This document discusses challenges in workforce development and proposes using an approach called Strategic Doing to design complex workforce collaborations. It outlines how Strategic Doing uses simple rules to manage complexity within open, loosely connected networks. Examples are given of how Strategic Doing workshops have enabled rapid scaling of collaborations across different organizations and regions. The document concludes by recommending Indiana create regional collaboration platforms that utilize an open source operating system to accelerate workforce development partnerships through a shared approach of learning by doing.

1. Jumping the Curve in
Workforce Development
Ed Morrison

2. The Wicked Challenges
Workforce Development
Some Next Steps
for Indiana
Agenda
Designing Complex
Workforce Collaborations

3. The Wicked Challenges of
Workforce Development

4. What is
going on?

5. We have been treating an adaptive
challenge as a technical problem
Technical Problems Adaptive Challenges

7. How could we
reduce teenage
homicides?

8. How do we develop a roadmap for
condition-based maintenance?

9. How do we make
space life science
research more
productive?

10. How could we transform engineering
education at 50 universities?

11. How could we reduce maternal mortality
in New Jersey?

12. Adaptive challenges involving invisible
networks with no clear solutions

13. It’s not rocket science…it’s more like
molecular biology

14. K through 12
Dependency
Cycle
Career
Entry
level
Working
poor
$10.00
per hour
2 Years of
College
Certifications
4 Years of
College
Pre-
K
Unemployed
Brainpower flows through a regional
economy

15. We are not trying to fix old systems

16. We are
designing
what’s next…
Agile Strategy Lab
School of Engineering
Technology

17. What’s next: Open innovation in workforce
development

18. Organization A Organization B
Organization C
New collaboration platforms can manage
complexity with simple rules

19. Designing Complex
Workforce Collaborations

21. 21
Strategic Doing is a strategy discipline
designed for open, loosely connected
networks

22. 22
Strategic Doing is an open source
operating system for collaborations
and ecosystems.

24. The best methodology I
have seen in 20 years.
Paul Collits, PhD
Former President
Australia New Zealand
Regional Science Association

25. Strategic Doing
Workshops

26. 1,800+ learners from 125 countries

28. Organizations need to jump the S-Curve

29. Strategic Doing speeds the jump

30. “Transform your
Workforce System”
The federal government

31. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
Money
Results
With 8% of the money…
40% of the national results

32. 0
7,500
15,000
22,500
30,000
Began Training Completed Training Degrees/Certificates
Goal Result
2.7 X
2.9 X
2.7 X
Result: Dramatic increases
in productivity

33. We can
accelerate
collaboration
with a shared
discipline of
“learning by
doing”

34. Collaborations
that are
replicable,
scalable and
sustainable

35. Northern Illinois University:
Aviation Technology Pathway Model

36. DC: Training at scale: 700+ Employees

37. Meet Ubaldo Cordova

38. UPRM E-Ship
Network
Ubaldo Cordova’s Partners

39. Ubaldo

40. Two people…
…organized a
team of 6
faculty to travel
to Puerto
Rico…
…to teach 40 people
the skills of Strategic Doing
over 2.5 days
Then in 6 hours
10 graduates…
…guided 60 civic leaders to
design 7 complex
collaborations, each with a
strategic action plan.
1 Month 1 Week
When people follow a strategy
discipline of simple rules,
networks can scale quickly

41. Colorado State University is replicating our
workforce model across the state

42. “Collaboration
is a fundamental
skill in culture.”
Yo-Yo Ma

43. Some Next Steps for Indiana

44. Create regional
collaboration
platforms

45. Use an open
source
operating
system to
accelerate
collaborations

46. Thank you
edmorrison@purdue.edu