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Team Building Exercises – Strategy and Planning

Engaging ways to build core skills.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

strategic plan workshop activities

No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.– Reid Hoffman.

How does your company approach strategic planning?

Traditionally, strategy is developed by an executive team and rolled out to the rest of the company for implementation. But today's rapidly changing commercial environment, coupled with the growing popularity of agile business practices, means that many organizations are now moving away from a formal, top-down approach.

Our current climate calls for a more flexible method that allows teams to shape their own path (while following organizational goals and guidelines). So, it's important that your team has the strategic thinking and planning skills it needs to contribute effectively.

Individuals with strong skills in these areas are also better at aligning their efforts with the broader objectives of the organization, so that their work contributes to a meaningful end goal.

This article explores three team building exercises that can help your people develop their strategic thinking and planning skills.

Strategic Thinking and Planning Exercises

Use the exercises below to strengthen your team's strategic thinking and planning skills. The activities should also help to improve communication and collaboration skills.

You can use them in various ways, for example with a group of new managers, or to refresh the skills of senior leaders.

Exercise 1: Early Bird vs. Second Mouse

This exercise was inspired by the saying (often attributed to American comedian Stephen Wright): "The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

In it, two teams explore the implications of the phrase through presentation, debate and discussion.

This exercise helps teams analyze different strategic positions. It also emphasizes teamwork , presentation , argument and debate, and group decision making .

People and Materials

  • Between eight and 30 people.
  • A presenter from each team.
  • Two flip charts, with pens.
  • Flexible, typically 30-60 minutes.

Instructions

  • Divide the group into two equal teams. Make one the "early bird" and the other the "second mouse."
  • Give both teams five to 10 minutes to develop a short presentation outlining why their strategy is the best for business.
  • A member of each team gives their presentation.
  • When the presentations are over, ask each team to elect someone to debate the question, "Is it better in business to be the early bird or the second mouse?"
  • Combine the teams into one big group and ask for a show of hands to determine which strategy is, indeed, the best.

Advice for the Facilitator

This simple exercise can be adapted in various different ways, depending on your objectives. For example, you may wish to make the exercise about generic business practice or specific to a particular industry or situation. You could also try debating which strategy is best for a particular scenario and then, after the vote, ask if people's opinions would be different if you changed the scenario.

You could ask the group to vote on which strategy is best at the beginning of the exercise and again at the end of the debate, to see if opinions change.

Possible topics for discussion after the exercise include different strategies for different situations, the relative virtues of adaptability versus consistency, how much people's values influence their choice of strategy, and so on.

Exercise 2: United Hearts

In this exercise, teams develop a strategy and compete for points in a card game. The United Hearts Game was published in " Quick Team Building Activities for Busy Managers ," by Brian Cole Miller. This is an adaptation of his original game.

This game strengthens strategic thinking skills. It also reminds players to stay flexible with their strategy and adjust it according to events.

  • Between six and 15 people.
  • One deck of cards.
  • Thirty minutes.

Rules of the Game

The aim is to get as close to 30 points as possible by winning hearts. Aces are low, Jacks are worth 11, Queens 12, and Kings 13 points. All other cards have face value.

Each round begins when the dealer places a heart card face up on the table. Team leaders then pick a card from their own deck and place it face down. When all three have laid down a card, they flip them over and the highest card (irrespective of suit) wins the heart. The rest of the cards from that round are discarded.

When all of the cards have been played (13 rounds in all), teams count up the number of hearts they have won. The closest to 30 wins.

In the event of a tie, the team with the highest value heart is the winner.

  • Put people into three teams of two to five members – group sizes don't need to be equal – and ask each to designate a "leader" who will play for them.
  • Remove the hearts from the deck, and give each team a suit of cards.
  • Explain the rules of the game, and give each team three minutes to plan how they will play.
  • Before the game begins, each team is given time to discuss their strategies but, once it gets underway, discussion is no longer allowed, although team members can indicate which card to play through non-verbal gestures.
  • Interrupt the game after the fifth and ninth rounds to allow the groups to analyze their progress and, if necessary, adjust their strategies.

When the game is over, ask the members of each team to describe what their initial strategy was, whether they thought it was successful, and how it evolved over time.

Discuss how their strategies would have differed if the aim of the game had been to get as high a score or as low a score as possible.

Ask them if other roles, besides leader, emerged within the team. For example, one person may have decided to keep track of which hearts had already been played, while another could have kept track of their competitors' running totals.

Adapted from "Quick Team-Building Activities for Busy Managers: 50 Exercises That Get Results in Just 15 Minutes." by Brian Cole Miller. ©️ 2003 by Brian Cole Miller. Used by permission of HarperCollins Leadership. www.harpercollinsleadership.com

Exercise 3: Capture the Flag

Capture the Flag is a classic outdoor game for larger groups. The goal is to successfully capture the other team's flag, without being caught on "enemy territory."

This game is excellent for building strategic thinking and communication skills. Teams assign roles (such as guards and raiders) and use battlefield tactics to successfully capture the opposing flag. It can be a great exercise to help new teams get to know each other, or to break down barriers between hierarchies or departments.

This game only works if all participants are prepared to play a vigorous outdoor game. You won't build a happy, engaged team if you try to force unwilling people to play.

  • Enough people for at least two groups of five.
  • Two "flags" – anything from a towel to a company flag.
  • Boundary markers (if necessary).
  • A large outdoor space, ideally one with trees, hills or buildings.
  • Flexible, typically 30-45 minutes.

The rules of the game are simple. The group is divided into two opposing teams. Within each team, there are guards and raiders. Guards stay on their own territory and capture any enemies who try to take their flag. Raiders infiltrate enemy territory to locate and capture their opponents' flag. Both roles report to the team leader, who makes sure everyone follows the overall strategy.

Guards capture trespassing raiders by tagging them. The prisoner must then stay where he is put until a member from his own team sets him free by tagging him again. Once a prisoner is set free, he must return to his home territory before resuming play.

If a flag is successfully captured, it must be taken back to the team's home territory. If the flag bearer is caught before she reaches her territory, the flag is returned to its original hiding place, the bearer goes to prison, and the game continues.

  • Begin by dividing the available space up into three parts, with team territories at opposite ends and a neutral "no man's land" in the middle. Mark where each territory begins.
  • Explain the rules, then split the group into two teams.
  • Give each team 10 minutes to choose a leader, assign roles, and discuss their strategy. Teams can decide for themselves how many guards and raiders to have but, once roles have been allocated, they remain for the duration of the game.
  • Instruct each team to place its flag in plain sight. It should present a challenge, but not be impossible to find.
  • Each team then waits in its home territory until you blow the whistle to signal that the game has begun.
  • The game ends when one team successfully brings the other's flag into its home territory. Blow the whistle again to show that the game is over.

Bear in mind that this game may not suit everyone. It can be quite physical, with lots of running and, depending on the terrain, climbing and scrambling over trails, rocks and trees.

It's important that team members approach their roles with sensitivity towards others – both their team members and their "enemies." Make sure that guards understand that they must "tag," not "tackle," enemy raiders, so that no one gets hurt.

Encourage the team to be creative with their roles, so that everyone, regardless of physical ability, can make a positive contribution. For example, some guards could act as "lookouts," while raiders could be divided into "scouts," who use stealth to discover the whereabouts of the flag or prisoners being held captive, and "runners," who create a diversion while others go after the prize.

At the end of the game, gather the group together to discuss how it went. Ask how each person's role contributed to the overall strategy. Examine each team's strategy (or lack of one) and how well it worked out for them, and identify what gave the winning team their competitive advantage.

Team building exercises work best when, as well as improving team work, they help people to develop skills that benefit them in their day-to-day jobs, too. Check out our other team building resources for skills such as creativity , problem solving and decision making , and communication .

Strategic thinking is important for aligning your own and your team's daily activities are aligned with the long-term goals and objectives of your organization.

The games in this article can help your team members learn how to think more strategically, and work together.

Apply This to Your Life

  • Think about how you could incorporate one of these games into your next team meeting, Away Day , or company retreat .

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Strategy workshops are very effective in driving collaborative solutions and decisions . Yet, they can also be a big waste of time if the prework and facilitation aren't up to par. The key to effective and efficient strategy workshops is getting the prework right, strong facilitation, and action-oriented follow-up. If you have these three elements of a strategy workshop covered, you'll elevate collaborative  problem solving  and  decision-making .

For over 25 years, I've been working with clients, preparing for and conducting successful strategy workshops on many topics. I did my fair share of workshops at McKinsey and Oliver Wyman and have taken it to the next level with my Stratechi clients. I collaborate with my clients to understand the decisions and solutions they seek in a workshop, develop the necessary pre-workshop materials, facilitate a productive, engaging, and insightful workshop, synthesize the results and follow-up action items, and ensure the team realizes the impact.

If you are looking for an experienced partner to help with the prework, facilitation, and follow-up needed for a successful workshop, email me at  [email protected] , and we'll collaborate on scoping out your strategy workshop.

Strategy Workshop

Strategy Workshop Prework

The first phase of a strategy workshop is the prework to create the foundation for a successful workshop. During this phase, we will work closely to define the desired outcomes and output of the workshop. Next, we will talk through the dynamics and strategies to make a productive and positive workshop. We may conduct structured interviews and deploy  Stratechi's leadership strategy survey  to understand the participants' perspectives better and generate ideas. We will then start developing the agenda and material and brainstorm the activities to maximize the workshop's collaboration, focus, and results. If needed, we will assign pre-workshop homework to participants to get them thinking about the workshop topics.

Strategy Workshop Facilitation

Given my experience, objectivity, and being a neutral party, I often facilitate the actual workshop. We will strategize on the best format and location for the workshop. Workshops are typically 6-8 hours long, some two days. I focus on increasing engagement, creativity, and collaboration during the workshop through prompts, exercises, and questions . I have an effective skill set in getting everyone to contribute and creating a fun environment while driving insights and efficiently progressing through the agenda. Given today's environment, I do a fair number of virtual workshops, though the results are typically better with in-person workshops.

Strategy Workshop Follow-up

The key to driving impact from a workshop is the follow-up. I work with the team to synthesize the workshop findings and results. Then, we prioritize and assign the action items to participants and drive to the next steps. I typically help facilitate follow-up meetings and  governance  to ensure accountability, results, and continued momentum.

Frequently Asked Questions about Strategy Workshops

What topics can you cover in a workshop.

I cover most strategy and strategic planning topics, including corporate strategy,  marketing ,  sales , operations,  growth ,  organizational design  and strategy,  business model design ,  mission  and  values , annual planning , and more. I also do situational workshops when a problem needs to be solved, or an opportunity needs to be better defined and actioned.

What are the typical fees charged for a workshop?

Every workshop is slightly different in terms of necessary prework, length, and follow-up effort, so I simply charge clients by the hour.

How much lead time do you need?

I've done workshops with less than a week's notice, but typically prefer at least a few weeks to do the proper prework to ensure a successful workshop.

How do I get started?

You can schedule an hour with me above. If you have some questions about workshop facilitation, you can email me at [email protected] .

I appreciate the consideration and I hope I can support you in creating and running an impactful workshop!

Are sessions confidential?

Of course. I am bound to this confidentiality agreement with every paying Stratechi.com client.

How do clients pay for services?

For strategy workshop clients, we typically start with a block of hours paid by credit card and then move to an invoice for services rendered.

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7 essential tasks for a strategic planning facilitator.

Businessman beside productivity concepts drawn on a board

As the strategy leader, you have seven activities to which I recommend you pay close attention to build a strong strategy that has full buy-in and commitment.

Gain your team’s commitment and buy-in to the process

If your leadership team members are like most with whom I have worked, they are stretched for resources and have more on their plate than they can likely accomplish with the time they have. Therefore, for many of them, the prospect of taking valuable time and resources to develop a plan that will come up with more to add to their already over-loaded plates is NOT a welcomed idea.

So how do you gain their commitment to planning and their buy-in to a planning process such as The Drivers Model? With a management briefing, you will have your team identify the most critical issues facing the organization; then they will make adjustments to the planning process as needed to ensure that the process addresses those issues. The management briefing increases commitment to planning by providing your team with a road map that shows how what is important to them will be covered during the strategic planning sessions.

Ensure All Voices Are Heard

The fundamental secret of facilitation indicates that you can increase buy-in and commitment by having those impacted by the plan involved in the creation of it. However, everyone in your organization will be impacted by the strategic plan. Does that mean everyone should be at the table creating the plan?

No, of course not. Nor is it necessary. Involvement does not necessitate being at the table. There are several ways to provide people the opportunity for involvement in the plan as described in the table that follows.

  • For some, just giving them a chance for input through a survey or a suggestion box will be adequate.
  • For others, focus groups, one-on-one interviews, or other methods for gaining in-depth input may be more appropriate.
  • And for others, their responsibilities, influence, expertise, or perspectives are so important that it will make sense to have them seated around the table.

One of your important roles is to determine who should be at the table and to put in place other avenues to ensure all voices are given the opportunity to be heard. Providing the opportunity for input is essential to a facilitative approach and to gaining the level of buy-in needed for successful implementation across the organization.

Ensure key information is brought into the room

You may have been in the room when a team has made a decision based on the best information available, only to discover that if they had been aware of other information that had not been brought into the room, they would have likely made a different decision. Sound familiar? Well, part of your role is to ensure that this doesn’t happen with your planning activity.

My company’s work in the area of consensus building has shown that one of the primary reasons people disagree is due to a lack of shared information. Many disagreements can be resolved, and even prevented, by making sure all parties have the same information.

