The Strategic Response Model connects an organisation’s awareness of internal or external conditions to structured decision-making. By linking triggers—whether reactive events or proactive strategic intents—to clearly justified actions, the model ensures that responses are purposeful, traceable, and measurable. It enables multi-perspective reasoning, supports performance evaluation, and allows decisions to be revisited and refined over time.
Strategic responses are not ad hoc. Each one is grounded in an articulated rationale and initiated by a defined trigger, such as regulatory change, stakeholder concern, operational need, or long-term strategic ambition. The model provides a consistent structure for translating these drivers into coordinated action.
Strategic governance of the organisation is enhanced by the Strategic Response Model, ensuring that:
Strategic responses are explicitly connected to organisational strategic themes
The degree of strategic alignment is quantifiably assessed
The portfolio of initiatives is coordinated through explicit adjacency relationships
Value creation mechanisms are clearly identified
Time horizons are explicitly considered in strategic planning
Strategic intents define proactive, forward-looking initiatives that drive organisational change. Unlike reactive triggers, they represent deliberate choices to pursue innovation, growth, efficiency, or strategic advantage. They provide essential direction and context to the response model, influencing what kinds of actions are prioritised. Intents ensure that each response is aligned to broader organisational ambition. Intents may span multiple domains and units, and the Strategic Response Model explicitly references them to maintain strategic alignment.
Orthogramic context:
In the Orthogramic Metamodel, strategic intent is implicitly expressed through high-level strategies and their alignment with stakeholder needs, market forces, and policy obligations. It anchors the Strategy domain (e.g. long-term goals, key activities, and business objectives) and informs the Strategic Response Model, which maps triggers and rationale to structured responses such as policy changes or new initiatives.
Characteristics:
Long-term and directional rather than tactical
Anchored in the organisation’s mission and vision
Translated into measurable strategies and objectives
Reinforced through cross-domain alignment (e.g. with Capabilities, Initiatives, and Performance)
Example:
An agency’s strategic intent might be “to achieve zero rail-related fatalities within a decade”, which would cascade into initiatives, stakeholder engagement plans, technological investments, and policy shifts—all modelled and aligned in Orthogramic.
The Strategic Response Model is built around four core components that form a structured sequence—starting from identifiable triggers and rationales and ending with measurable, aligned responses. These components ensure that strategic action is justifiable, traceable, and adaptable over time.
Trigger – A specific event, condition, or insight—internal or external—that initiates a response. This may include regulatory changes, stakeholder demands, environmental shifts, or performance deviations.
Rationale – The reasoned justification for taking action in response to a trigger. Rationales ensure responses are deliberate—grounded in compliance needs, risk mitigation, equity goals, reputational concerns, or strategic alignment.
Response – The initiative, program, policy, or capability change implemented to address the trigger, guided by the chosen rationale(s). These responses are formalised across business architecture layers to ensure integration and traceability.
Performance Indicators – Quantifiable metrics used to evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency, or broader impact of a strategic response. These indicators feed into the evaluation process, which systematically compares actual outcomes to intended objectives. When a response falls short, the evaluation process may generate a new trigger—creating a feedback loop that supports continuous improvement, organisational learning, and adaptive strategy.
This example demonstrates how a regulatory update triggered a strategic initiative. The rationale was multi-dimensional—compliance, reputation, and efficiency all played a role. Evaluation of the performance indicator revealed a gap, leading to a new trigger.
.png?version=1&modificationDate=1748421676976&cacheVersion=1&api=v2&width=908 "Orthogramic Metamodel > Strategic Response Model > Orthogramic - Page 1 (78).png")
In this example, a drop in commuter confidence led to the identification of multiple potential rationales. However, only one was selected—public trust—and this guided the strategic response. This illustrates the model’s flexibility: not all rationales need to be acted upon, but all are considered.
