Strategy is essentially a creative pursuit, it builds a future. Strategy formulation has essentially four essential elements:
1. Building deep understanding of context, identity and current capabilities,
2. Determining the organisation’s purpose and where and what it wants to be in the future ,
3. Considering 1. and 2., Creating strategic options and
4. Prioritising and making decisions on how to achieve the future vision.

The better the understanding of capabilities and context, the stronger the understanding of purpose and identity, the better the ideas, and the better decision making, will lead to enhanced strategy formulation. There will always be unpredictable circumstances and alternative paths to take when strategy is deployed. Creative techniques can play an enormous role in all four elements of strategy formulation and deployment. Typical strategy formulation and deployment techniques associated with management and organisational development can be mechanistic and formulaic and can potentially constrain the thinking and unnecessarily limit possibilities. This research explores the often unrepresented role of playfulness and creativity in helping develop strategy, organisations and people. It will build on creative workshops that have been run over the past decade in sectors such as education, telecommunications, activism, aerospace and construction. The effectiveness and impact of creative techniques at the various stages are analysed.

A framework will be proposed that will help practitioners determine what techniques might be applied in the four essential areas of strategy formulation and deployment such that education in this space can be better designed and appropriate pedagogies and a play box can be developed.

Keywords: Creativity, professional education, strategy, industry partnerships.