With the Drivers Model, the briefing book serves the purpose of ensuring all your team members start with a common set of information

Get your ideas on the table without overpowering the group

As indicated earlier, it is important that all voices be heard, and that includes yours. Unfortunately, if you are like most leaders, your voice comes with considerable baggage. When the boss speaks, people listen. And they listen differently from when other people speak.

Sure, there will likely be some people in the room who treat your voice like every other voice in the room. Whether the idea comes from you or a first-year manager, these people will state their agreement or disagreement with the idea in the exact same way, regardless of the source. Unfortunately, this probably isn’t the case for most of the people at the table. When you speak, most may be quick to respond when they agree, and very, very slow to respond when they disagree – so slow, in fact, that sometimes they may never get around to it!

As a result of the lack of challenge, many leaders experience within their own walls, the views of the leader can easily overpower the group. And even when someone dares to challenge with a question, some leaders, often without knowing it, respond with statements that belittle the questioner or not-so-subtly communicate that challenging the boss is not welcome.

Ensure that the plan components meet the quality checks

With the Drivers Model, each component is dependent upon the components that came before it. So, for example, if you do a poor job of defining your mission and vision, your goals and objectives will reflect this. Likewise, if your goals and objectives are misaligned, your critical success factors and barriers will also be off. If your critical success factors and barriers are inadequate, your strategies and action plans will be inadequate as well. Therefore it is essential that you do a quality job every step of the way through the planning process.

The Drivers Model is designed to help you do this. From vision and mission to strategies and action plans, the Drivers Model provides a specific quality check for each component of the strategic plan. These quality checks help ensure that your plan is comprehensive, robust, inspiring, and implementable. As the leader, it is your role to ensure that each component of the plan passes its quality check. Below I have summarized one or two key elements from the quality checklist for each of the components of the plan.

Follow through and hold people accountable

If you have been involved in strategic planning processes, you know that far too often it is a game in which considerable energy is placed in developing a plan that is then put on the executive’s shelf, only to be looked at when it is time to do strategic planning once again.

The Drivers Model strives to end this game. Assemble a detailed process for aligning the organization and ensuring monthly check-ins, quarterly reviews, and an annual update to the strategic plan. This structured monitoring process is intended to help ensure that the plan moves from paper to implementation.

Decide if an outside facilitator would be helpful

With an activity as critical as strategic planning, it is essential that the effort be facilitated by someone who is skilled in facilitation but also has considerable experience guiding a team through strategy. Some organizations have internal resources with both facilitation and strategy expertise. However, others choose to bring in outside professional facilitators with years of training, experience, and proven results.

When should you bring in an outside facilitator? It is your role as the leader to make this call.

__________________________

Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., “The Facilitation Company” and author of Amazon best-seller “ The Secrets of Facilitation ”, “ The Secrets to Masterful Meetings ”, and the brand new “The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy.” Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning , issue resolution, process improvement, and others. They are also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States.

strategic plan workshop activities

Michael Wilkinson

strategic plan workshop activities

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Essential Strategic Planning Activities for Business Success

Nicolas Moreno

Strategic planning activities stand at the heart of transforming visions into actionable realities, guiding organizations through the complexities of growth , competition , and change .

These activities are the blueprint for success, a series of deliberate steps designed to align goals with actions, ensuring that every move is purposeful and impactful. Whether you’re a seasoned executive or a budding entrepreneur, mastering these activities can propel your organization to new heights.

In this guide, we’ll dive into strategic planning , unveiling activities that are both innovative and effective. Let’s explore how to turn strategic foresight into tangible results, setting your business on a path of sustained growth and competitive advantage.

Strategic Planning Activities: Types and Examples

Strategic planning is an essential process for any organization, aiming to set priorities, focus energy and resources , strengthen operations, and ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals.

Puzzle pieces coming together.

It involves a series of activities designed to set the direction for an organization and to define measurable goals and objectives. Below, we outline a series of strategic planning activities that can help your organization navigate the future more effectively.

1. SWOT Analysis

  • Conducting Team Workshops: Gather team members to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
  • Competitor Analysis: Analyze competitors to identify opportunities and threats in the market.
  • Customer Feedback Sessions: Collect feedback to understand strengths and weaknesses from the customer’s perspective.
  • Internal Audits: Evaluate internal processes to identify strengths and weaknesses.
  • Market Trend Analysis: Assess external market trends to identify opportunities and threats.

2. Goal Setting

  • SMART Goals Workshops: Develop specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals.
  • Visioning Sessions: Facilitate discussions to define the long-term vision of the organization.
  • Departmental Goals Alignment: Ensure that departmental goals align with the overall strategy.
  • Benchmarking: Set goals based on industry benchmarks.
  • Employee Engagement in Goal Setting: Involve employees in setting their own goals that contribute to the strategic objectives.

3. Scenario Planning

  • Future Trends Workshops: Explore how future trends could impact the organization.
  • Risk Management Sessions: Identify potential risks and develop strategies to mitigate them.
  • Innovation Brainstorming: Create scenarios that encourage innovation in response to potential future changes.
  • Stakeholder Analysis: Consider the impact of different scenarios on various stakeholders.
  • Resource Allocation Planning: Plan for resource allocation under different future scenarios.

4. Value Chain Analysis

  • Internal Processes Mapping: Map out all internal processes to identify value-adding activities.
  • Supplier and Partner Analysis: Evaluate suppliers and partners to improve the value chain.
  • Customer Journey Mapping: Understand the customer journey to enhance value at each touchpoint.
  • Cost Reduction Strategies: Identify areas in the value chain where costs can be reduced without compromising quality.
  • Quality Improvement Workshops: Focus on improving the quality of outputs at each stage of the value chain.

5. PESTLE Analysis

  • Political Impact Workshops: Assess how political factors impact the organization.
  • Economic Trend Analysis: Evaluate the economic environment and its impact on operations.
  • Social Changes Discussions: Explore social trends and their implications for the business.
  • Technology Innovation Sessions: Analyze technological advancements and how they can be leveraged.
  • Legal and Environmental Compliance Reviews: Ensure the organization is compliant with current laws and environmental standards.

6. Resource Allocation

  • Budgeting Workshops: Plan the budget in alignment with strategic priorities.
  • Investment Analysis Sessions: Determine the best areas for investment based on strategic goals.
  • Efficiency Audits: Identify ways to use resources more efficiently.
  • Capacity Planning: Plan for the resources needed to meet future demand.
  • Talent Allocation: Ensure that talent is allocated to strategic priority areas.

7. Strategic Partnerships

  • Partnership Identification Workshops: Identify potential strategic partners.
  • Collaborative Project Planning: Plan projects that involve strategic partners.
  • Cross-Marketing Strategies: Develop marketing strategies that benefit all involved parties.
  • Supply Chain Optimization: Work with partners to optimize the supply chain.
  • Knowledge Sharing Sessions: Share knowledge and best practices with partners.

8. Market Analysis

  • Customer Segmentation Analysis: Segment the customer base to target marketing efforts effectively.
  • Product/Service Gap Analysis: Identify gaps in the market that the organization can fill.
  • Competitive Benchmarking: Benchmark against competitors to identify areas for improvement.
  • Market Entry Strategy Planning: Plan strategies for entering new markets.
  • Pricing Strategy Workshops: Develop pricing strategies based on market analysis.

9. Performance Monitoring

  • KPI Setting Sessions: Define key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with strategic goals.
  • Dashboard Development: Develop dashboards to monitor performance in real-time.
  • Regular Performance Reviews: Conduct regular reviews to assess progress against goals.
  • Feedback Loops Creation: Create mechanisms for feedback to inform strategic adjustments.
  • Benchmarking Against Past Performance: Use past performance as a benchmark to gauge progress.

10. Continuous Improvement

  • Lean Management Workshops: Implement lean management principles to continuously improve processes.
  • Innovation Challenges: Encourage innovation through regular challenges or hackathons.
  • Quality Circles: Establish quality circles to focus on continuous improvement in specific areas.
  • Employee Suggestion Schemes: Implement schemes to encourage suggestions from employees.
  • Process Reengineering Projects: Undertake projects to fundamentally rethink and redesign processes.

The Importance of Strategic Planning Activities

Strategic planning serves as the compass for an organization, guiding its direction, helping allocate its resources efficiently, and setting a foundation for growth and success in a competitive environment.

1. Provides Direction and Focus

Strategic planning clearly defines the mission, vision, and core values of an organization. It sets clear objectives and goals that guide where the organization is heading. This clarity helps in focusing efforts and resources on what’s most important, ensuring that everyone is working towards the same end goal.

2. Facilitates Decision Making

With a strategic plan in place, decision-making becomes more informed and easier . Organizations can use their strategic objectives as a benchmark to evaluate options, making decisions that align with their long-term goals. This reduces uncertainty and enables proactive rather than reactive decision-making.

3. Improves Resource Allocation

Strategic planning helps organizations allocate their resources (time, money, and workforce) more effectively. By identifying key priorities and areas for growth, organizations can allocate their resources towards initiatives that offer the greatest return on investment, avoiding wastage on less impactful activities.

4. Enhances Organizational Performance

Organizations with a strategic plan often outperform those without one. Strategic planning involves setting performance metrics and benchmarks that align with the organization’s goals. This focus on performance and continuous improvement drives efficiency and effectiveness across the organization.

5. Encourages Market and Competitive Analysis

Strategic planning necessitates a thorough analysis of the market environment and competition. This analysis helps organizations understand their position in the market, identify opportunities for growth, and recognize threats that need to be managed. By staying informed about market trends and competitive dynamics, organizations can adapt and innovate to maintain their competitive edge.

6. Helps in Risk Management

By foreseeing potential risks and developing strategies to mitigate them, strategic planning plays a crucial role in risk management. It allows organizations to prepare for uncertainties and minimize the impact of adverse events, ensuring stability and continuity.

7. Fosters Team Alignment and Communication

A strategic plan acts as a shared document that aligns the team’s efforts. It enhances communication within the organization by providing a clear understanding of the organizational goals and the role of each team and individual in achieving these goals. This alignment is critical for fostering teamwork and collaboration.

8. Promotes Long-Term Success

Strategic planning is inherently forward-looking, focusing on long-term success rather than just short-term gains . It encourages organizations to think ahead, anticipate changes, and develop a roadmap for sustainable growth and development.

9. Improves Adaptability to Change

Organizations that engage in strategic planning are better equipped to adapt to changes in the business environment. The strategic planning process involves scenario planning and contingency planning, which prepare organizations to pivot their strategies in response to changing market conditions.

10. Enhances Stakeholder Confidence

A clear and coherent strategic plan enhances the confidence of stakeholders, including investors, customers, and employees. It demonstrates that the organization is forward-thinking, managed effectively, and has a clear vision for the future, which can attract investment, retain talent, and maintain customer loyalty.

A compass with strategic directions.

In conclusion, strategic planning is an essential practice for any organization aiming for longevity , relevance , and success in today’s dynamic business environment.

How to Implement Strategic Planning Activities

Implementing strategic planning activities requires a systematic approach to ensure that the strategic plan is not only well-created but also effectively executed and integrated into the organization’s daily operations. Here is a quick guide in how to implement them:

1. Preparation and Engagement

  • Secure Executive Buy-in: Ensure that top management supports the strategic planning process, as their leadership and commitment are crucial for success.
  • Assemble the Planning Team: Form a diverse team that includes representatives from various departments to bring in multiple perspectives.
  • Define the Scope and Timeline: Clearly outline the scope of the strategic planning process and establish a realistic timeline for completion.

2. Environmental Scanning

  • Conduct a SWOT Analysis: Analyze the organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats.
  • Perform a PESTLE Analysis: Examine political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors that could impact the organization.
  • Market and Competitive Analysis: Assess the market and your competitors to identify trends, opportunities, and challenges .

3. Vision, Mission, and Goals Setting

  • Define or Revisit the Vision and Mission: Ensure that the organization’s vision and mission are clear, inspiring, and reflective of its long-term aspirations.
  • Set Strategic Goals: Based on the analysis conducted, set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that align with the vision and mission.

4. Strategy Formulation

  • Identify Strategic Options: Brainstorm and list possible strategies for achieving the strategic goals.
  • Evaluate and Select Strategies: Assess the feasibility, risks, and benefits of each strategy to select the most effective ones.
  • Develop Action Plans: For each chosen strategy, develop detailed action plans including tasks, timelines, responsibilities, and resources needed.

5. Implementation

  • Communicate the Plan: Share the strategic plan with all stakeholders to ensure understanding and buy-in. Clear communication is critical for successful implementation.
  • Allocate Resources: Ensure that the necessary resources (budget, personnel, technology) are allocated to support the implementation of the strategic plan.
  • Integrate into Operations: Integrate strategic tasks and objectives into the daily operations and individual job responsibilities across the organization.

Tips for Successful Implementation

  • Leadership Commitment: Continuous support and involvement from leadership are vital throughout the process.
  • Stakeholder Engagement: Engage employees and other stakeholders early and often to build support and ensure alignment.
  • Flexibility: Be prepared to adapt strategies as needed in response to internal changes or external market shifts.
  • Communication: Maintain open and ongoing communication to keep everyone informed and engaged.
  • Accountability: Assign clear responsibilities and hold individuals accountable for their part in the implementation process.

A Case Study Using Strategic Planning Activities for Sustainable Growth

EasyCodeLines Corporation is a global technology company that specializes in software development and IT services.

Over the years, the company has experienced rapid growth and expansion, but its leadership recognized the need for a more structured approach to ensure sustained growth, competitive advantage, and adaptability in the dynamic tech industry.

A tech company.

