CASES · STRATEGY
Strategy process in a municipal economic affairs department
The Department for Economic Affairs, Labour and Digitalisation of the City of Leipzig was pursuing a large number of projects and initiatives — but so far without a shared strategic frame. The aim was to develop a clear positioning from them, set priorities and align the various activities on a common direction.
The engagement
- Client City of Leipzig
- Sector Public administration
- Period 2024 – 2025
- Service Strategy development
- Format 8 workshops
THE PROCESS
From target picture to implementation
1 The process
One option is no option.
We built the strategy development along the logic of the strategy loop. The starting points were stakeholder expectations and future challenges, which we condensed into strategic fields of action. We then developed three different strategic options for how those fields could be prioritised, focused and connected with one another.
2 THE SOUNDING BOARD
Perspectives from inside and outside.
The three strategic options were tested with staff of the department, with other parts of the administration and with external stakeholders. The responses supplied additional perspectives and concrete criteria for the decision. What emerged was a clear strategic position: By 2035 Leipzig will be financially independent.
3 Steering
OKR as strategic steering.
After the strategy had been developed, the question of implementation arose: how can the new direction be translated into everyday work so that it actually influences decisions, priorities and collaboration? For that we introduced an OKR logic adapted to public administration — as the connecting frame between strategic position and operational work.
Alongside it, a set of central KPIs and a dashboard that makes progress and effect visible at regular intervals and open to joint assessment.
FROM THE WORK
Insight
Participant feedback
“You are known for clarity — and I think that does us good.”
Clemens Schülke, Head of the Department for Economic Affairs, Labour and Digitalisation, City of Leipzig (translated)
A systemic reading
At the outset there was a worry that a shared strategic goal might constrain the interests of individual units. Over the course of the work, that increasingly gave way to an appetite for a common direction. Not because all interests suddenly coincided, but because the leadership group kept investing time in negotiating differences, taking decisions and stabilising the shared position.
Dr. Jonas Asendorpf
LET’S TALK