Value First in Your Ecosystem
How Strategic Value Framing enables sustainable transformation
In a world of complex interdependencies, think urban systems, digital infrastructures, international collaborations and partnerships, organizations must not only do things right, they need to do the right things. The climate crisis, EU mega-project failures, and high-tech collapses reveal a common pattern, one of systems optimized for hierarchy or short-term gain often miss meaningful outcomes. The result? Ineffectiveness, inefficiency, and increased risk.
- Unfulfilled stakeholder value
- Wasted time, budgets, and motivation
- Erosion of trust, internally and externally
To sustain trust, we need methodology, frameworks, and tools that center on value, moving beyond mere optics or prestige.
Who needs it and why
SVF serves 3 primary value ecosystem roles.
- Value Enablers are consultants and experts looking to scale insight, protect IP, and deliver outcomes.
- Value Seekers are teams and organizations wanting results that persist through change.
- Value Providers are vendors and delivery partners aiming for aligned, trusted execution.
SVF is especially relevant for public-sector digitalization, innovation consortia, climate-tech, and large-scale transformations, but it’s equally valuable for startups and scale-ups that want to align strategy with execution from day one.
How it works
SVF is part of a scalable toolchain.
- The Value Mindset: Shift from authority to outcome; from hierarchy to traceable logic.
- SVF Framework: A value-centric two-axis canvas to structure strategy along cause and contribution
- Strategic frame: Context → Gap → Intervention → Value → Impact
- Value Story: Capability → Value Driver → Value Dimension → Impact
- The Value Navigator (TVN): Our platform to co-develop, assess, and track transformation.
Academic roots, practical form
SVF is deeply informed by research in co-design, stakeholder value, and ecosystem framing. But it's built for delivery, while informed by theory.
- Aligns with co-design and participatory methods for sustainable impact
- Maps value in multidimensional and stakeholder-specific ways
- Operationalizes academic frameworks into scalable tools
Why it works
- Traceability: Outcomes are mapped to motivations and needs.
- Ownership: Stakeholders retain control while aligning with others.
- Scalability: Modular, reusable knowledge accelerates learning and reuse.
- Accountability: Clear roles, clearer responsibility.
- Agility with structure: Responsive, but disciplined.
Snapshots in practice
These scenarios represent common frustrations across industries. Each reflects a symptom of importance-first thinking — when decisions are based on status or optics rather than real value. If you're a consultant, project lead, or systems thinker, you're likely to have experienced these before.
Data ownership and accountability issues
No one knows who owns this — Pan-EU innovation project collapses into finger-pointing; accountability evaporates.
Whose data is this anyway? — Dutch digital twin project: multiple versions of truth, no responsible contact person.
Leadership overreach and constant strategy pivots
The strategy that keeps changing — Each new executive “makes their mark,” eroding long-term direction and burning out teams.
Prestige partner takeover — Reputable partner ignores better ideas; prestige overshadows value.
Misused or ignored expertise
We hired experts, then ignored them — Expensive consultants deliver solutions that get shelved for internal politics.
The hero founder — Visionary overrides engineering decisions, breaking the product under load.
Compliance, process and optical success
The KPIs always look fine — Dashboards show “green,” while teams quietly burn out and value stagnates.
We're following the process, but nothing improves — Overly rigid systems block innovation; good staff leave.
Short-term thinking and relationship-driven decisions
The fire drill — Authority overrides safety protocol during crisis; risk rises unnecessarily.
The site boss — Construction lead forces in a non-compliant vendor; quality and trust suffer.
Get the grant, figure it out later — Proposal is funded based on buzzwords, but fails in execution.
📚 Our foundations: references and further reading
SVF, the framework, its frame and value stories, and TVN bring together a combination of well-established methodologies and modern, adaptive decision science. These include components such as:
- Ranking and weighting — Rank → Invert → Normalize, e.g., ROC, AHP, SMARTS
- Relevance scoring — Weighted aggregation of driver impacts, e.g., MAVT, MCDA, utility theory
- Evolving capability modelling — Heuristic, adaptive thresholds, e.g., CMMI, expert systems, fuzzy logic
| 📘 Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|
| To Have or To Be? by Erich Fromm (1976) | Classic existential critique contrasting materialism with authentic being. |
| Villanueva-Paredes, G.X. (2024). Enhancing Social Innovation Through Design Thinking Methodologies. Sustainability, 16(23):10471. | Applies design thinking to social systems transformation and co-creation. |
| Rahmin Bender-Salazar (2023). Design Thinking: Addressing Wicked Problems. Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 12:24. | Explores design thinking as a cross-disciplinary tool for complex systems. |
| Co-Design for Social Innovation and Organizational Change (2020). Discern: Int. J. for Social Change. | Highlights co-design as a driver of meaningful and lasting change. |
| O'Brien, T. & Kebo, A. (2020). Community-Based Participatory Research Through Co-Design. Research Involvement and Engagement. | Combines systems thinking with participatory design for inclusive innovation. |
| European Commission (2018). Evaluation of Interventions. | Framework for assessing strategic interventions in public ecosystems. |
| Smith, J. & Belk, R. (2015). Co-Design Methodologies in Social Sciences. Routledge. | Textbook on participatory research and collaborative method design. |
| Taylor, A. & Hopkins, P. (2021). Participatory Approaches in Public Sector Innovation. Oxford University Press. | Focuses on stakeholder-centered innovation practices in public services. |
| Keeney, R.L. & Raiffa, H. (1993). Decisions with Multiple Objectives. Cambridge University Press. | Foundational text in multi-criteria decision-making and tradeoff analysis. |
| Belton, V. & Stewart, T. (2002). Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis. Springer. | Explores structured decision modeling for policy and planning contexts. |
| Edwards, W. & Barron, F.H. (1994). SMARTS and SMARTER. OBHDP, 60(3), 306–325. | Improved techniques for weighting ranked criteria in decisions. |
| Saaty, T.L. (2008). Decision Making with the Analytic Hierarchy Process. IJSS, 1(1), 83–98. | Introduces AHP as a method for structured prioritization. |
| Kaplan, R.S. & Norton, D.P. (1996). The Balanced Scorecard. HBR Press. | Connects strategy to measurable outcomes using organizational capabilities. |
| Maier, M.W., Emery, D., & Hilliard, R. (2016). Engineering Systems Thinking. Wiley. | Applies systems engineering principles to complex socio-technical problems. |
| Osterwalder, A. & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business Model Generation. Wiley. | Popularized the Business Model Canvas, a foundational tool for innovation design. |
From importance to outcome
SVF helps shift organizations out of inertia. It's about doing what matters in a way that lasts — not just about what "looks good".
With The Value Navigator, this approach becomes operational, traceable, and scalable.
You've seen what goes wrong. You've seen what could work.