Ecocycle Planning: Two New Insights

Whenever someone asks about my favorite Liberating Structure, I usually joke that I have a list of 33 favorites. Yet if I were forced to narrow it down, Ecocycle Planning would definitely make the shortlist.

Ecocycle Planning is a Liberating Structure that uses the metaphor of a natural life cycle to help groups look at their portfolio of activities as a living system. 🌱

Instead of managing work in isolation, it invites a broader view of how initiatives emerge, grow, decline, and regenerate. Its strength lies in making strategic imbalances visible so teams can make conscious choices about where to invest energy and where to stop.

What I love about Ecocycle Planning is its broad scale of possible applications. In the comments, I’ll share a blog post with some examples. And by using it—and seeing others use it—I keep gaining new insights. Here are two of them.

Insight #1: Keep sharpening and refining your activities

Imagine you use this exercise for personal reflection and start by listing your activities. That first overview does not need to be perfect. You will quickly notice that some items are too broad to be placed clearly in one phase, while others are so small that they obscure the bigger pattern.

For instance, “provide training” sounds concrete, but becomes far more useful when broken down into specific types of training. Once refined, you can place each activity more accurately in the Ecocycle, and the patterns become clearer.

At the same time, there is a balance to strike. If you keep refining endlessly, you risk overcomplicating the exercise and losing momentum. The goal is enough clarity to see patterns, not perfect categorization.

Interestingly, some activities reveal their own internal life cycles and begin to look like mini Ecocycles in their own right. 😃

Insight #2: The “Valley of Death.”

The middle of the Ecocycle, the shift from Birth to Maturity, can quietly become the “Valley of Death,” a term from product development. It describes the risky stretch in which early enthusiasm fades, results remain fragile, and initiatives require sustained focus before they deliver real value.

If you notice several activities stuck in this transition zone, it may signal that you are spreading attention too thin or starting more than you can realistically mature. At the same time, not everything in progress is in danger. The key question is whether there is deliberate support to help initiatives cross into stability.

This insight was offered by Aliza Tekofsky: thank you! 🙏

What about the two traps?

You might ask, “Isn’t the Valley of Death already covered by the Poverty Trap and the Rigidity Trap?” Not quite. The Poverty Trap is most visible in Gestation, where ideas are started but never receive enough support to grow, while the Rigidity Trap shows up around Maturity, when established activities take up so much time and energy that little room is left for renewal.

Are most of your initiatives stuck in early stages without real backing? You may be in a Poverty Trap. Are you mainly protecting what already works? That could signal a Rigidity Trap. Is one specific initiative struggling to scale despite initial promise? That’s closer to the Valley of Death.

What’s your take on these insights? What else have you learned about Ecocycle Planning? 🤔