Strategic design is one of those Rorschach blot words that means something different to everyone.
I define strategic design as taking a human-centered design approach to any problem that involves human participation in purposeful systems.
Strategic design looks into human actions and finds the Why behind the What and How of behaviors. These insights into Why inform the reshaping of the system to influence participation in the system so it does what it must to flourish.
If you think about it, almost all problems involve human participation in purposeful systems. Many — perhaps the majority — of our most stubborn crises, which we take for technological or managerial or political problems, are, in fact, undiagnosed design problems.