  • Lack of a clear strategic direction: EasyCodeLines Corporation lacked a cohesive and well-defined strategic plan that could guide its growth initiatives effectively.
  • Inefficient resource allocation: Resources were often allocated without a clear understanding of their alignment with strategic objectives, leading to inefficiencies.
  • Limited adaptability: The tech industry evolves rapidly, and EasyCodeLines Corporation needed a mechanism to adapt to changing market dynamics more effectively.
  • Communication and alignment: Ensuring that all employees understood and were aligned with the company’s strategic goals was a challenge.

Implementation of Strategic Planning Activities

1. Preparation and Engagement:

  • Secure Executive Buy-in: The CEO and top management fully endorsed the strategic planning process, highlighting its importance for the company’s future.
  • Assemble the Planning Team: A cross-functional team was formed, including representatives from product development, marketing, sales, and finance, to provide diverse perspectives.
  • Define the Scope and Timeline: A clear scope for the strategic planning process was established, and a realistic timeline was set for completion.

2. Environmental Scanning:

  • SWOT Analysis: Workshops were conducted to identify internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats.
  • PESTLE Analysis: A thorough analysis of political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors was performed to understand their impact.
  • Market and Competitive Analysis: EasyCodeLines Corporation assessed market trends and analyzed competitors to identify opportunities and challenges.

3. Vision, Mission, and Goals Setting:

  • Define Vision and Mission: The company revisited and refined its vision and mission statements to better reflect its long-term aspirations.
  • Set Strategic Goals: Based on the analysis, SMART goals were established, ensuring they were specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

4. Strategy Formulation:

  • Identify Strategic Options: Brainstorming sessions generated a range of strategic options for achieving the established goals.
  • Evaluate and Select Strategies: The leadership team assessed each strategy’s feasibility, risks, and benefits, selecting the most effective ones.
  • Develop Action Plans: Detailed action plans were created for each chosen strategy, specifying tasks, timelines, responsibilities, and resource requirements.

5. Implementation:

  • Communicate the Plan: The strategic plan was shared across all levels of the organization through clear and frequent communication channels.
  • Allocate Resources: Resources were allocated in alignment with the strategic plan, ensuring that budget, personnel, and technology supported the chosen strategies.
  • Integrate into Operations: Strategic objectives were integrated into daily operations and individual job responsibilities, fostering alignment throughout the organization.

Results and Impact

  • Clear Direction and Focus: The strategic plan provided EasyCodeLines Corporation with a clear sense of direction, ensuring that all employees were aligned and working toward common goals.
  • Improved Resource Allocation: Resources were allocated more efficiently, with a focus on initiatives that offered the greatest return on investment, reducing wastage.
  • Enhanced Organizational Performance: The focus on performance and continuous improvement led to increased efficiency and effectiveness across the organization, resulting in improved financial performance.
  • Market and Competitive Analysis: Regular analysis helped EasyCodeLines Corporation adapt to market trends and stay ahead of competitors, enabling innovation and maintaining its competitive edge.
  • Effective Risk Management: The strategic planning process allowed the company to foresee potential risks and develop strategies to mitigate them, ensuring stability and continuity.
  • Team Alignment and Communication: The strategic plan fostered alignment and improved communication within the organization, enhancing teamwork and collaboration.
  • Long-Term Success: EasyCodeLines Corporation now has a roadmap for sustainable growth and development, promoting long-term success rather than short-term gains.
  • Adaptability to Change: The strategic planning process enabled the company to adapt to changes in the business environment by anticipating future scenarios and preparing for them.
  • Stakeholder Confidence: The clear and coherent strategic plan enhanced the confidence of investors, customers, and employees, attracting investment, retaining talent, and maintaining customer loyalty.

In conclusion, EasyCodeLines Corporation’s systematic implementation of strategic planning activities has helped the company navigate the complexities of the tech industry, achieve sustained growth, and maintain its competitive advantage in a dynamic market.

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How to Facilitate a Business Strategy Workshop

Business Strategy Workshop Facilitation

Posted in Blog , Entrepreneurship , Facilitation , Innovation , Innovation , Intrapreneurship , Launch Your Business , Lead , Virtual Facilitation by Jo North

Business Strategy Workshops

This article gives you practical tips and advice for planning and delivering an awesome business strategy workshop.

I believe that business strategy sessions are one of the most important things that we do. The world around us is always changing. Businesses need to stay agile, make sure they’re ahead of the curve and in line with where the markets are going. 

It’s important to get everybody engaged and thinking differently in your business strategy workshop, and I’ll be sharing some ideas along the way about how you can do that.

What is Business Strategy and Who is it For?

A business strategy is really just an overarching plan for an organization.

Big or small, all businesses need a strategy, and the world is changing all the time. It’s important that we revisit the strategy frequently to make sure it’s on course, adjusting where necessary.

Some of the strategic plans that we make don’t actually play out over time. However, having a business strategy creates direction, helps with prioritization and gets everyone working towards achieving the same vision.  

Objectives of a Business Strategy Workshop

The objectives of a business strategy workshop are for the organization to think about what’s going on in the world outside in relation to the organization’s vision, mission and values. 

Where does the organization want to be in relation to the world around it? 

  • How do you want to compete? 
  • How do you want to deliver value? 
  • How do you want to achieve your purpose? 

From there, realign with the customer elements.

  • Who are you serving? 
  • How have your customers’ needs changed? 
  • How have your competitors’ activities changed over time?

This is really about setting a long-term view, but how long term depends on the industry that you’re in. 

The energy and utilities sectors, amongst others, have really long-range planning of at least 10-15 years ahead. However, if you’ve got a small business, you might be looking at just the next 1 to 5 years. 

The Opportunity

The world has never been in the place it’s in today, and I think we’re seeing a lot of unprecedented change at the moment with…

  • Post COVID recovery . Organizations are working out what happens now, what the future may hold, and how we need to change in light of that. 
  • Climate change . We have organizations thinking about how they can do things cleaner, better with net zero decarbonisation. 
  • Technology . The availability of new technology means that customers’ expectations are changing. Digital technology also means that we can streamline internal processes for increased business efficiency.
  • Social change . We are all in business to solve a problem, or problems, that our customers have. Because the world is always changing, our customers’ needs and aspirations are always changing too. We need to make sure that the business’ value proposition remains aligned with market requirements.

Sometimes organizations don’t think they need a strategy. They don’t believe they can plan for the future because of all the changes. 

However, having a strategy is about having a direction. It’s about knowing where the organization wants to be so that it can build appropriate plans that it can then flex and change on its journey to get there. 

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. Dwight D Eisenhower

Getting Ready for Your Business Strategy Workshop

In preparing for a business strategy session, you’ll want to take the individual circumstances of each organization into account. I always establish objectives with clients ahead of time. 

  • What do people need to know? 
  • What pre-work is needed? 
  • What information and inputs are needed for the strategy session? 
  • Why are all those inputs needed? 
  • Who can provide and deliver them? 
  • When do we need to get them and from where? 
  • What data or info needs to be shared? 

This helps delegates process the information in advance of the strategy workshop, so they come after having done some groundwork. It also means that you have any important information at your fingertips, ready to use.

Designing Your Business Strategy Workshop

Business strategy workshop activities, welcome and warm up.

There are many different icebreakers and energizers that you can do to warm people up.  My article here will give you loads of great activities that you can use. Also, you’ll find some brilliant icebreaker questions specifically for your business strategy workshop here .

Where Do We Want To Be, and Why?

I recommend that you dedicate a significant proportion of your workshop to exploring the answers to this question, using a combination of activities that I’ve shared below.

Horizon Scanning

Start off with an activity that I have created called ‘ H o rizon Scanning ’. 

Horizon Scanning is about looking forward and reading the signals of today’s significant trends and seeing how they might evolve going forward. 

Horizon Scanning activity. Instructions for delegates.

When I’m working online, I ask delegates to use a virtual whiteboard in a tool such as Miro Online Whiteboard , and create an image with sticky notes for the things they think are going on in the future that will affect the organization’s strategy. 

If I’m facilitating in person, I like to have newspapers, industry publications or journals the delegates will use to find  things that they think are going to be relevant to the company strategy from outside the organization.

I have delegates break into small groups and look at the opportunities and challenges the business might have, for example, between now and the end of 2025. 

We have a discussion about what the social, technological, environmental, economic, political, legal and regulatory changes might mean for the organization in the years ahead.

Business mission, vision, values

We are still working on the question “Where do we want to be, and why?”

Now, you want to take a look at the organization’s vision, mission and values, and consider the organization’s intended place and role in the changing world.

  • Where do you see your place in the world, amongst all of those things that are going on in the world outside? 
  • Where do you see your  purpose, fit, place and contribution? 

If the organization you’re working with does not have a mission, vision and values , use the activities in my article here to create them.

Wouldn’t It Be Fantastic If…

Having established what’s going on in the world outside of your business and how that might impact your organization, the next stage of the business strategy workshop is to determine:

‘Given our vision, mission and values, where do we want to be and how does that relate to us?’

‘ What might a great future be like within the context of your vision, mission values and what’s going on in the world? ‘

A really simple and effective exercise is to ask delegates to do the WIFI (Wouldn’t It Be Fantastic If) activity. 

I ask delegates to complete the phrase, W ouldn’t I t be F antastic I f , as many times as they can for things that they could make happen. These need to be things they CAN make happen, not just wishful thinking! 

Once you are done with that, your strategy workshop participants select the top ones. This is where you’re really starting to envision where the organization wants to go. 

Instructions on how to facilitate the wouldn't it be fantastic if technique in a strategy workshop

I like to use Wouldn’t it be fantastic if.. . because it’s all about possibility and imagination . It gives people the freedom and the permission to think differently, stretch themselves, and dream a little bit as well. 

Lightning Talks with Customers

Now look at how customer’s needs are changing. I’m defining customers in the loosest possible sense. If we do something for somebody else, that ‘somebody else’ is our customer.  So make sure that you’re specific about who your organization’s customers are. 

When I work with an organization, I often invite a selected number of the organization’s customers in to do something that I call a lightning talk. 

A lightning talk is designed to really spark creativity, insights and ideas. It’s fast and punchy, but it’s packed with value. The purpose is to get ideas sparking and delegates really thinking through the lens of their customers. 

I ask customers at this stage to share their thoughts, experiences and future priorities.

TIP: If you have a small business and you’re not sure how this would work for you, you can simply contact some customers and have conversations with them, get some input from them and feed that into your own strategy process.

Product /  Service Life Cycle

Next, explore the products or services that the organization is providing using the product / service lifecyle model . 

I ask delegates to plot out where each element of their offer is in the lifecycle. 

  • Is it in a growth phase? 
  • Are there some elements that are declining? 

This stage is important because you’re thinking through what’s working, what’s growing and what to get behind.

You may also focus on those products or services that may need another growth curve, or what you should turn off or let go in order for resources to be directed somewhere else. 

Product / service lifecycle

Using the product / service lifecycle tells us about customers’ behavior. It highlights what customers want, what they’re enjoying, what they’re benefiting from, and also what isn’t so popular and why. As an alternative, you can do this using the Boston Consulting Group matrix (pictured below). 

strategic plan workshop activities

With the Boston Consulting Group matrix, you’re looking at sales and growth and plotting them in one of the four squares: Stars, Cash Cows, Dogs or Question Marks. 

  • Stars – Fast growing products or services that might not be selling a huge amount of volume yet, but they’re showing some really fantastic promise.
  • Dogs – Products or services that are not going anywhere and are probably not at all profitable. 
  • Cash Cows – Products or services which aren’t growing a lot, but are steady and bringing in a nice profitable income. The cash cows provide the cash flow to fund innovations for stars and future cash cows.
  • Question Marks – Products or services that do not seem to have a clear path for success. They could either succeed or fail. The question is do you get behind it, leave it a bit longer, or maybe put it to one side and focus on something else?

Mapping all of the business’ products and services out in this way helps to identify where the priorities might be, as well as understanding where customers are heading with their choices.

Competition

Next, explore competition with delegates to understand how well competitors are serving customers. Discuss how well competitors are showing that they might be serving customers going forward. 

I ask delegates to plot out how well competitors are performing versus themselves and give themselves a score using a visual template, such as in the image below. 

strategic plan workshop activities

For more information and a detailed step-by-step guide on how to do competitor analysis , check out my article here and video below.

How it all Fits Together

So we’ve been divergent up to this point, and now we’re going to look at being more convergent. 

It is usually at this point that I’ll ask delegates to do a SOAR analysis. SOAR stands for Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results. 

strategic plan workshop activities

Related Article: Appreciative Inquiry for Facilitators

In a SOAR analysis, I’ll ask the team to think about and work through the following:

  • The organization’s greatest assets – people, money, the brand, ways of working, products, services, networks, supply chain, and many more things. 
  • Key opportunities coming from the outside world from the earlier horizon scanning activity.
  • Internal weakness – these can be converted into a strength internally, so that could be an opportunity for growth.
  • Mapping out and consolidating their aspirations from the WIFI activity above.
  • Identify the measurable results that they want their strategy to achieve. 

This is where you are bringing everything together from all the activities that the team has done so far. Pull them into one place to create a consolidated SOAR analysis. 

Potential Solutions

We now know where we want to be, where we are and what we have to work with. But, how are we going to do that and create competitive differentiation? 

There are so many different tools that I use for this. One really good one is the Four Actions Framework from the Blue Ocean Strategy suite of tools. 

So the next activity is about asking the team to think through what they could: 

strategic plan workshop activities

The idea is to eliminate or reduce things without negatively impacting the customer experience. 

These simple questions are really fantastic at prompting great strategic thinking and you get lots of ideas from that which you prioritize.  

Action Plan

The last thing is to create an action plan.  

  • What’s the action?
  • Who’s going to do it? 
  • When does it need to be done by?

You want everybody to leave the business strategy workshop being superclear about where the organization’s heading. This includes what it means for customers and where the competitive differentiation is going to come from. Also, on what the organization needs to put in place and start doing in order to make that happen. It’s important too to have a clear segue into actually getting there. 

