Execution Phase

Where this fits

This is the final phase of the SiD process. The team has formed, gathered intelligence, co-created solutions, and built a roadmap. Now the roadmap is activated. The Execution Phase bridges the transition from collaborative design to real-world implementation, rolling into more traditional working processes like construction planning, investment acquisition, and development cycles.

Steps in this phase

Typical steps may include:

• Expert evaluation
• Concept design and development
• Modeling and simulation
• Communication strategy
• Feasibility study
• Investment proposal
• Execute action plan

Each project culminates in one or more execution activities. One of the most common is communication of outcomes via a book, website, presentation, or other medium.

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3.5.1 Expert Evaluation

The SiD sessions produce integrated concepts and roadmaps. While a jury review during the sessions is recommended, a formal evaluation in the Execution Phase provides deeper scrutiny. Here, outcomes are checked for validity, missing parts are added, and elements like closed loops and business models are evaluated further.

Evaluating the roadmap

A good roadmap has systemic, abstract measures in the far future, concrete measures for immediate implementation (the action plan), and a number of steps in between.

First, check that the long-term measures align with the goals. Evaluate their sustainability. Check realism. Run them past stakeholders when possible. Then check the action plan with all those involved, until every measure has been validated to do what was intended.

This is iterative work. Engineers, economists, ecologists, and other experts collaborate to determine whether the measures will work. External experts are often useful for reviewing and refining specific items.

Assessing systemic effects

Systemic effects can be partially quantified by stepping through the network parameters one by one, evaluating the influence of each chosen measure on each indicator, and examining how this affects the overall system.

Certain system dynamics may be hard to estimate. Remember that the essence lies in picking solutions that improve the general network structure to be more resilient, autonomous, and harmonious (the RAH criteria: Resilience, Autonomy, Harmony). It may help to check results with an experienced systems analyst.

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3.5.2 Concept Design and Development

Projects often require further development beyond the SiD sessions. The sessions deliver strategy, business plans, roadmaps, and action plans, but the solution still needs detailed design. This may mean physical design phases for built projects, concept reports for policy development, or business models and plans.

Concept design is the first step: translating the SiD session outputs into initial design proposals.

Concept development deepens the work, moving toward execution-ready detail.

This phase looks different depending on the subject. It is also the phase most likely to overlap with processes the team already knows. The SiD process cards signal these familiar development steps without prescribing how to execute them.

Maintaining systemic integrity

The critical thing to keep in mind: try to achieve balance between all components of the system. When "landing" a solution in physical form, carry this goal through every sub-project. Oversight from a core team member is required to ensure systemic goals are being achieved.

In large projects (overhauling industries, urban developments), the core team usually produces a strong, holistic concept that informs subsequent sub-projects. From there, the team plays a monitoring and refinement role alongside the partners chosen for execution.

You can use tools like LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) data for material choices, calculation models to test system response, and other analytical tools to inform detailed decisions during this phase.

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3.5.3 Modeling and Simulation

This step builds analytical models at the system or object level to test and improve concept performance, run accurate calculations, and explore scenarios. It often involves external experts for accurate modeling and outcome testing.

Modeling is especially useful for challenges involving resource loops, new product designs, buildings, and urban interventions.

Modeling resource loops

For circular economy applications, urban sustainability, or industrial supply chain projects, resource modeling techniques and software are useful. Be aware of network and system effects: these tools do not account for them by themselves. Object-level loops (energy, material, and ecological cycles) can be modeled, and their social and economic self-sufficiency can be assessed alongside using different techniques.

For example, you can study how the waste output of one facility can serve as resource input for others using a material flow simulation. When the results are presented in diagrams similar to the system maps from earlier phases, this creates direct overview and insight.

Solutions at this stage can be rough. The point is early exploration: in which ways might the system behave, what directions are available, and what are the orders of magnitude?

In Except's experience, frequently modeled subjects include business models, thermodynamic modeling of buildings and infrastructure, and modeling of production systems and industries.

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3.5.4 Communication Structure and Strategy

Communication is a vital component of project success. Setting up a communication structure and strategy can happen at the beginning of the process (to smooth reporting during the project's course) or at the end (to communicate results to the right people with the right message).

Communication structure

A communication structure is a framework for how the team registers and stores information so it can be communicated effectively. This may be a digital system involving various tools and databases, designed to fit both the information the team generates and the communication requirements of the project's goals.

A team member or external communication expert can then assemble this information and publish it in multiple formats: online systems, books, presentations, and other media.

Communication strategy

SiD projects typically operate in contexts with many stakeholders and sometimes opposing interests. Clear communication about the project's purpose, intent, and possible outcomes is important both for informing interested parties and for protecting the team from disruptions.

The communication strategy is a single, well-written outline of what the team is doing, ready for publication. Team members can reference it to answer questions and maintain a unified voice while details of the solution are still forming. It helps inform stakeholders and engages them to participate.

Areas of application

A communication structure and strategy can help with:

• Streamlining stakeholder involvement
• Communicating project progress
• Assembling and sharing collected knowledge
• Running documentation of the process, analysis, and solutions
• Communicating to third parties during and after the project

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3.5.5 Feasibility, Investment, and Execution

Feasibility studies and investment proposals are common outputs at this stage. Each industry has its own standards for these documents. If they are required outputs, have the templates ready before the SiD sessions. This helps the team work toward "filling in the blanks" during the sessions.

Executing the action plan is the typical end of the SiD process cycle. From here, the process may continue in another cycle, planned anew from the start. Each cycle builds on the last, refining the solution and adapting to what has been learned.

Make your own cards

The SiD process card deck includes blank cards so you can create your own. Rename process steps to fit a specific professional context, or design entirely new ones. Define each new step clearly and assign people to execute it independently. If you develop process steps you think are missing from the standard deck, share them with the SiD community to help expand the framework.

Takeaway

The Execution Phase is where the roadmap becomes reality. Expert evaluation validates the work. Concept design and development translate ideas into form. Modeling tests the system's behavior. Communication ensures the right people understand the intent and the outcomes. And the action plan launches the first concrete steps.

This is also where the SiD process completes its arc, and where the next cycle may begin. What the process produces is not a final answer but a living system of strategies, relationships, and momentum that continues to evolve.

Next: the Tools chapter, which provides practical instruments for every stage of the SiD process.