About

a new way of working together
We believe that you don’t need to spend 2 years and $2mm to create a strategy. We understand the pressure and we bring objective inclusive processes to break a strategy down into digestible goals. We’ve created a platform for accelerating outcomes for complex organizations like yours.


strategy + continuum = stratuum
collaborative and agile strategy design
What we used to do in person around a boardroom table can also be done remotely. With the right framework, the right set of tools and the right mindset there is no reason to slow down. At stratuum we offer many ways to collaborate and drive change. The more change we deliver the bigger we build a community of change agents that can build a better planet.

the stratuum experience
let’s think big
The stratuum process is separated into two portions and here we focus on unlearn. Most organizations come in a Step 5 in the process. From there you need to decide whether you go left toward business models and purpose or, you go right toward problem framing and generating possibilities
let’s start small
The stratuum process is separated into two portions and here we focus on learn. The [strategically aligned] possibilities that were identified in unlearn provide a choice for moving forward. Identifying what would have to be true lends itself to surfacing the most critical hypothesis that need to be tested. Using outcomes and metrics as a basis for observation allows us to test-and-learn.

books that inspire us
There has been a long preoccupation in America with being fast and being the best. But could it be possible that winning (or advancing) at all costs is killing us? More than 50 percent of US employees would trust a complete stranger over this boss; heart attach rates are highest on Monday mornings; the United States is the world leader in anti-depressant medication; and more than two-thirds of US employees experience a lack of connection or inspiration in their workplace. Misery festers in a space where Americans spend half their waking day. Simply put, something is broken.

As companies evolve to adopt, integrate, and leverage software as the defining element of their success in the 21st century, a rash of processes and methodologies are vying for their product teams' attention. In the worst of cases, each discipline on these teams -- product management, design, and software engineering -- learns a different model. This short, tactical book reconciles the perceived differences in Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and Agile software development by focusing not on rituals and practices but on the values that underpin all three methods.

Everyone in the enterprise has an impact on SG&A expenses. From your salary, to the office supplies you use, to the travel you take on behalf of the company. It’s everyone’s job to help maintain and control these expenses. This booklet gives a background on SG&A performance management and explains some approaches to managing the impact that SG&A expenses can have in the organization. To that end, it will be especially useful for anyone in Finance, I.T. and business management – at all functions and layers of the organization. Hopefully, some of the ideas and approaches in this booklet will help you do your best thinking around optimizing SG&A expenses.

In 2009, Simon Sinek started a movement to help people become more inspired at work, and in turn inspire their colleagues and customers. Since then, millions have been touched by the power of his ideas, including more than 28 million who’ve watched his TED Talk based on START WITH WHY. Sinek starts with a fundamental question: Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?

You’ll never see leadership the same way again after reading this book. These fifteen commitments are a distillation of decades of work with CEOs and other leaders. They are radical or provocative for many. They have been game changers for us and for our clients. We trust that they will be for you too. Our experience is that unconscious leadership is not sustainable. It won’t work for you, your team or your organization in the long term. Unconscious leadership can deliver short term results, but the costs of living and leading unconsciously are great. What do you need to bring to the table? Be curious. Sounds so simple, and yet in our experience it’s a skill few have mastered. Most of us are far more interested in being right and proving it, than we are in learning, growing and shifting out of our old patterns. By default we gravitate towards the familiar. We’re asking you to take a chance and explore the unfamiliar. You’ll get scared and reactive. We all do. So what? Just stay curious and let us introduce you to a whole new world of leadership.

The Balanced Scorecard translates a company's vision and strategy into a coherent set of performance measures. The four perspectives of the scorecard--financial measures, customer knowledge, internal business processes, and learning and growth--offer a balance between short-term and long-term objectives, between outcomes desired and performance drivers of those outcomes, and between hard objective measures and softer, more subjective measures. In the first part, Kaplan and Norton provide the theoretical foundations for the Balanced Scorecard; in the second part, they describe the steps organizations must take to build their own Scorecards; and, finally, they discuss how the Balanced Scorecard can be used as a driver of change.

Why do successful companies reward failure? What can casinos teach us about building a happy workplace? How do you design an office that enhances both attention to detail and creativity? The Best Place to Work uses the latest research from the fields of motivation, creativity, behavioral economics, neuroscience, and management to reveal what really makes us successful at work. Combining powerful stories with cutting edge findings, Friedman shows leaders at every level how they can use scientifically-proven techniques to promote smarter thinking, greater innovation, and stronger performance. Brimming with counterintuitive insights and actionable recommendations, The Best Place to Work offers employees and executives alike game-changing advice for working smarter and turning any organization—regardless of its size, budgets, or ambitions—into an extraordinary workplace.