If you’d like our help with designing and facilitating your business strategy workshop , either virtually or in-person, please do get in touch. We’d love to help.

If you’re interested in facilitation and developing your professional practice as a facilitator, I’d love you to come and  join me in my free, private Facebook Group, Idea Time for Workshop Facilitators . As well as a fantastic community of likeminded people, you will get access to free facilitation trainings, tools, techniques and time savers.

If you’d like to book us to deliver some professional virtual facilitation for you and your team, or would like a one-to-one virtual facilitation training and coaching session,  find out more about what we do here . Contact me direct using the form below. I’ll get straight back to you.

Hope to hear from you soon 🙂

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How to Run Strategy Workshops in 5 Steps

Leaders all agree that strategy is critical to success, but are sometimes unclear on the how to bring stakeholders together to create one through a series of strategy workshop. Running a smooth set of strategy workshops is critical to strategy planning and to arriving at a strategy that leadership can be confident in.

Motivation for strategy workshops

Across all the definitions from management consultancies, academia, and business journals, strategy is defined as a communicable plan to maximize and sustain the most important outcomes . What's critical in that definition? Outcomes , maximization , planning , communication . For more information about what makes a good strategy, see the video "Elements of Good Strategy."

Because forming a strategy requires alignment across many stakeholders, it is impossible to arrive at a defensible, cohesive strategy without performing working sessions or workshops with relevant senior stakeholders. And (while it goes without saying) it is impossible to "not have a strategy" as this paradoxically is a strategy in and of itself.

Any strategy workshop process must contain the following 5 steps, often in the following order:

  • Defining outcomes
  • Research and diagnosis
  • Prioritization
  • Vetting and approval

These 5 steps are occurring, explicitly or implicitly, in every strategy planning process . If these steps are not observably occurring, they actually are occurring but in fragmented, disjointed and unaligned ways across stakeholders.

Each of these steps may be a workshop or a working session, or several may be combined into a single workshop, depending on availability of stakeholders. These steps may occur in a cycle, for instance every year, in the case of annual strategy planning.

Step 1: Defining outcomes

Outcomes are the measures of success in an organization, and are the cornerstone of strategy planning. For example, hit $100M in annual runrate revenue, or reach a $50M valuation. Some tech leaders call these "audacious goals."

Outcomes define how big our strategy needs to be. For example, a company targeting $10M in revenue will have a vastly different strategy to one targeting $10B within the same timeframe. For that reason, outcomes do not need to have a strict timeline, but rather a time horizon, for instance 2-5 years. Outcomes are a reflection of the goals of the shareholders, board, or mission stakeholders (in the case of a non-profit). For a public C-Corporation, the owner goals are clear-cut: maximal valuation. For other organizations, you might need more nuance and consideration to arrive at the right outcomes.

A repeatable method for arriving at outcomes can be to perform 2 activities:

  • Shareholder / Stakeholder Goals and Needs (a) What are the needs of the shareholders/stakeholders of the organization, in the very long-term? (b) How much progress has already been made? (c) What are "80-20" methods to realize these goals and needs in the short/medium term? ‍
  • Organizational Outcomes Mapped to Shareholder / Stakeholder Needs (a) Choose primary metric(s), driven by shareholder/stakeholder goals (b) Layer in comparisons and benchmarks for this metric (c) Choose secondary metric(s) (d) Iterate to refine the outcomes

Participants

Owners, board directors, and/or shareholders with 20%+ equity. For non-profits: the executive director, board/trustees, and any key stakeholders of the organization's Mission.

Number of sessions

Step 2: research and diagnosis.

A good strategy is an informed strategy. That's why the second step of a strategy workshop process is research and diagnosis

For a strategy to be holistic, research and diagnosis must cast the net wide, covering:

  • Internal strengths and weaknesses, for instance from customer insights or organizational maturity assessments
  • External trends, opportunities, and threats, for instance from competitor research, market reports, or expert calls

The purpose of research is to help identify ideas for new strategic initiatives—and to understand how big or feasible they may be. For instance, if competitors have expanded to China and seen China sales make up 20% of their business, an idea for your organization is to do the same.

During this phase of strategy planning, leadership will both collect the insights and research conducted since the last strategy planning session, and request any new research and diagnosis necessary.

Research may be happening continuously (for instance if there is a dedicated Strategy or Research function), or may happen solely during strategy planning.

Executive team, research departments (eg User Research), Strategy department, Biz Ops, CX/Sales/Business Development, Corporate Development

No workshop sessions (this step requires research, surveys, analysis, etc, which can take place offline).

Step 3: Ideating initiatives

A common mistake is to prioritize a strategic idea as soon as you have it. This is not optimal, as in the heat of the moment, you won't have the necessary context to understand the quantitative priority of an idea. That's why the third discrete step of strategy planning is ideation.

What is it that is being "ideated"? We can call them opportunities or initiatives , depending on whatever resonates best with the organization. Initiatives are the ways to achieve our strategic outcomes. For instance, different initiatives and maneuvers to reach $100M in revenue. Roger Martin puts it nicely: " where to play, how to win ."

Good initiative ideas must big enough to make "meaningful progress" against the outcomes you need. At top organizations, only a small number of cohesive, interlinked initiatives are selected and meshed into a strategy. As initiatives are driven by the outcomes, they must also have the same time horizon as the outcomes. If your outcome demands an additional $50M in annual revenue, then each initiative should contribute $10-20M.

Some potential categories for initiative ideas:

  • Product and experience
  • Channels and go-to-market
  • Expansion (eg geo)
  • Contraction (eg cost cutting)
  • Operations, support, delivery, customer success
  • Governance and regulatory

In the ideation step, leaders pull in the initiative ideas uncovered in research, and, in an unrestrained way, add new ones. Remember to cast the net wide—it's better to capture an idea and later deprioritize it than to ignore the idea and have it gnaw it you later. If an idea seems small, ask yourselves: is this part of an existing idea? Or is there a generalization of this idea that is bigger?

Ideation can often happen in 1-2 whiteboard working sessions with some offline pre-work. Once a strategy is in place, however, ideation can occur freely—for instance, through addition of new initiative ideas to a spreadsheet shared among an executive team.

Owners, board directors, and/or primary shareholders. For non-profits: the executive director, board/trustees, and any key stakeholders of the organization's Mission.

1-2 (and later, continuous )

Step 4: Prioritizing initiatives

In the previous step, ideation, we said that strategic initiatives are high-level tactics and approaches to make meaningful progress against our desired outcomes. We also talked about why ideation and prioritization have to be separated—ideation must be unrestrained and creative while prioritization must be analytical. With ideation handled, we now tackle the prioritization and selection of strategic ideas.

Defensible prioritization is critical to a good strategy plan, otherwise getting (and maintaining) buy-in will be hard.

There are many frameworks for ranking and prioritizing, so we'll share a simple one here: impact and feasibility .

  • Score an idea's expected impact low, medium, or high—1, 2 or 3—based on the risk-adjusted impact it would have on your desired outcomes. Be quantitative—if your desired outcome is an additional $10M in annual revenue, then "high impact" should be $5M+ of revenue, "medium" should be $2-5M, and "low" should be under $2M]
  • Score feasibility low, medium, or high—1, 2 or 3. For simplicity, feasibility scores can be relative to each other, but in complex setups, you may calculate this using time and cost drilldowns
  • Adding impact to feasibility gives you Priority
  • Look at your 2-5 highest priority initiatives. If they cohesive, achievable, communicable, and obey the other elements of good strategy we talked about earlier, then you're looking at the components of your organization's new strategy. If not, you may need to adjust your initiative ideas, splitting and splicing them and then re-prioritizing.

Prioritization can often happen in 1-2 working sessions with some offline pre-work. Sometimes, to get more precise and quantitative, teams may need to conduct more research before reconvening.

strategic plan workshop activities

Step 5: Vetting and approval

The top priority initiatives that comprise your strategy should be combined into a single cohesive Strategic Statement, and then all relevant stakeholders should hold a working session to review and adjust it if necessary.

The Strategic Statement, along with the backup prioritization table, should be presented to the board, ownership, or both, to get final ratification and approval.

Let's take an example. Let's say we defined a multi-year outcome of $100M annual runrate revenue. And our top strategic initiatives ended up as:

  • Triple inventory through third party products
  • Significantly reduce expense per product launch to increase product launched per quarter
  • Expand to China with existing/new portfolio

This could imply a 2-5 year strategic statement of:

Scale Our Reach—rapidly grow our marketplace with third party products and adopt a repeatable launch model to expand to China while improving efficiency in the US

Vetting is critical to a good strategy. Read more about about communicating strategic plans and getting buy-in .

1 workshop session for Strategic Statement, followed by numerous conversations with stakeholders for vetting and approval.

After the workshops: Execution

We walked through the first 5 interlinked steps to strategizing—defining outcomes, research, ideation, prioritization, and approval.

But it's meaningless to build an approved strategy deck in PowerPoint and let it rot on your shared drive. Strategy must go hand in hand with execution.

A cohesive strategy must be broken down into lower level initiatives and outcomes that teams can execute against and be held accountable to. For instance, a multi-year strategy may concretely define the outcomes of an annual strategy, and an annual strategy may define the outcomes required for the next quarter

Let's take our example. We've defined a multi-year outcome of $100M annual runrate revenue.

We have a 2-5 year strategic statement of "Scale Our Reach—rapidly grow our marketplace with third party products and adopt a repeatable launch model to expand to China while improving efficiency in the US".

This may break down into multiple lower level outcomes we need to hit within the next year—for instance:

  • Onboard 1 new third party product vendor
  • Achieve $1M in revenue from China from existing product portfolio
  • Reduce average design-to-launch time to 3 months

Each of these outcomes could have one or more initiatives, such as "hire dedicated business development team."

By having this connectivity from your strategic outcomes all the way to the initiatives that your teams are working on, you can massively improve transparency, confidence in the strategy, and performance against your multi-year objectives.

By following this sequence of workshops, your leadership team can construct a bold yet defensible strategy plan that will align teams over multiple years while remaining executable. For teams that have more intricate, multi-stakeholder needs, learn more about Gaussian's advisory services and growth strategy workshop facilitation .

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How to Facilitate a Strategic Planning Session [2024 Strategic Planning Workshop]

By Ted Skinner

strategy planning

Annual & Quarterly Planning

how to facilitation a strategic planning session

At Rhythm Systems, our consultants are trained strategic facilitators who are crucial in strategic planning. They are planning experts who help you get the most ROI from your meeting with their expert facilitation skills. We have facilitated hundreds of successful Strategic Planning , Annual Planning , and Quarterly Planning sessions for our clients. In this blog post, we will share expert insights from these sessions so that you can scale up your company. Strategy planning (and expert facilitation) is vital as the longer-term strategic priorities drive the shorter-term goals, projects, and actions with complete organizational alignment .

Note to strategic CEOs: Along with our ability to educate, coach, and facilitate specific content and methodology during on-site sessions, one of the main reasons CEOs choose to bring us in to run their sessions is so that the CEO can fully participate and implement their 5 year plan template . It is impossible for a CEO to effectively facilitate a session with all the stakeholders and fully participate simultaneously. The CEO's contribution and participation is significant to reach the desired outcome. Session facilitation is an extra burden that is better placed on another team member or an expert facilitator. You should learn to be a good facilitator with tips and tricks or consult with us to see if hiring an expert makes sense.

Free Guide: How to Facilitate a Strategic Planning Session

Rhythm Systems Annual Planning Facilitation Guide

Strategic Planning Facilitation Step 1: THINK Through the Purpose and Outcome of the Meeting

Stephen Covey advises us to "begin with the end in mind." What is the purpose of this meeting? What do we hope to accomplish? Who should attend? What are our strategic objectives for this workshop? What work should the meeting participants get done before the meeting (research and homework)? What are the specific outcomes or outputs we are looking for from this strategic planning session? What is the role of a facilitator in a strategic planning session? Do we need a plan B for a potential 2024 recession ?

Creating an Objective Statement that you can share with the rest of the team in advance is a great way to ensure everyone who attends the meeting has shared goals and expectations for your time together. It will also clarify you as you move into step 2 and begin planning for the session. Make sure that this aligns with your mission statement. This differs from  team meetings ; setting expectations upfront is critical for your strategic objectives. 

An Objective Statement consists of three parts:

Part 1: TO : (What is the action? What will you do? Start with a verb.)

Part 2. IN A WAY THAT : (How will you do it? List criteria, scope, involvement, success measures, specific tactics, side benefits, or any other relevant information. Use bullet points.)

Part 3. SO THAT : (Why are you doing this? Why is it essential? What is the main benefit?)

Sample Objective Statement for one company's Quarterly Planning Session

QUARTERLY PLANNING OBJECTIVE STATEMENT

TO : Conduct a practical strategic planning session

IN A WAY THAT:

  • Brings the Senior Leadership Team together for two full days to develop an effective strategy
  • Highlights the previous quarter's accomplishments
  • Updates and advances our Annual Plan and long-term goal attainment
  • It allows us to discuss-debate-agree critical topics as a team
  • It prepares us to overcome any potential obstacles to hitting our year-end goals
  • Identifies 3-5 Company Priorities, complete with owners and clear success criteria
  • Identifies clear Individual Priorities for each member of the leadership team
  • Prepares us to begin thinking about next year's Annual Plan
  • It allows us to identify strengths and weaknesses
  • Answers the key questions facing our company and industry
  • It helps us clearly define and communicate our business strategy to the entire organization
  • Fun ideas for strategic planning are always considered and change up the energy in the room

SO THAT : We finish this year strong and set ourselves up for a solid start to next year.

