Yesterday, we hosted “No Plan Survives Contact – Making Strategy Work When It Reaches the Ground”, bringing together participants from 22 countries for a timely discussion on one of the biggest challenges in policy and strategy: making good ideas work in the real world.
We were joined by Dr David Rubens, ISRM Executive Director; Dr Amjad Saleem, CSWP Deputy Director; Marc Ablong, Director, Centre for Strategic Policy and Nasser bin Nasser, ISRM Global Strategic Board Member, who shared their insights on what happens when strategy meets reality.
A few key takeaways:
- Plans often fail not because they are wrong, but because reality changes faster than they do
- Strategy is still too often treated as a compliance exercise, rather than a living process
- Complexity is the new normal, not the exception
- Feedback loops between policy and delivery are often weak or missing
- Local realities and communities shape outcomes far more than original assumptions
The conversation highlighted a shared need for more honest and practical discussions about implementation—especially in areas such as climate, security and governance.
The webinar also marked an important milestone in the development of the new Centre for Strategic Policy (CSP) within ISRM’s Centre for the Study of Wicked Problems. Led by Marc Ablong, the Centre aims to bridge the gap between strategy design and real-world delivery by bringing together policymakers, practitioners, academics and communities to develop more adaptive and effective approaches to complex challenges.