While human lives are endlessly variable, our most memorable positive moments are dominated by four elements: elevation, insight, pride, and connection. If we embrace these elements, we can conjure more moments that matter. What if a teacher could design a lesson that he knew his students would remember twenty years later? What if a manager knew how to create an experience that would delight customers? What if you had a better sense of how to create memories that matter for your children? Many of the defining moments in our lives are the result of accident or luck—but why would we leave our most meaningful, memorable moments to chance when we can create them? The Power of Moments shows us how to be the author of richer experiences.

Why an organization's response to digital disruption should focus on people and processes and not necessarily on technology. Digital technologies are disrupting organizations of every size and shape, leaving managers scrambling to find a technology fix that will help their organizations compete. This book offers managers and business leaders a guide for surviving digital disruptions—but it is not a book about technology. It is about the organizational changes required to harness the power of technology. The authors argue that digital disruption is primarily about people and that effective digital transformation involves changes to organizational dynamics and how work gets done. A focus only on selecting and implementing the right digital technologies is not likely to lead to success. The best way to respond to digital disruption is by changing the company culture to be more agile, risk tolerant, and experimental. Digital disruption won't end anytime soon; the average worker will probably experience numerous waves of disruption during the course of a career. The insights offered by The Technology Fallacy will hold true through them all.

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. This vital and beautiful book deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’. Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

The Wisdom of Teams is the definitive work on how to create high-performance teams in any organization. Teams should be the basic unit of organization for most businesses has permanently shaped the way companies reach the highest levels of performance. Using engaging case studies and testimonials from both successful and failed teams—ranging from Fortune 500 companies to the U.S. Army to high school sports—the authors explain the dynamics of teams both in great detail and with a broad view. Their conclusions and prescriptions span the familiar to the counterintuitive. Wisdom lies in recognizing a team’s unique potential to deliver results and in understanding its many benefits—development of individual members, team accomplishments, and stronger companywide performance.