Professional Strategic Planning Facilitation Video

Strategic planning facilitation step 2: plan all the details in advance.

Anytime you bring your team together for a meeting, whether for a few hours or days, you invest time, energy, and money. The way to ensure you get the most out of your investment is to be adequately prepared. The preparation checklist below will help you.

Learn More Expert Facilitation .Learn more about the Rhythm System, the complete solution for strategy, execution, coaching, methodology, and software.  

Strategic Planning Process Meeting Preparation Checklist

  • Set the date – You will want to determine and set the date as soon as possible so that everyone on your team can attend. The longer you wait, the harder it is to find a time that works. If this is an ongoing, standing meeting, ensure everyone has it on their calendar every time it occurs and actively works to protect the scheduled time with the team.
  • Select the Facilitator – It is essential to pick the right person to facilitate your session. The facilitator is responsible for creating the agenda, preparing content material (slides/visuals), arriving early to ensure setup and materials, testing technology, and facilitating the session. If you must choose someone on your team who will be in attendance, remember to occasionally stop during the meeting and ask their opinion if not previously shared. If you choose someone who would not usually be in attendance, ensure they understand that their job is to facilitate, not offer opinions on discussions they would not typically be involved in. Role clarity is essential.
  • Select a location – A meeting or planning session in your conference room can be ineffective. The opportunity to lose focus and be interrupted by operational issues increases exponentially. This is fine for short, weekly, routine meetings, but we recommend taking your team off-site for 1-2 day planning sessions. 
  • Choose a Meeting Coordinator – This person is in charge of handling all of the logistics for the meeting, making sure participants have made travel arrangements, the conference room (on-site or off-site) is booked and set up for the session, and that all participants are aware of any homework/preparation that is needed for the session. Use someone on your team who is meticulous with details and have them build a strategic planning checklist for future meetings.
  • Prepare the meeting material – You and the facilitator should refer to your Objective Statement when creating the agenda. Be careful not to overload your agenda. Be realistic about what you can accomplish in the time you have available. Create a basic time plan to accompany your agenda. This will help you know whether or not you are on track during the meeting. Less is more when it comes to slides. The old rule was no more than 6x6 (six words long by six bullets). In today's Twitter and drive-through world, you're better served to stick to 4x4 or, better yet, 3x3. Consider revealing information one bullet point at a time, especially if you must have more than 6x6 on a slide, and always ensure it is written for your target audience.   Use our AI Goal Coach if you have any questions!
  • Email the meeting agenda and pre-work to the attendees - Communicate with all attendees at least two weeks before the session, sharing the objective statement, agenda, and any pre-work you want them to do. Realize that some people - even with proper instruction - may be in the habit of attending meetings unprepared. If you consider the pre-work essential, let the team know that it's mandatory and require them to return it in advance, or instruct them to bring copies to the meeting and build time to share the output into your agenda. This will allow people to think about the strategic goals for themselves and the company ahead of the meeting.
  • Last minute details - Work with the meeting coordinator to ensure all the meeting details have been addressed: supplies ordered, lunch planned, technology arrangements made, attendance confirmed, action plans, etc.

Remember to be realistic about what you can accomplish in the available time and set the agenda appropriately. The strategic planning facilitator must also keep the team focused on having the proper discussions for your organization. Understanding and working with the group dynamics is essential, especially in a large group. This related article can read more details about a virtual strategic planning session .

Strategic Planning Facilitation Step 3: Do the Hard Work of Running the Strategy Session

Three definitions of the role of the facilitator:

  • "An individual who enables groups and organizations to work more effectively; to collaborate and achieve synergy. He or she is a 'content neutral' party who by not taking sides or expressing or advocating a point of view during the meeting, can advocate for fair, open, and inclusive procedures to accomplish the group's work."
  • "One who contributes structure and process to interactions so groups are able to function effectively and make high-quality decisions. A helper and enabler whose goal is to support others as they achieve exceptional performance."
  • "The facilitator's job is to support everyone to do their best thinking and practice. To do this, the facilitator encourages full participation, promotes mutual understanding and cultivates shared responsibility. By supporting everyone to do their best thinking, a facilitator enables group members to search for inclusive solutions and build sustainable agreements."

The word facilitation means to make it easy. Too bad actually facilitating a group of people isn't. It takes a tremendous amount of energy, focus, quick thinking, and patience to facilitate a meeting. Following the first two steps in this blog post (Step 1: THINK and Step 2: PLAN), you are set up for a successful session. But there is still much work to do.

Here are 15 Tips to keep the strategy session moving positively.

Download a Facilitator Checklist  Roles and Responsibilities of a Great Facilitator

15 Expert Tips for Facilitating a Great Zoom Strategy Meeting

Set ground rules at the beginning of the meeting . Let the team discuss their expectations for full participation, candor, sidebars, interruptions, tangents, and cell phone and computer use. This conversation upfront creates an environment of accountability and high commitment to the meeting. Ground rules will help reduce the stress of group interaction and make it easier to resolve problems when they arise. Capture your ground rules on a flip chart while discussing and post for reference throughout the meeting. To start with some energy, I suggest using one of our Zoom icebreakers to get things started.

Trust the process . Remember that you have put a great deal of time into steps 1 & and 2, so you are going into the day with a good game plan. Sometimes, things seem disjointed, or the team doesn't understand where you're going. Tell them there is a method to the madness, and ask them to trust the process with you. When utilizing a slide deck and agenda provided by Rhythm Systems, know that the function and content have been tested and proven to work many times. It may not all come together until the very end, but if you are going in with a clear objective and well-thought-out agenda, the results you're looking for will follow, and problem-solving will occur.

annual planning

Give yourself permission to deviate from the time plan if a topic requires more time than you thought it would. As long as the additional time is used for good, healthy debates on important issues and not the beating of dead horses, it will be a good use of time. If you do deviate from the time plan, involve the team in deciding how you will make it up. You may choose to stay late or start early one day, or you may decide to cut or shorten the time allowed for another topic. Involving the team in this discussion and decision increases engagement, energy, and commitment.

Celebrate your progress as you move through the session . Reflect on lessons learned and breakthroughs. Acknowledge someone when they're brave enough to bring up a tricky subject. Check-in with each other to ensure you're all engaged. After breaks, consider restating what's been accomplished and where you are on the agenda.

Use icebreakers with purpose. Ice breakers are quick, interactive exercises designed to get the team's brain working and mouth moving. They are usually used at the beginning of a session, after breaks, and after lunch. They can also be great for raising the energy level late in the afternoon. A quick Google search will provide hundreds of ideas for icebreakers. One of our favorites is a quick round of victories or good news. This serves several purposes. It gives team members a chance to share information, allows them to get to know each other better, and starts the meeting positively. We recommend that you start every session with some version of good news.

Encourage full and equal participation. A team comprises many individuals, each with their own personality and preferred work style. Some are naturally more dominant and expressive, while others may be more thoughtful and reserved. One type is not better than another, and the fact that they're on your team means you value their input. The facilitator's job is to recognize these different styles and run the meeting in a way that gives each person a chance to contribute. This is a good discussion at the beginning of the session as you set the ground rules.

Set the expectation of full and equal participation clear and give the team a chance to discuss how they will do this. The facilitator may have to step in throughout the meeting, explicitly calling on individuals who have not spoken up. The facilitator may also design the meeting to include specific opportunities to hear from everyone. Examples of this would be small group breakout sessions or employing different brainstorming methods (see #8.)

Use visual aids effectively. Any combination of flip charts, whiteboards, sticky notes, posters, PowerPoint/Keynote, and handouts will do. We've all seen the person who used every animation tool within PowerPoint - wiggly jiggly icons, annoying animations, slides swiping in from 20 directions in 5 different ways. Don't overdo it; allow your visuals to distract from the meeting. People have different learning styles; Some are visual learners, some auditory, some kinesthetic, and some experiential, so mix it up and use all aids in moderation. Keep in mind that your body language is one of the most essential visual aids that you have; make sure that you make people feel like they are being heard.

Use different methods for brainstorming. Round robin, freewheeling, group pass, and silent reflection are all proven methods you may try. Brainstorming aims to produce a comprehensive list of potential ideas, solutions, or plans. When done well, brainstorming should increase participation, reduce inhibition, stimulate ideas, increase creativity, and be a group process.

Strategic Planning Brainstorming Methods:

  • Focus on quantity first and capture as many ideas as possible.
  • Encourage and welcome all ideas - ask the team to dig deep and think beyond the obvious - every idea submitted should be captured.
  • Hold off on judgment, criticism, or reality checks - this should be a "safe time." Ideas will be discussed and debated later.
  • Use short phrases and bullet points, not paragraphs and lengthy explanations.
  • "Piggyback" on others' ideas. Outlandish ideas can be stepping stones to good, workable ideas.
  • Although giving a brief overview of brainstorming rules can be helpful, there's no need to go into an elaborate explanation. "Let's brainstorm annual priorities that will move us toward our 3-5 year strategic plan . Remember, let's not judge the ideas but just capture and understand them first." Then, begin your chosen method of brainstorming. As you move through the process, anticipate that someone will break the rules - that's when the facilitator steps in and makes the correction.

Round Robin

Ask for a volunteer to start the brainstorming process with one idea. The facilitator captures the idea on a flip chart for all to see. Ask the volunteer to choose whether to go to the right or the left, allowing the person sitting next to them to offer one idea. The facilitator continues to chart the answers, going around the room until everyone can contribute at least one picture. You can then try to take a second pass around the room if the ideas are flowing freely, or you may open it up to anyone who has another idea not previously mentioned.

Freewheeling

Suppose you're working with a group where equal participation is not an issue. In that case, you may be able to open the brainstorming session up by asking for ideas and allowing people to offer suggestions in any order at all. Use the participants' words to chart all ideas with short bullet points. This method can go fast, so you may want to ask for a volunteer to help chart answers using a second flip chart.

Each person in the group starts with a piece of paper, writes down one idea, and then passes the piece of paper to the next person. The following person then builds on the original idea, adding a few thoughts. Continue around the room until the owner returns their original piece of paper. You can then ask each person to take a minute to review their original idea and share it with the team.

Silent Reflection

Some people need a little time to think and formulate their ideas. Instruct the team that you give them a certain amount of time (5-15 minutes, depending on the topic) to think and write down their ideas. You can ask them to write their thoughts on sticky notes, one idea per note, or list them on paper. If you use sticky notes, you can ask them to read one statement at a time and place them on the wall, grouping all similar ideas together. If they are written on notebook paper, you can use the round-robin method to share and chart the ideas.

Use a Parking Lot. Stay on track by creating a place to capture ideas that are inappropriate to the discussion at hand but that you don't want to lose. Make it visible to all using a whiteboard, tear sheet, etc. This helps you keep the meeting focused without chasing too many "rabbit trails." It is important to honor all ideas, questions, and concerns during a session, and by placing the item in your parking lot, you send the subtle message that all contributions are essential. Refer to the parking lot items while facilitating when appropriate and review any unresolved items at the end of your session, moving them to an action item list. In a strategy meeting, you must keep the team on task; using a parking lot can help you accomplish that.

Deal with difficult people ahead of time. Before your meeting, think about participants who tend to be outspoken, dominate, or argue in meetings. Think also about participants who may have felt bullied or intimidated or have a history of not participating openly. Have a conversation with these people before the session, explaining your concern and asking for their help in creating a healthy and productive environment. When talking to the dominant person, helpful language might include, "Jim, I'm trying to increase participation in this meeting. I appreciate your outspokenness and value your input. If it's ok with you, I'd like you to go last so I may first hear the rest of the team's thinking before you share yours." Be sure to reevaluate and give that participant a chance to share.

This is also an excellent topic to discuss while setting ground rules at the beginning of the session. Discuss the expectations for politeness and tone during the meeting, and ask the team for permission to point it out if things get off track. If a conflict arises during a meeting, the facilitator must be prepared to step in and take control of the meeting. Anytime the discussion becomes accusatory or personal, the facilitator can ask the participant to reword statements so that they are focused on solutions, facts, and business issues, not people and blame. An excellent technique for redirecting a heated discussion is to ask the team to discuss their learnings rather than their frustrations. Be sure to do this whenever the language becomes personal; before you know it, your team will police this behavior themselves. Conflict resolution is the central role of the facilitator.

Keep the energy high. Enthusiasm is contagious - and so is negativity. Some people need to doodle while they think, some need toys like a Koosh ball or rubber Gumby, others need talk time with other participants, and others need to stand up or walk around the room from time to time. Think through your meeting day and plan ways to keep the energy high for the entire time to keep the group paying attention.

Have participants work in pairs, write something down, work together on puzzles, make mini-presentations on topics assigned before and after breaks, schedule group breakout sessions, etc. Remember that the room's energy is often a notch or two below the facilitator's, so it is vital to keep your energy high. Try to get plenty of sleep the night before, eat well, have plenty of water on hand, and take breaks as needed, as group facilitation is challenging!

Get to a consensus. Many discussion topics require moving the group from several individuals, independent ideas to one agreed-upon group decision. Consensus can be defined professionally as an acceptable resolution everyone on the team can support. It does not mean that everyone on the team has to agree that this is their number one favorite resolution, just that they will support the decision in the future. Supporting a decision means that you will speak positively about the decision to others and do everything in your power to ensure the decision results in a positive outcome. You will not say," They decided."

Explaining the definition of consensus and support to the team at the beginning of the discussion can help resolve the issue. An essential step in reaching a consensus is ensuring that all ideas are evaluated, and everyone's perspective is heard. This is important in getting buy-in for the conclusion and generating the best ideas and solutions. Structuring a process for team decision-making is a critical facilitation skill.

