Create Strategic Plans & Develop Strategic Thinking

Overview:

This course is designed to combine proven-by-practice methods with new insights and ideas from a wide range of current strategic thinking. Gain a wider perspective of the strategic planning process through breakout sessions, exercises and case applications. Bring your strategic dilemmas to this program and get direction on analytical and organizational approaches.

Learn how to strengthen your strategic thinking skills and encourage it in others. Through case studies and practical thinking exercises, you’ll stimulate your strategic thinking, learn to recognize patterns that impact strategy and enhance your abilities to generate new insights and ideas. Come to your next strategic planning session with the best possible strategic ideas—and help your business move forward in an increasingly competitive world.

Who Should Attend?

• Executives, division leaders, and other senior managers involved in the formation and implementation of strategic planning.

Course Benefits:

• Identify strategic planning issues in order to develop a unique competitive advantage
• Learn key analytical and conceptual approaches to expand your understanding of the marketplace
• Align your organization with your strategic planning goals by integrating strategy, objectives, metrics and performance
• Identify evolving strategic patterns and generate ideas on how they can be applied to your organization
• Incorporate customer needs into your strategic planning
• Use a case study to examine the strategic planning process
• Recognize how the actions of customers, competitors and your own company determine the outcomes in your markets
• Determine the best approach to effectively implement your strategic planning
• Explore ways to challenge your assumptions and view your business in a new light
• Learn and apply different thinking methods to avoid groupthink
• Control reactive fixes to problems even in an uncertain business environment
• Generate new ideas and evaluate future scenarios before your competitors do
• Know when to embrace necessary risk, even if resources and information are limited
• Learn to create better short-term goals that support long-term strategy

Course Objectives:

• Describe the Strategic Planning Process
• Use Strategic Planning Tools and Techniques to Gather and Analyze Pertinent Data
• Begin Building a Strategic Action Plan for Your Area of Responsibility
• Leverage New Skills to Support Your Strategic Thinking Every Day
• Apply a Process to Envision Your Organization’s Desired Future
• Recognize the Influences Within and Outside Your Organization That Could Support or Derail Your Future Goals
• Identify the Changes Necessary to Reach Your Future Goals
• Expand the Number of Perspectives That Influence Your Moves Forward
• Create a Plan for Building Skills and Testing Your Ideas

  Course Outlines:

Strategic Planning Overview

• State Key Definitions of Strategic Planning Terms
• Identify the Questions That Strategic Planning Must Address
• Identify the Analyses Typically Incorporated in Strategic Planning
• Describe How These Questions and Analyses Can Be Organized into a Structured Strategic Planning Process
• Describe How Your Planning Relates to Planning at Other Levels of the Organization

The Strategic Pillars

• Differentiate Between Mission and Vision
• Examine Core Values and Their Role in Strategic Planning
• Articulate the Unique Value for Your Unit
• Describe the Value of Purpose in Ensuring a High-Performance Organization That Achieves Results
• Develop Mission and Vision Statements for Your Unit

Assessing the External Environment

• Distinguish Between Macro and Market Environments
• Identify the Macro and Market Trends That Are Shaping the Landscape
• Describe How These Trends Will Affect Your Organization and Your Customers, and What That Means for Your Specific Unit’s Strategy

Assessing the Internal Environment

• Explain the Components of an Internal Assessment
• Understand the Concept of Core Competencies
• Appreciate the Importance of Culture in an Internal Assessment
• Apply an Internal Assessment Diagnostic to Your Organization
  Making Strategic Decisions
• Identify the Role of Data Synthesis, Insight, and Creativity in Strategic Planning
• Describe How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis for Your Unit
• Understand How to Use a SWOT Analysis to Choose Your Strategic Imperatives
• Identify Your Organization’s Integrated Components
• Determine Your Strategic Imperatives and Performance Measures

Building Your Strategic Action Plan

• Identify Key Elements of a Good Strategic Action Plan
• Begin Developing Your Own Strategic Action Plan
• Identify Key Elements of an Executive Summary

Communicating and Executing Your Strategic Action Plan

• Understand There Will Be Gaps in Executing the Strategy and a Process for Moving Forward
• Recognize How a Leader Builds Commitment Through Multiple Avenues of Communication Throughout the Execution Process
• Identify Ways to Align the Organization Toward a Single Purpose
• Establish Individual and Team Performance Goals Linked to the Strategic Action Plan
• Ensure Rewards and Recognition Are Linked to Strategic Progress

Context of Strategic Thinking

• Define Strategic Thinking and Recognize How It Can Be Used in Your Day-to-Day Work
• Compare and Contrast Strategic Thinking to Analytical Thinking, Critical Thinking, and Inductive and Deductive Reasoning
• Identify the Characteristics of Strategic Thinkers

Strategic Thinking Process and Skills

• Explain a Model for Strategic Thinking in Day-to-Day Activities and Work Applications
• List Skills and Tools That Can Be Used to Support Strategic Thinking

Assess the Current State

• Identify the Influences and Relationships at Different Levels of an Organization That Can Impact a Strategy
• Recognize and Identify Patterns of Interaction and Development That Are Likely to Influence the Effectiveness of a Strategy
• Incorporate Multiple Perspectives on a Possible Strategy, and Assess Different Influences on the Potential Success

Envision a Desired Future State

• Envision a Desired Future State
• Recognize and Use Thinking Skills That Support Imagining New Ways of Relating to the Market and Customers

Build Your Path on Paper

• Identify and Sequence the Multiple Steps to Move from the Current State of the Issue/Opportunity to the Desire Future State
• Anticipate the Reactions/Responses of Others in the Larger Systems Impacting Your Situation
• Identify and Conduct Experiments and Tests That Point Your Way Forward

Implement Your Strategic Knowledge and Skills

• Assess What You Gained from Applying Strategic Thinking Tools to Your Project
• Anticipate Pitfalls You May Encounter as a Strategic Thinker
• Create an Action Plan for Development of Strategic Thinking Skills