inspiration for the strategy continuum
About
Choosing what to do—and what not to do—is the definition of strategy. In this course, you’ll learn a process that will help you create and take action on a strategy for your business, team, or organization. You’ll follow repeatable steps that are both human-centered and business-focused. By combining rigor and creativity, you can both analyze the world as it is and imagine how it could be better. Course Outcomes include:
• Identify a strategic problem that your organization faces, frame it as a question, and brainstorm possibilities to solve it.
• Surface and pick the conditions that would need to be true to make the possibility a winning strategy.
• Build and conduct different types of tests to help you choose among your possibilities.
• Set your team up to be able to take action on the strategic choices you make.
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About
New Haircut started as a product development studio back in 2010 and, rebuilt their approach into their own design sprint framework in 2015. Today, they are an innovation strategy company and a leader in delivering Design Sprint workshops around the globe. At stratuum we use portions of the Problem Framing murals to help drive collaboration around problem alignment. You can visit New Haircut for their complete Design Sprint and Problem Framing Toolkits – templates, presentation decks, instructional videos.
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About
A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team. With detailed exercises, illustrations, and action steps for every stage of the process, Find Your Why can help you address many important concern. Whether you've just started your first job, are leading a team, or are CEO of your own company, the exercises in this book will help guide you on a path to long-term success and fulfillment, for both you and your colleagues.
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About
Striving to defy outmoded business models and design tomorrow's enterprises? If your organization needs to adapt to harsh new realities, but you don't yet have a strategy that will get you out in front of your competitors, you need Business Model Generation. Co-created by 470 "Business Model Canvas" practitioners from 45 countries, the book features a beautiful, highly visual, 4-color design that takes powerful strategic ideas and tools, and makes them easy to implement in your organization. It explains the most common Business Model patterns, based on concepts from leading business thinkers, and helps you reinterpret them for your own context. You will learn how to systematically understand, design, and implement a game-changing business model--or analyze and renovate an old one. Along the way, you'll understand at a much deeper level your customers, distribution channels, partners, revenue streams, costs, and your core value proposition. If you're ready to change the rules, you belong to "the business model generation!"
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About
7 out of 10 new products fail to deliver on expectations. Testing Business Ideas aims to reverse that statistic. In the tradition of Alex Osterwalder’s global bestseller Business Model Generation, this practical guide contains a library of hands-on techniques for rapidly testing new business ideas. Testing Business Ideas explains how systematically testing business ideas dramatically reduces the risk and increases the likelihood of success for any new venture or business project. It builds on the internationally popular Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas by integrating Assumptions Mapping and other powerful lean startup-style experiments.
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The journey from strategy to operating success depends on creating an organization that can deliver the chosen strategy. This book, explaining the Operating Model Canvas, shows you how to do this. It teaches you how to define the main work processes, choose an organization structure, develop a high-level blueprint of the IT systems, decide where to locate and how to lay out floor plans, set up relationships with suppliers and design a management system and scorecard with which to run the new organization. The Operating Model Canvas helps you to create a target operating model aligned to your strategy. The book contains more than 20 examples, and 15 tools, and two fully worked examples showing how the tools can be used to develop a new operating model.
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About
Get educated on one of the hottest trends in business development: "design thinking", or the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications for maximal business growth. Understand the mind-set, techniques, and vocabulary of design thinking; unpack the mysterious connection between design and growth; and teach managers, in a straightforward way, how to exploit design's exciting potential. Exemplified by Apple and the success of their elegant products, and cultivated by high-profile design firms such as IDEO, design thinking unlocks creative right-brain capabilities to solve a range of problems. This approach has become a necessary component of successful business practice, helping managers turn abstract concepts into everyday tools that grow business while minimizing risk.
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collaborative and agile strategy design
what we believe
1. Strategy is different today, you don’t need an MBA to engage in strategy design
2. You must design a strategy that has impact to more than your bottom line
3. Non-value added work crushes your soul
4. People are asking the wrong question when they ask us why we’re different; things are different
- The world we live in relies on speed and agility
- Successful strategies are human-centric
- The workforce is different and includes the contingent workforce
- Everyone is planning for or attending to disruption
- Collaboration is king
- People are different and crave autonomy, mastery and purpose
5. Strategy should fit on a single page
a new way of working together
to infinity and beyond
The name “stratuum” comes from the coupling of science and spirituality with the premise that everything is connected. With strategy being a WAY to set a path in life and learning along the way in the continuum of life. That’s it, “strategy” and “continuum” gets you stratuum. In today’s world that means leveraging the continuum of strategy to be agile across your entire organization as you re-engineer the future.
The infinity symbol in our logo has diverse colours, and is asymmetric in all it’s perfection. By definition the infinity symbol is immeasurable and the boundless representing harmony and balance to opposing entities in many cultures. A closed loop with no beginning and no end, it can provide you with unlimited energy if you find yourself in a debilitating situation.
Our tag line of unlearn|learn represents the work we have to do as a collective to move forward. That means listening, understanding and unlearning all that we thought was true. Then move forward, and create a better tomorrow without the expectation of getting it right on the first try. If you remove the connotation of “failure” then it becomes all about learning and making it better then next time around.
Our purpose is to connect and collaborate with people who share the same passion to design a better planet and learn along the way.

The Team
Rick Cadman | cofounder and guide
For the past 30 years, I have been fortunate to have traveled the globe delivering strategy design and strategy transformation solutions to a wide range of organizations. But I am at a new stage in my life and my career. I have used my learning and my passion to help assemble a framework and toolset that can take “great ideas” and “great conversation” and turn them into capabilities that help drive change. I believe in sharing what we have built as our way of giving back, to help build a better planet.
I am a hockey player, hockey dad and a sports enthusiast. I am also a 3-time Ironman and a 10-time marathon finisher. I believe in the power of sport because it can build better humans, communities and athletes. I believe we need to do a better job of how we (re)build our communities to reflect the diversity of Canadian culture. We have a lot of work to do but we also have a framework and toolset that can help.
As a recovering consultant, I continue to be a trusted advisor to my clients helping to innovate new business models, strategies and ecosystems. And I am always looking for new clients that share the same vision, passion and beliefs. I am fortunate to be able to say “I love what I do.”!
Ron Dimon | cofounder and guide
For over 30 years, I have been designing and building Finance and Enterprise Performance Management systems and processes. I have helped organizations use strategic, financial and operational modeling, planning & forecasting to be more agile, more insightful, and drive more material value. I believe what has goals and is measured, delivers change. I have used my experience and past to build this into the framework and toolset to help ensure sustainable change.
A former Deloitte executive, I have served hundreds of clients including Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Cargill, ADM, Hyatt and Anaplan. I have a lot of experience and understanding of how hard this can be for organizations. So, I helped design simplicity into our process.
I also like to write. I have authored, edited and contributed to 6 books including Enterprise Performance Management Done Right, An Operating System for Your Organization (John Wiley & Sons, 2013) and the forthcoming Art of Connected Planning (Wiley). I am also a student from Chicago’s Second City Improv program. This means I am listening while learning. We need more of that to help design better solutions and better communities. Originally from Toronto, Canada, but I now reside in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