Expert Tips for Strategic Planning Decision-Making:

  • Use the brainstorming tips above to identify all viable solutions (see #8)
  • Combine and link similar ideas
  • Use structured methods, like The Six Thinking Hats, to help take the emotion out of the discussion.
  • Set a time limit for discussion on each potential solution
  • Make sure everyone is participating in the debate and, make sure everyone is actively listening and applying their listening skills
  • Work to narrow the options down to as few as possible
  • Don't be afraid to call for a vote to see how close the group is to completing the agreement
  • If there are just one or two holdouts, seek to understand what and how firm their objections are
  • Engage the group in troubleshooting to minimize the potential negative impact identified by any complaints or concerns raised
  • Restate the most popular resolution, adding one or two points addressing the concerns raised, and ask the holdouts if they can support that decision
  • Sometimes, people will get caught up in the moment and continue the debate just to argue. Ask the holdout if they will lose sleep if the group moves forward with the proposed resolution. Refer to the definition of support and ask if they will support the decision.
  • With consensus, there is often compromise. Only some get everything they want out of the final decision. However, because you created an environment where everyone has had an opportunity for input, the conclusions reached will often be very successful and highly supported.
  • If you are running a virtual strategic planning session,  visit the link to learn some additional tips to help you get the most out of your planning session.

Document and publish the Who-What-When. Who-What-When action items are leading indicators of successful meeting outcomes. How often do teams meet, discuss, and debate critical topics, then set the next meeting date only to discover that no progress has been made at the next meeting? As the facilitator, it is essential that you make sure that every critical discussion ends in a documented action captured in an action list of Who is accountable (one person only), What they will do, and When it will be completed. Create a habit of ending meetings with a review of the Who-What-When and beginning discussions with confirmation on completing the actions assigned.

Finish strong. People won't always remember what you do or say, but they will never forget how you made them feel. And what they will remember most is how they felt at the end of the meeting. Whether you completed every objective you laid out or worked through the agenda, it's essential to recognize the team's accomplishments and celebrate their focus, contribution, time invested, and hard work. Finish the meeting by recapping the decisions, reviewing the actions committed, and confirming the next steps. We also recommend allowing everyone to share how they feel as they leave. You can go around the room and ask each person to share a one-word/one-phrase closing statement or share one takeaway or breakthrough they gained during the meeting.

Ask for feedback . Great facilitators are not born overnight. They develop and improve over years of experience. And the most experienced facilitators know that asking for feedback is the best way to improve. You can ask the team before they leave to write down one bright spot from the meeting and one area to work on or do differently next time. Please feel free to email everyone after the session, asking for feedback. Or, you can ask for a quick one-on-one conversation with a few trusted advisors.

You would like to encourage feedback on the agenda, pre-session communication, design of the day, homework, and how you performed and handled difficult situations during the session. If you want to receive feedback, please take it seriously. Don't take it personally or complain to others about it. All feedback, even negative feedback, is a gift. Thank the person who shared with you, and I'd like to make every effort to incorporate all helpful suggestions into your next session. Stay encouraged and stick with it. You will improve every time you facilitate, so please volunteer and look for opportunities to practice. Over time, the tips in this blog post will become second nature. Good luck!

This blog post shares tips and tricks for facilitation from the Facilitator guide written by Chris Cosper and Barry Pruit and adapted to a blog post by Ted Skinner. If you'd like to download the strategic planning manual, please click here . We hope you enjoy the facilitation techniques outlined in this article to keep group discussions positive and productive. We hope this answers your question about how to lead a strategic planning session; if you want to get the best ROI on your investment of time and energy, please feel free to  drop us a line , and we'll see if it makes sense for you.

Learn More About Rhythm

Read our other strategic planning and facilitation articles below:

Annual Planning: 9 Tips to Focus & Align Your Team with a Great Plan

Annual Planning Playbook: 5 Steps to Create a Winning Annual Plan

How CEOs Can Avoid High-Cost Mistakes in Annual Planning

Best Practices for Annual Planning

16 Strategic Planning Tips to Keep Your Strategic Plan Alive

The CEO Strategy-Execution Gap...And How To Fix It

Choose Your 3-Year Strategic Growth Initiatives Wisely With This 4-Step Process

5 Steps to Getting Started on 3-Year Strategic Plans with Winning Moves

Have you been able to validate your 3 Year Strategic Plan?

Robust 3 Year Strategic Plans to Grow Revenue and Stay Competitive

Don't Confuse Strategic Thinking And Strategy Execution Plans

9 Steps to a New Revenue Growth Strategy [Infographic]

Photo credit: iStock by Getty Images

Ted Skinner

Photo Credit: iStock by Getty Images

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How to hold a strategic planning meeting: A simple, step-by-step guide for facilitators

strategic plan workshop activities

If you’re running or facilitating a strategic planning meeting, there are many factors to consider.

It’s much more than just bringing everyone together to have an open discussion — and it doesn’t just happen on its own, either.

There are several steps you can take to ensure that your strategic planning meeting runs smoothly, but it all starts with preparation.

Today, we’ll explore a few ideas to help you hold a successful session, starting with the basics.

Try Miro’s Strategic Planning Template

  • What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is the process of analyzing a current situation within your organization and making sure it’s aligned with your specific objectives. If it isn’t, you and your team must develop a plan to “correct the path.”

So, why is strategic planning important?

In short, strategic planning helps you get from where you are today to the future you want. It’s a way of breaking down big, daunting goals into manageable steps that address your current situation and guide your work.

Visual representation of the strategic planning process

Here’s where strategic planning meetings come into play.

Meetings are the cornerstone of the strategic planning process.

These meetings are typically held by facilitators , but anyone can lead a strategic planning meeting.

We’ll provide you with specific instructions to hold a successful meeting a bit later, but first, let’s answer a crucial question.

What is the purpose of a strategic plan meeting?

Broadly speaking, a facilitator will use meetings to either:

  • Gather specific information and feedback from team members, executives, and stakeholders.
  • Help team members work together to solve problems, think strategically, and create new ideas to improve the organization.

These meetings aim to provide clarity in decision-making.

This is not a typical meeting where participants spend time reporting out. Strategy planning is all about brainstorming and collaboration .

This way, you can develop solutions to tangible problems in your organization and set the tone and strategic direction for your team.

Who needs to be included?

The best way to ensure that you get all of the most relevant voices in the room is to create an invite list.

Include people from each relevant department, if possible.

This way, you can cover a more complete spectrum of your company’s operations and activities.

You’ll want to include upper management, but don’t stop there.

Bring in members of the sales department, investor relations, human resources, and any other relevant departments or stakeholders.

You might also consider inviting people from outside of the organization who can provide a fresh perspective.

This is particularly useful for organizations that are doing business in a new market or have started offering new products.

  • Best practices for running a successful strategic planning session

Now that you understand the importance of effective strategic planning meetings, the question becomes, how do you actually hold one?

Let’s cover a few of the best practices:

Strategic planning best practices

Build buy-in before the meeting starts

First, you’ll want to build buy-in with everyone involved.

Keep what you’re doing top-of-mind, whether that’s through casual conversations or company-wide memos.

In addition, make sure to have a clear agenda prepared, so everyone knows what they can expect out of the meeting. Start by defining the goal, then detail how you’ll get there.

Also, get all the materials you need together in advance.

That may look like coordinating with IT to make sure everyone has access to company software, sending out pertinent documents in advance, or mapping out who will be speaking at the meeting.

Make sure to communicate your expectations clearly so that everyone knows what is expected of them and why.

You’ll want to spend time in your planning stages to keep the tone positive, while at the same time being realistic about what’s possible.

Ultimately, your goal should be to align the team around a shared vision and mission so that you can move forward with a shared perspective.

Now, how can you communicate this agenda?

We suggest you use a centralized space where everyone can see your agenda.

For example, you can use Miro’s Agenda template to create and share your agenda with participants.

Miro's Agenda template screenshot

You can also use the template to keep notes during the meeting and add refinements later.

This way, everyone can see what’s been discussed and the next steps for moving forward.

Remember; this should be a collaborative effort, so consider asking for ideas from everyone about what they’d like to see covered.

Just don’t forget to actually take those ideas into consideration.

Develop a transparent strategic planning process

During the strategic process, you’re inviting employees to have meaningful discussions around the company’s vision statement, strategic goals, and strategic objectives.

It’s important to have a roadmap in place for how you will facilitate the process so that employees know what to expect.

Your meeting should be an open, engaging discussion with transparent dialog. During the meeting, everyone should get a turn to talk.

Make sure you have a clear process that allows everyone to participate and feel heard, no matter what their role is.

In the planning stage of a meeting, it’s important to have as much input as possible.

You can involve everyone by holding a virtual brainstorming session with this brainstorming template . Once you create a board, you can invite people to collaborate in real time.

Miro's brainwriting template screenshot

This template helps you create a more engaging and collaborative session while allowing every person on the team to contribute their thoughts.

Create an agenda and stick to it

We all know what happens when an agenda is not set or adhered to.

Creating an agenda for your meeting helps you and your participants stay on track. This agenda should include topics, questions, milestones, and people.

Milestones are the larger topics that will be broken down into smaller questions, and these questions should flow to the ultimate goal of narrowing down your strategic priorities.

You can create milestones by putting together a list of discussion questions that will help your participants get on topic and help you check in with the group.

Your agenda might include an opening discussion, a brainstorming session on ideas, and a closing review of the next steps.

When developing your agenda:

  • Keep it short: The last thing you want is your meeting to drag on for no good reason, so try to limit each agenda item to ten minutes or less. The whole meeting should only take an hour or two, at most.
  • Be selective: Don’t include too many topics or ideas that will bog down your meeting.
  • Create a contingency plan: You never know what might happen during your meeting, so always have a backup plan in case your agenda falls through.
  • Plan for breaks: For longer meetings or workshops, set aside at least half an hour to take a break, such as during lunchtime.

Make it interactive

As much as possible, you’ll want to make this a collaborative effort, so it’s important to get everyone involved.

For example, you might want to break the group down into smaller sub-teams to brainstorm opportunities for new product features.

You could also task each group with creating a list of opportunities for particular departments within your company.

The point is that you’ll want to encourage open and honest dialog about challenges your company is facing and, where possible, break down any barriers that might stand in the way of progress.

Make sure to collaboratively create strategy documents, provide regular updates on progress, and discuss strategic issues in real time.

Miro's collaboration features in action

This way, you can work side-by-side to improve your performance, no matter where in the world your team members happen to be.

  • How to run a strategic planning meeting in 7 steps

To get the most out of each session, you should prepare thoroughly — from the agenda to who you’ll involve and how.

Whether you’re holding a remote, hybrid, or in-person meeting, this process will help you out.

1. Define a clear outcome for the meeting

A strategic planning meeting can go totally off-the-rails if it’s held without a defined objective. That’s why the very first step is to define a clear, tangible goal for the meeting.

For example, your objective might be to better align social media with your marketing strategies .

In this case, your meeting might include a discussion on the purpose of social media, its role in the planning process, and how to better align your social media campaign with your organizational goals.

If your goal is to develop a new product , your meeting might look different.

Consider discussing who the target audience would be and how you can get in front of them. You could also discuss how the product should be positioned in the marketplace and what strategies you’ll use to get it there.

You can also set specific strategic planning meeting themes as part of your objectives, such as business growth or innovation.

The point is to be as specific as possible with your goal. That way, it’s easier for everyone to stay on task and make the right decisions.

2. Break the ice

A strategic planning meeting can be a big undertaking, so it’s important to break the ice by engaging participants in some friendly conversation.

You may want to ask participants what they think of the company’s latest direction or engage them in a fun icebreaker activity. You can also ask them what they think of the new business strategy and how they would implement it.

Or you could ask participants to complete an activity that allows them to interact with one another and develop a better understanding of each other’s unique skills.

For instance, you could assign participants to form teams, and then ask them to create a project plan to solve an issue the company might be experiencing.

You can also break the ice by having participants introduce themselves.

If you’re holding a remote or hybrid meeting, you could have participants discuss what they think in a private online chat room, or you could use an instant messaging program for the same purpose.

Make sure they feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas with each other before starting the main agenda.

The bottom line? The more connected the group is prior to the meeting, the more effective the meeting will be.

3. Set clear expectations

Once you know what you want out of the meeting, the next step is to communicate any expectations of participants, such as things they should prepare in advance of the meeting.

Here are some useful guidelines to keep in mind when you’re setting expectations:

  • Provide details: The more detail you provide, the clearer it will be as to what’s required.
  • Assign roles: Make sure everyone knows their role and responsibilities within the meeting audience.
  • Use timelines: Use timelines to remind everyone of what needs to be completed before the meeting and send reminders if necessary.
  • Communicate effectively : Encourage participants to talk with their teams about the fact strategy planning is happening. They may want to set up smaller meetings to gather input for the strategy planning workshop or to share the outputs after the meeting to give employees a chance to ask questions.

4. Set ground rules for behavior

Before the meeting starts, make sure everyone knows the rules.

Values, culture, and norms

This is especially important when working with external stakeholders.

For example, you might say something like:

“The goal of this meeting is to develop the strategic plan for the next quarter. We want to minimize distractions, so please don’t check your phone during the meeting.”

Another good idea is to let participants know how they’ll be evaluated. For example, if you’re trying to make progress on a project, you might say something like:

“Let’s try and reach a consensus on the first three points. If we can do that, we’ll consider the meeting a success.”

If you’re dealing with a remote or hybrid team, you should take the time to define online behavior standards. For instance, you could say something like:

“If you have a question, please type it in the chat window. Using outside chat programs is not permitted during the meeting.”

This way, you’ll have everyone invested in the outcome.

5. Identify potential challenges

Before the meeting starts, it’s always good to identify potential areas of conflict that might derail the process.

