotters XLR8 this can them be a complete view of an enterprise - the liquid, strategy-led organization.

These ideas are explained here: www.tinyurl.com/liquidorg.

A recent LinkedIn blog gives some context: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mortenelvang_leadwithstrategy-liquidorg-futureofwork-activity-7337084141559017472-qHwh.

Happy to work with whoever is interested in this.

[ViralGoodAgile]

Thank you, Morten. I'm looking forward to chatting with you on a call about this and exploring that section of the document. It's a tightrope walk to maintain coherence on emergent strategy, guided by the work of Martin, Gilb, and Snowden but also Rumelt and Mintzberg. It's a case of it depends.

[mortenelvang]

Likewise John! Looking forward to the conversation.

For everyone - a chance to understand and debate - Meetup July 1st at 5PM CET - www.meetup.com/agilestrategy - now you can view the recording: https://youtu.be/Fj_CXlPYNUE?si=DGiz8FJs-4pF7Tvv

[ViralGoodAgile]

Hi @mortenelvang - as agreed during our Google Meet call the other day, @rjocham and I are reviewing your work.

For now, we agree to the following in the September 20205 update:

• addition of the word 'generative', as that is already part of the related thinking at evolved.institute anyway
• addition of consideration for 'possibilities' (we already mentioned 'opportunity' to counter-balance 'problems' many times), as possibilities foster enthusiasm and excitement
• We consulted John Kotter for the people and change section already, and don't see how adding that to the strategy section adds value
• We don't want to reinvent the wheel with portfolio management, but we're to referring to ideas out there (in addition to scaling, product operating models) and include specific examples in the references

Looking forward to meeting you again soon on a call to discuss your work... Ralph would love to be included.

[mortenelvang]

Hi John @ViralGoodAgile, happy to contribute any way I can and looking forward to the next talk. Ralph, looking forward to meeting you too.
. On Kotter we probably have a misunderstanding - let's talk. I'm after the org dynamics.
. Agile portfolio approaches tend to focus on 'flow' and miss the point of 'risk balancing' as the main job of the portfolio. Taking this view keeps you clear on a lot of ordered world efficiency thinking - and as portfolio mgmt literally is stratex its hard to completely exclude if you are interested in the dynamics.
. Like we discussed, I believe you do not need to distinguish ordered/unordered like you now do.

[mortenelvang]

Hi John @ViralGoodAgile, a further reflection and suggestion for a bit of pivot. Scrum is very much about the daily dynamics - how do we build a stronger presence of strategy into the daily loops? And how does that then integrate with the wider organization? A suggestion: rather than seeing strategy as upstream of Scrum or emerging from it, we can position strategy as a continuous, integrative language - a middle-out connective integration mechanism across leadership, teams, and delivery. Not a phase. Not a plan. A shared conversation about direction, coherence, and choices. Looking forward to the conversation.

[mortenelvang]

Here's a quick shot at a new line of thought:

Strategy: A Language of Integration in Scrum
Scrum thrives in complex environments where alignment cannot rely on detailed plans. Instead, strategy becomes the shared language that integrates teams, contexts, and actions.

It’s not about grand strategic documents—it’s about creating a common vocabulary of intent, priorities, and focus that connects:

Teams with each other,

Teams with leadership,

Teams with their evolving environment.

Strategy as a Language Means:
Clarity of Intent: Product Goals, Sprint Goals, and Backlog Items are not just tasks—they express strategic choices.

Alignment Through Dialogue: Strategy is not handed down; it is continuously negotiated and clarified through Sprint Reviews, cross-team syncs, and daily interactions.

Fitness for purpose: ...

Integration Across Contexts: When teams speak the same strategic language, they can navigate dependencies, trade-offs, and shared objectives without waiting for centralized control.

Why It Matters:
In Scrum, work is distributed but purpose must be shared.

Strategy, as a language, allows teams autonomy to act and to self-organize while staying aligned.

It reduces friction between teams, eliminates the “lost in translation” problem, and ensures that even as plans change, direction stays coherent.

The Real Strategy Work in Scrum:
It’s not in documents—it’s in the conversations that align people’s understanding of what matters now and next.