Maine DOL proposes to build health care career pathways with strategic doing
This project will employ a Project Coordinator (under the state job title of Labor Program Specialist) to manage the activities of the project. The Coordinator, under the Supervision of the Director of the Maine Jobs Council, will provide logistical support and perform project management to carry out the project’s activities.
The project will be using a particular Strategic Planning method known as Strategic Doing. Developed by Ed Morrison of the Purdue University Center for Regional Development, Strategic Doing incorporates components that insure partners’ investments, collaboration, and leadership development. This planning approach was effectively applied by the Indiana Workforce Innovations for Regional Economic Development program funded by the US Department of Labor. Brevard County, Florida is now using this approach to strategy to help manage the NASA shuttle shutdown. Strategic Doing will be employed with the intent of providing a successful, replicable model for workforce development planning in other sectors, but the priority is to accomplish the ten year health care workforce development plan first.
Strategic Doing uses a particular model, some of which is derived from traditional strategic planning methods but much of which uses a group development approach that is designed to bring together numerous and varied participants, many of whom have not previously collaborated. Strategic Doing enables loosely joined networks of individuals and organizations to focus on clearly defined, measurable outcomes.
The Project Coordinator will use the structure of Strategic Doing to ensure that the required activities are accomplished within the desired time frame. Strategic Doing is a discipline for developing a strategy in open networks while building productive collaborations. The process is fast and iterative. For example, Brevard Workforce developed a detailed strategic action plan after conducting two half day workshops. This strategic action plan will be continuously refined in subsequent workshops.
Strategic Doing asks participants to ask four questions and then build their planning steps around the answers to those questions (Figure 5):
Figure 5
According to Ed Morrison, Strategic Doing creates an environment in which networks can quickly form with focused outcomes. Through this process, participants align their resources with “link and leverage” strategies. The process guides civic leaders in new ways to think and act strategically. Unlike traditional approaches, strategic doing is fast, low cost, and focused on "learning by doing". The lessons of strategic doing evolved from open source software development. Specifically, people engaged in loosely joined networks can accomplish very complex projects by following some simple rules. As participants answer questions, they generate all the components they need for a strategic action plan. Strategic Doing is a process in which participants continuously refine and align their strategies as they learn “what works”. The Strategic Doing platform also supports a “share point” site specifically for this project. Partners will be able to upload and download documents, data, and news articles. The site will also allow partners to schedule meetings and events on a shared calendar.