For example, what would happen if someone had to leave halfway through? Will the meeting continue without them, or will you reconvene once they’re back?

You should also consider how to handle difficult participants. Can you remove a difficult participant from the meeting before they hijack all of your time?

What happens if a disagreement comes up and it’s not resolved?

You should prepare for all these things in advance and have a plan ready if they do happen. For example, consider using a countdown timer for specific agenda items or presentations, so that time is allocated fairly.

Interactive whiteboard with linked agenda and countdown timer shown

If you identify potential challenges early on, you can keep an eye out for them as the meeting proceeds.

6. Encourage full participation

Remember that you’re asking people to spend time — and sometimes travel — to participate in your meeting.

It’s essential that everyone feels like they have the opportunity to participate. The best way to do this is by mentioning at the beginning of the meeting that you’d like everyone’s input throughout.

Make sure to keep an eye out for people who aren’t speaking up. If it seems like they may have something to contribute, ask them for their thoughts on the topic.

Also, make sure everyone knows that participation is critical. If you need to take a vote on something, remind people what the vote is about and why it matters.

Finally, make sure you’re speaking in terms that everyone in the room can understand. If there are people who are new to the organization, spend a moment explaining any acronyms you use.

This will allow everyone to feel like they can give their input with ease, leading to a more successful meeting.

7. Use visuals and brainstorming tools to communicate ideas

Having everyone on the same page is critical, even if they can’t be in the same room.

Here’s where visuals and collaboration platforms come in handy.

Using collaborative tools, like our brainstorming templates helps you organize work and removes some of the stress of coming up with ideas on the spot.

It also encourages people to provide input and makes them feel like they have a stake in the outcome.

For instance, you can use Miro’s Reverse Brainstorming template to come up with innovative ideas and display them in real time. You can save the meeting content on the board too, so you can send it to participants after the meeting.

Miro's Reverse Brainstorming template screenshot

This can be especially useful if you have multiple participants in different locations involved at the same time. They may not be able to physically attend the meeting, but they can still provide valuable input.

Also, we provide you with a fully customizable strategic plan template .

Miro's strategic plan template screenshot

You can adapt this template to fit your exact business needs and standardize your meetings with ease.

  • Sample agenda for a strategic planning meeting

You need to make sure your strategic planning meeting agenda is detailed and thorough enough to keep you on task.

Start with an overview of what you’ll be discussing, then move into individual department updates. This is where you highlight progress against targets.

Finally, spend some time outlining your organizational goals moving forward and, of course, always leave time for questions.

To help you better understand what a strategy planning session might look like in the real world, here’s a sample agenda:

  • 10am–11am: Welcome and meeting goals
  • 11am–12pm: Leadership team updates
  • 12pm–1pm: Department updates
  • 1pm–2pm: Lunch break
  • 2pm–3pm: Analyze challenges and problems
  • 3pm–4pm: Ideate solutions
  • 4pm–5pm: Discuss and gain consensus on solutions and goals
  • 5pm–6pm: Assign tasks and responsibilities for strategy execution
  • 6pm–7pm: Q&A
  • It all comes down to solid preparation and visuals

The best way to ensure your meeting runs smoothly and effectively is to prepare it with anticipation. By creating a clear agenda, you’re able to get the most out of your session.

Also, the use of visuals and brainstorming tools helps you collaborate with your team and communicate your critical points more effectively.

You can hold your planning meetings in a more visual way by creating a board and sharing with your team.

Also, you can use the strategic planning meeting template to get started with fewer headaches.

Want an action-oriented framework to help your team continuously improve?

Try the strategic planning template, miro is your team's visual platform to connect, collaborate, and create — together..

Join millions of users that collaborate from all over the planet using Miro.

Keep reading

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strategic plan workshop activities

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strategic plan workshop activities

  • Strategic Planning
  • Strategy Communication
  • Strategy Execution
  • Strategy Workshops
  • Tools & Templates

strategic plan workshop activities

How To Prepare For Facilitating A Strategy Workshop

You have been tasked with facilitating a strategy workshop but are not sure where to begin? Don’t worry. Having been in your situation many times, I have developed the following detailed checklist to set you up for success.

Follow this 14-point checklist step-by-step to prepare for any strategic planning meeting.

Strategy Workshop Preparation Checklist

  • What is the mission of the business? What industry is it in? What are its main products and services? Who are its customers? What has been its historic performance?
  • Get to know the people
  • Become clear about the meeting purpose and the desired results
  • Is there a higher order strategy that places expectations or objectives on this business?
  • Are there shareholder or senior leadership expectations that set constraints for the business strategy?
  • Keep in mind that this is supposed to be a strategy workshop.
  • The right level and mix of seniority, subject matter expertise, business insight and outside perspective is important
  • Ask about who can lead or support content preparation for the meeting, such as data analysis
  • Get access to data needed
  • If applicable, ask who you can contact to organize meeting logistics, such as venue preparation, food & beverage arrangements etc.
  • These are obviously sensitive questions. But if appropriate to ask, they reveal important information about the expected meeting dynamics
  • Pro Tip : ask about any special expectations placed in you as the facilitator
  • Check for congruence and feasibility to cover the expectations in a workshop
  • Deside which strategic model or strategic process to apply to achieve purpose and objectives
  • Note: this is a good to chance to ask follow up questions or to adjust the scope as needed.
  • Bonus Tip: Click here for a strategic framework I have found very useful in facilitating strategic planning meetings
  • Set length of workshop needed to achieve meeting objectives
  • Draft workshop agenda along strategy process
  • Select strategy workshop tools and discussion starters
  • Design meeting location, venue, and meeting room arrangement
  • Consider if you need break-out rooms or space for individual and team work
  • Estimate meeting costs
  • Remember this is not your workshop. You are facilitating on the business leader’s behalf. It may be OK to bring in your thoughts and ideas. But make sure you are on the same page and agreeable with her/his purpose and ideas for the workshop (It’ll potentially save you a lot of trouble and embarrassment later)
  • Historical financial data about the business
  • Historical financial data about the industry
  • Historical financial data about key target markets
  • Important: seek future estimates / projections for each of these from reputable, trustworthy sources
  • Work with the nominated team(s) to analyze relevant data at least 4 weeks prior to the workshop, longer if possible.
  • Seek for patterns in the data or specific insights to identify threats to the health of the business and opportunities for future growth
  • Remember that you may not be the expert at what the numbers mean. Lean on the team the business leader advised you can work with. Guide the team towards the insights you are seeking.
  • Book venue (and travel if needed),
  • Order food & beverage arrangements and
  • Purchase/arrange workshop materials
  • Include meeting purpose, objectives, agenda and preparation instructions in the invitation
  • Send invites well ahead of time to allow for participants to prepare and clarify questions and expectations
  • Be available to clarify such questions
  • A great tool to facilitate the strategic planning workshop is the OGSM. Learn more about my introduction of OGSM here .
  • Prepare workshop materials. Click here for my preparation checklist for all materials and equipment you will need for your workshop.
  • Prepare ice-breakers, brainteasers and small games for breaks
  • Pro Tip : if you facilitate workshops more often, put together a small workshop kit with all materials you need so that you have them handy every time. Find everything you need here on my aforementioned preparation checklist.
  • Learn from them about the business, its situation, and their thoughts on its strategic direction
  • Build rapport or personal relationship with key opinion leaders or decision makers / influencers
  • Pro tip : Seek to participate at a management meeting as the proverbial ‘fly on the wall’ to observe meeting etiquette, roles of participants, and business culture.
  • Discuss insights from data analysis and open questions with the business leader (latest one week prior to the workshop)
  • Check meeting room and seating arrangement
  • Test projector and visual aids
  • Familiarize with location of washrooms and emergency exists
  • Review talking points and visual aids
  • Rehearse critical aspects of the workshop up front
  • Review responses to your invitation to make sure key workshop participants are indeed attending. Follow up with participant or business leader as needed.

Workshop Materials

You are all set! Now look forward to the meeting knowing that you are well prepared.

Download the printable version of the 14-step checklist here to help you prepare.

Preparation Time

This checklist will take you probably 4-6 weeks to complete depending on the specific circumstances of your workshop. So make sure to plan ahead. The earlier you can start, the better.

“Before anything else,  preparation  is the key to success.” Alexander Graham Bell

Preparing to facilitate a strategy workshop can be a daunting task. The detailed 14-step checklist is a proven step-by-step guide to prepare for a successful strategic planning meeting.

If you have any questions or comments, why don’t you leave me a reply below. Would love to hear about your thoughts or experiences on how to prepare for a strategy workshop.

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Intrafocus

How to run a strategy workshop – The event

Jun 15, 2018 | Strategic Planning , Strategy

Strategy Workshop - The Event

Welcome to the second in our article series about running a successful strategy workshop. In the first article we looked at the preparation stage and now we move on to the event itself.

We recommended that the strategic development process chosen is the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) for rigour and results. This means that the event itself will follow this defined and ordered process of identification and analysis:

– Defining a) the vision and then b) the mission, to win hearts and minds and to set direction – Identifying strategic priorities and strategic objectives – in that order, to focus efforts – Setting accompanying KPIs to measure progress and attainment – Agreeing on targets and initiatives – to ensure timely, full delivery that is measurable and communicable.

As the agenda works through these areas, the BSC will ensure that necessary balance is retained by framing the discussion within the key areas of Finance, Customer, Internal Processes and Organisational Capacity. The key point is that the process is entirely objective and priority driven, rather than project or initiative-driven. This ensures that focus remains at a strategic, rather than tactical level.

The welcome

The specifics of the agenda and the purpose of the event will have been communicated in advance, but the event should open with introductions and a summary of both.

Setting ground rules

Respectfully ask attendees to switch off distracting digital devices wherever possible. Explain the desire to obtain a full and balanced input from all attendees, with support and encouragement from the group – especially useful if you have a mixed hierarchy of levels involved. Explain hygiene factors such as breaks and answer any questions before beginning. Make sure your attendees feel comfortable and ready to go!

A word on breaks

At Intrafocus we have been running strategy workshops for corporate clients for many years, and one thing we notice is the importance of good food and fresh air! Some studies suggest that sustained periods of concentration tend to work in cycles of around 45 minutes. A good agenda with a balance of activities will optimise energy levels and set time for breaks and reflection accordingly. Encourage attendees to stand up and move around as they brainstorm – setting up an active room where possible. When it comes to snacks, don’t overload attendees with croissants, Danish pastries and biscuits, or they’ll be dropping off after lunch! Instead, choose a healthy and balanced menu which maximises sustained energy – and yes, tea or coffee is a useful addition.

The facilitator’s role

The use of a skilled external facilitator brings rigour and results to your workshop, expertly guiding the conversation and agenda to keep attendees on track with their discussion, encouraging creative participation, supporting those who are less sure at speaking out and generally providing the right atmosphere for valuable discussion and idea generation to occur whilst remaining on topic. During the afternoon ‘homework’ portion of the day – which should take around an hour to complete – the facilitator will also write up outputs and a critique of the morning session to present to the group on the following day.

The facilitator will use a range of guided exercises to encourage maximum participation and idea generation. Again, the skill of the facilitator is key in this regard and the host may adjust the approach during the session to meet the unique needs of group dynamics, different learning styles and even different personality types. The aim is to keep energy and focus high and to encourage discussion and innovation without meandering away from the agenda. Without this expert steer, it is all too easy for a strategic workshop to simply run out of time (typically 4-6 hours per morning session) before all objectives have been fulfilled. We recommend you use a facilitation company that can bring a set of tools and processes, be sure to ask them to demonstrate what they have before the event. One of the tools we like is provided by Strategyzer .

The Integrated Strategy Map

Over the course of the three sessions, the attendees will create an integrated strategy map using a set BSC template. The facilitator will capture all generated thoughts, ideas and supporting material in a strategy document for reference and further consideration. Input from all attendees will need to be shared to ensure buy-in and balance. This map can then be transformed into the delivery plan – which we will investigate in our third and final article. In the meantime, why not find out more about the Intrafocus Strategy Workshop

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Creating KPIs with Intrafocus

Download our guide to creating meaningful KPIs

Privacy Overview

Gamestorming

Category: Games for vision and strategy meetings

strategic plan workshop activities

Polarities live as interdependent pairs that need each other to exist, for example inhaling & exhaling.  One pole is not valued as better than the other.  Polarities have an enduring quality, they are unavoidable and unsolvable.  Polarities live everywhere from our internal dialogue to external patterns of relating in society and within organizations.  Overfocus on any one pole leads to the breakdown of the system as a whole.

Object of play Simplify complex problems by identifying underlying patterns of tension in the system called polarities. Striking a dynamic balance between seemingly competitive forces – accomplished by observing and analyzing the paradox with a BOTH/AND lens – unlocks benefits otherwise concealed by the system.

Number of players 1-20

Invite players who are part of the system you would like to study.  This game can be played as an individual examining one’s internal landscape or external environment, or invite players from across your project team or larger organization.

strategic plan workshop activities

Duration of play 1 – 4 hours

Material required To run a good session, you will need:

  • An A4 (8.5”x11”) copy of the template for each player, or
  • an A0 size copy of the template for the room, or 
  • a digital copy of the template, or 
  •  each player may hand draw their own
  • Pens and markers
  • Post-it notes
  • Camera to capture the results

An example of Even Flow facilitated virtually. Zoom in to see the flow.

How to Play

Step 1: Become aware

  • Tell the players that we’re going to explore states-of-being or actions that appear to be opposites of one another. 
  • For additional examples to share, visit https://assessmypolarities.com/  
  • Ask the players to make a copy of the template for their personal use – draw it or copy/paste it, depending where you are.
  • Ask the players to select one pair of opposites to continue with and and place one polarity on each of the sign posts in our framework. Consider using a Dot Vote. 

