The Middle Loop

The middle loop is, in general, the home for the set of "strategic" processes which lead to decisions over resource allocation and portfolio management. It attempts to make explicit the sense that has been gained about the appropriate medium-term direction for the organisation to follow.

The outer loop is, in many ways, the most difficult and the most complex to install. It does not, for the most part, follow rigorous or numerical procedures, and it is seldom clear what an answer will look like: indeed, the nature of the questions to ask is often obscure. It feeds on what has gone before, and it is common experience that an organisation has to go around the loop several times before it sees the full benefits of the investment of effort. People need to learn to use the tools that are available, but also need to learn to interpret what they produce. They need to learn to trust the outcome, and to trust what their colleagues will do with it. Policy is potent medicine, and most organisations feel themselves starved for direction. Small signals from the top can be vastly over-amplified as they flow down the hierarchy. Managing these processes so that premature closure, run-away systems or a gathering mist of ambiguity does not cause damaging consequences is a part of the art.