.png?version=1&modificationDate=1745470196640&cacheVersion=1&api=v2&width=478 "Orthogramic Metamodel > Strategic Response Model > Orthogramic - Page 1 (31).png")
Strategic responses typically impact one or more of the following domains:
Strategy: adjustments to goals or strategic direction
Capabilities: development, enhancement, or decommissioning
Initiatives: programs or projects started or stopped
Policy: introduction or amendment of rules and frameworks
Performance: redefinition or reweighting of KPIs
Information: changes to how data is used or governed
Value Stream: refinements in end-to-end value delivery
Customer: changes to customer experience, segmentation, or journeys
Market: responses to competitive threats or market opportunities
Finance: adjustments to financial structures or investments
Risk Management: implementation of new controls or mitigation approaches
Supply Chain: changes to supplier networks, logistics, or inventory approaches
Innovation: adjustments to innovation processes, portfolios, or capabilities
Sustainability: changes to environmental, social, or governance approaches
People: modifications to workforce, culture, or competency frameworks
Technology: updates to applications, infrastructure, or technical standards
Channel: changes to distribution networks, partners, or integration approaches
Each Strategic Response now includes additional properties to capture the strategic context and relationships:
Strategic themes: Identification of which organizational strategic priorities the response supports, enabling portfolio-level analysis of strategic coverage.
Alignment strength: A quantitative assessment (1-5) of how closely the response aligns with organizational strategy, supporting prioritization decisions.
Adjacent initiatives: Related initiatives that complement this response, facilitating coordination and preventing duplication.
Strategic levers: The primary business mechanisms being utilized (e.g., scale, scope, differentiation), providing insight into how the response creates value.
Strategic horizon: Categorization using the Three Horizons Framework:
Horizon 1: Core business optimization (0-18 months)
Horizon 2: Emerging opportunities (18-36 months)
Horizon 3: Creating viable options for future business (36+ months)
Rationales play an important role in classifying and organising strategic responses and intents. Ensure that the trigger catalog and strategic intent register—which lists common environmental or operational triggers and proactive intentions prompting strategic responses—are up to date. Reference to the trigger catalog and strategic intent register within this page ensures that rationales are accurately categorised based on their initiating context, improving traceability from external or internal stimuli through to strategic objectives, initiatives, and performance metrics.
Responses reference a trigger selected from a standardized catalog of events, trends, or insights. This ensures consistency in classifying causes of change and enables systemic analysis across responses.
The Strategic Response Model has been extended to address domain-specific needs in Customer, Market, Finance, Risk Management, Supply Chain, Innovation, Sustainability, People, Technology, and Channel domains. These extensions provide specialized properties and enumerations to capture the unique aspects of strategic responses in each domain.
Customer-related strategic responses focus on addressing customer needs, behaviors, and journeys. They include specialized properties such as:
Customer segments targeted by the response
Customer outcomes resulting from the response
Customer experience changes implemented
Customer feedback mechanisms
Market-related strategic responses address competitive positioning, market opportunities, or industry shifts. They include properties such as:
Markets targeted by the response
Competitors addressed by the response
Competitive advantage created or enhanced
Market position changes implemented
Competitive monitoring approaches
Finance-related strategic responses focus on financial structures, investments, or resource allocation. They include properties such as:
Financial outcomes resulting from the response
Required financial resources
Financial risk assessment
Financial review mechanisms
Risk-related strategic responses address risk prevention, mitigation, or transfer. They include properties such as:
Risk elements addressed by the response
Implemented controls
Risk monitoring approaches
Residual risk assessment
Supply chain-related strategic responses focus on network design, supplier relationships, or logistics optimization. They include properties such as:
Supply chain elements addressed by the response
Supply chain changes implemented
Supply chain risks associated with the response
Stakeholder engagement approaches
Innovation-related strategic responses focus on idea generation, experimentation, and innovation capabilities. They include properties such as:
Innovation elements addressed by the response
Innovation outcomes resulting from the response
Experimentation approaches implemented
Portfolio impact assessment
Innovation capability changes
Sustainability-related strategic responses focus on environmental, social, and governance dimensions. They include properties such as:
Sustainability elements addressed by the response
Environmental and social outcomes targeted
Stakeholder expectations being addressed
Compliance requirements being met
Climate scenario considerations
People-related strategic responses focus on workforce, culture, and organizational capabilities. They include properties such as:
Workforce elements addressed by the response
Cultural changes implemented
Talent development approaches
Knowledge management strategies
Competency framework adjustments
Technology-related strategic responses focus on systems, infrastructure, and technical standards. They include properties such as:
Technology elements addressed by the response
Architecture changes implemented
Technical debt impacts
Security enhancements
Integration approaches
Channel-related strategic responses focus on distribution networks, partners, and customer touchpoints. They include properties such as:
Channel elements addressed by the response
Channel configuration changes
Partner strategy adjustments
Omnichannel integration approaches
Distribution network optimizations
See: Strategic Response Model JSON Schema