myBusinessArchitectmyBusinessArchitectmyBusinessArchitectmyBusinessArchitectEight months after the crisis, the institution gets a different kind of test. The government announces $200 million in funding with a sixty-day deadline. In the old days, this would have triggered another forty-seven-ideas meeting. Instead, the leadership team uses its shared vocabulary to make a disciplined decision in two weeks. Not sixty days. Two weeks. This chapter shows you how to apply reference models under real-world pressure: consulting versus instantiating, assessing fitness for context, and using reference model evidence to answer the governance questions that keep strategy honest.
By the end of this chapter, you'll be able to:
Eight months after the crisis that nearly broke them, Lakeshore got a different kind of test.
The provincial government announced $200 million in funding for skilled trades and clean energy programs. The deadline: sixty days. Institutions that could demonstrate readiness, alignment, and a credible delivery plan would be funded. Those that could not would watch the money go elsewhere.
In the old Lakeshore, this would have triggered another forty-seven-ideas meeting. Every faculty would have scrambled to stake a claim. Proposals would have been written in isolation, evaluated on the basis of who made the most persuasive presentation, and submitted with fingers crossed.
In the new Lakeshore, Marcus had something he did not have before. He had a shared vocabulary. A Business Model Canvas that showed where clean energy fit (and where it did not) in the institution's business model. A capability model that could be overlaid against the funding requirements to show what Lakeshore could deliver and what it could not. And a leadership team that had practiced using these tools through the Design4 cycle.
The result was a disciplined decision in two weeks. Not sixty days. Two weeks.
This chapter is about that moment and what it teaches. Chapters 3 through 5 showed you how to read, interpret, and assess reference models at three levels. This chapter shows you how to apply them: consulting versus instantiating, assessing fitness for context, planning adaptations, using reference models under real-world pressure, and governing through reference model evidence.
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