Step 2: Map the system

  • Repeat for the other pole

Step 3: T une in

Assess the current state of the system.  Tune into the flow of energy between the poles.  

  • What are you experiencing right now in relationship to either of these poles?
  • Determine your location on the spatial continuum between the poles.  
  • What benefits are you seeing?  
  • Are there any indications that negative consequences are emerging?
  • Ask the players to present their thoughts to the group.
  • Remind the group that overfocusing on a particular pole will lead to negative outcomes – avoid the rocks near the shore.  Focus on a pole to realize the benefits – catch some lovely fish! But remember that overfishing has consequences.
  • As the players to identify which benefits and hazards are alive in the system by highlighting them.  Use both qualitative and quantitative data to guide your responses.

Step 4: Honor the energy

Let the results of the assessment guide behavior and decision-making.  Reduce focus if early signs of negative outcomes emerge.  Move in the other direction.

  • Ask the players to take a few minutes to individually brainstorm what action steps might optimize benefits and reduce risks. What they might Start, Stop or Continue doing? One thought per post-it note. 
  • Have each player present their thoughts to the group. 

Step 5: Map the future

Use the framework to guide you through future situations that arise within the tension of the polarity.

  • Set up a monitoring cadence to revisit and reassess the direction of the system.

Strategy It’s common to view polarities through an EITHER / OR lens, but this methodology works through a BOTH / AND lens (i.e. you need both INHALE and EXHALE). Critical pieces of the strategy include accurately defining the polarities and ensuring that poles are value-neutral.  A breakdown in the system occurs when one pole is devalued and our energy rushes toward the preferred pole.  

In organizations and teams, course corrections may take time to manifest.  Make changes proportionate to the signals received.  Don’t oversteer by making dramatic or violent changes toward the opposite pole when negative outcomes are observed.

Ideally, keep the map visible in the environment.  Communication that includes these visual mapping references will help reinforce the strategy and thinking.

Complementary Games Friend or Foe – organizational design analysis

Who do  – identify what you need from each of your stakeholders

Empathy Map  – get inside their heads to understand their pains and gains

Game inspired by Barry Johnson, Polarity Partnerships: https://www.polaritypartnerships.com/

Visual Metaphor by Troy Schubert

Bring Your Own Dashboard

strategic plan workshop activities

For more information

Listen to Michael Schrage, research fellow with MIT Sloan School’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, describe the need for strategic KPIs, common pitfalls organizations encounter when grappling with new technologies and why co-creating dashboards in a workshop setting are fundamental to AI capability development.

Read through your favorite Management publication today and you’re likely to find an article on Artificial Intelligence. One we particularly liked, Strategy For and With AI , clarifies the difference between using AI in your product or service (Strategy *For* AI) and harnessing AI to plan your strategy (Strategy *With* AI). The latter involves a tight coupling of KPIs, Data Governance and Decision rights that few companies can claim – the article recognizes Google, Uber, and GoDaddy. While these case studies may reveal an intimidating gap between their achievement and your organization’s progress, a discussion with article co-author Michael Schrage reveals simple steps any organization can take to move forward on this path.

strategic plan workshop activities

Most teams, regardless of size, can access data measuring their progress towards goals. Use this group activity to validate the strategic alignment of your KPIs, understand the relationships between them, and brainstorm tests you can perform to validate both.

There are two options for opening this game:

If your participants have defined KPIs or OKRs which they currently measure:

  • Ask them to bring a sample report or dashboard to the activity
  • Which organizational strategies the report aligns to ( O KR)
  • Report KPIs (O KR )
  • Other important reporting metrics
  • Once all the reports have been presented, ask the teams to write down their KPIs and metrics, one per sticky note and put them up on the wall.

If your participants have less defined measurement and feedback infrastructure OR you’re looking to explore new measures and KPI’s

  • Inform the players the purpose of the activity is to explore our strategy by creating a dashboard
  • Write at the top of the whiteboard an organization-wide strategic goal
  • Ask the players to take five minutes for an individual brainstorm: list all the customer behaviors impacting the strategic objective of your organization. For example,  a digital marketing team may be concerned with: customers signing-up for the newsletter, shoppers visiting your website, follow the brand on Twitter.
  • At the end of the brainstorm, ask each player to put their sticky notes on the wall, quickly presenting them to the team one-by-one. 
  • Once all the brainstormed ideas are on the wall, ask the group to organize them into themes. Let the themes emerge organically, i.e. don’t guide or direct their behavior. 
  • Take 5 minutes to review each theme; ask for the players to briefly explain their thinking and insights. 
  • For each theme ask the group to identify one or two KPIs that best measure the desired consumer behavior. 

KPI relationship matrix

  • Let the players know you’re going to explore your KPIs by looking at their relationships to one another. 
  • Set the board by creating a matrix of the KPIs identified in the Opening. 
  • To play, the group determines the relationship between each set of KPIs: Direct if an increase in one would cause an increase in the other OR Indirect if an increase in one would cause a decrease in the other.
  •  A group may choose to write down relationships individually at first and then call out their results on each item and criterion to create the tally. 
  • Identification should be done quickly, as in a “gut” check.
  • What do you notice about these relationships? 
  • What KPIs should you consider adding? Removing?
  • Are there instances where KPIs should be optimized instead of maximized?
  • Are the representative strategies aligned? Do the KPIs indicate any conflicts? 
  • What other organizations are implicated by these KPIs?
  • What are we uncertain about? How might we test those uncertainties in the next week?

Based on your discussion perform a Start-Stop-Continue. Ask the group to consider the customer behaviors, KPI relationship mapping and subsequent discussion and individually brainstorm in these three categories:

strategic plan workshop activities

  • Start: What are things that we need to START doing?
  • Stop: What are we currently doing that we can or should STOP?
  • Continue: What are we doing now that works and should CONTINUE?

Have the individuals share their results.

In our data-rich world, your strategy is what your KPIs say it is. Teams often try to maximize KPIs in the absence of understanding their impact. This exercise clarifies ripple effects strategies have on each other and surfaces considerations for when Optimization should trump Maximization. 

This game was inspired by David Kiron and Michael Schrage’s MIT Sloan Management Review article, Strategy For and With AI

COMPLEMENTARY GAMES

  • Manage What You Measure – create an aligned set of KPIs
  • Post Up & Affinity Map – two collaboration basics
  • Start, Stop, Continue – a great closing option for any meeting

Choose your words wisely

Humans live in language. It defines what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. Language is the bedrock of our cultures and societies. As with fish in water, we go about our daily business without paying much attention to the language around us and how it influences us. Information architect and author,  Jorge Arango  developed Semantic Environment Mapping years ago to make visible the everyday language through which we so naively swim.

A completed Semantic Environment Canvas

Object of Play The Semantic Environment Canvas will help you understand the language, rules, and power dynamics that make it possible for people to accomplish their purposes in particular situations—or hinder them from doing so.

Number of Players 1-6 players.

If you have more than six people, consider breaking them into groups and assigning separate environments to each group.

Duration of Play 20 minutes – 40 minutes

Materials Required To run a good session, you will need:

  • A large print of the Semantic Environment canvas. Preferably on A0 size. A1 – A3 will do the job. Downloadable here
  • Flip chart paper with adhesive backing
  • Sticky notes of different colors
  • Markers and pens
  • It may be helpful to read more about Semantic Environments in Jorge’s blog posts  here and here
  • Print out the Semantic Environment canvas on a large sheet of paper and hang on a wall with the duck tape. (It’s easiest if you do this exercise using sticky notes — especially if you’re collaborating with others.)
  • Inform the players we’ll be filling out canvas sections one-at-a-time. For each section we will individually brainstorm and then conduct a group conversation.
  • Facilitation tip – if an insight or thought aligns better to another section of a canvas simply place it in the appropriate section and return to it at a later time, i.e. do not discard it because it was in the “wrong” section

The Environment

  • What is the general area of discourse we are designing for?
  • Does it employ the language of law? commerce? religion? Etc.
  • What are the intended purposes of this environment?
  • What are the environment’s key terms, including its basic metaphors?
  • Discuss as a group and agree on a name for the environment. The name should be clear, but also compelling; you want the language to come alive!
  • Write the name on the canvas.
  • Now let’s think about the actors in the environment. Inform the group these could be individuals, but they can also be roles or groups within an organization. (More than two actors can participate in a semantic environment. For the sake of simplicity this canvas focuses only on two. You can print out additional canvases to map other relationships.)
  • Who are the people performing within the semantic environment?
  • How well do they know the environment’s rules?
  • How well do they know the environment’s language?
  • After 2-3 minutes, ask the group to discuss their thoughts. From the discussion, have the group choose and name Actor A and Actor B; fill in the canvas.
  • Ask the group to discuss the relative power of each actor in the situation. Are they peers, or is one actor more powerful than another? How do the actors experience their power differentials?
  • Fill in the Power Relationship section of the canvas.

Their Goals

  • Why are they having this interaction?
  • What do they expect to get out of it?
  • How will they know when they’ve accomplished it?
  • After the brainstorm, ask each player to present their ideas by placing their sticky notes on the canvas. After all players have presented their ideas, let the group discuss.
  • Now let’s consider the rules that govern the situation. Explain to the players that these rules can be spoken or unspoken.
  • Are the actors expected to behave in some ways?
  • Are there behaviors the actors are expected to avoid?
  • What happens when they don’t follow the rules? (Does the communication break down entirely? Or do they shift to another semantic environment?)

The Key Words

  • Move on to the Key Word section of the canvas. Ask the players to consider the key words the actors use in the situation. Explain: All semantic environments have what Neil Postman called a technical vocabulary: words that have special meaning within this environment.
  • What are the environment’s basic terms?
  • What metaphors could apply to this environment?
  • Who controls the environmental metaphors?
  • Do both actors share an understanding of what these words mean?
  • Who or what is in charge of maintaining the definitions?

The Touchpoints

  • Move on to the Touchpoints section of the canvas. As the players to consider the key touchpoints that allow the communication to happen.
  • Do the actors meet in person?
  • If so, do they have to be in a special physical environment?
  • If they meet remotely, are there particular technologies involved?
  • What is the mood surrounding the touchpoint?

The Analysis

Now that the canvas is complete, you can analyze relationships between different sections and discuss their implications. Questions to help make sense of it all:

  • Is there potential for ambiguity over what sort of environment this is? What can create such confusion?
  • What are the purposes that are actually being achieved by the way this environment is currently organized?
  • Is there a difference between what is intended and what is being achieved?
  • Are there contradictions in purpose between the environment and its sub-environments?

Tips for visualizing the analysis:

  • Draw arrows between sticky notes to clarify relationships around words, rules, goals, and so on.
  • Use colored stickies to represent whether certain words, goals, rules, etc. help (green) or hinder (red) the actor’s goals.
  • Identify and explore related semantic environments. In a single process (for example, a sales pipeline) one actor may transverse various environments as he or she interacts with other actors. Also, semantic environments can be nested: some environments contain sub-environments where language and rules become ever more specialized.
  • Pin up multiple semantic environment maps next to each other; this can help you spot situations in which the same words appear under different guises or with different meanings.

Strategy When collaborating, people must be clear they’re using language in the same ways. However, they often take the words they use for granted; they don’t question their meaning. Other collaborators may understand them differently. Mapping the semantic environment clarifies the language people use and the expectations they bring to an interaction. (In other words: always and everywhere!)

For example:

  • Your team may be struggling to communicate effectively with other teams in your organization; mapping the semantic environment may lead you to discover you’re unwittingly using similar words in both teams to mean different things.
  • You may be facing a difficult political environment. Mapping out the semantics of the situation can help you understand other people’s goals and trigger phrases so you can manage tensions more effectively.
  • You may be designing a complex software system and need to understand how the various parties involved — including the system’s users and stakeholders — use language to accomplish their goals. This understanding can then inform the system’s conceptual models and information architecture.

Credits The canvas is adapted from Neil Postman’s semantic environment framework, and inspired by the canvases of Dave Gray and Alex Osterwalder.

The canvas was originally published on jarango.com

Friend or Foe?

strategic plan workshop activities

Any product change, project plan, change management initiative requires assessment of and approach to working with stakeholders, a term we use to describe anyone who can impact a decision. Stakeholders often slow or block change; in other cases, they bust obstacles and accelerate progress. To increase your likelihood of success, check out this activity from visual thinker  Yuri Mailshenko and identify your stakeholders to understand how they feel about your work.

Object of Play The object of this game is to create an organizational map of your stakeholders. In some cases this may look like your org chart. In other cases situation and context will dictate a unique shape — likely familiar but undocumented. In addition to mapping stakeholders’ organizational relationships, you’ll also analyze their contextual disposition regarding your initiative.

Number of Players 5 – 15

Invite players from across your project’s organizational spectrum to ensure thorough stakeholder mapping. Colleagues with experience from similar projects or relationships with suspected stakeholders may provide valuable information. Invite them, too!

Duration of Play 30-60 minutes

Material Required Organizational Design Analysis works best on a whiteboard. Substitute a flip chart (or two) if necessary. To run a good session, you will need:

  • Dry-erase markers, we recommend using at least three colors (black, green, red)
  • Dry-erase marker eraser (or paper towels)
  • Sticky notes

Step 1: Map organizational structure

  • Invite your players to a five minute stakeholder brainstorm, ask: Who are our project stakeholders? Ask them to consider teams and individuals both inside and outside your org or company. Have players write one stakeholder per sticky note.
  • Once the brainstorm ends, have each player present their stakeholders by placing their sticky notes on a wall and provide to the group a brief description of their thinking.
  • With all the sticky notes on the wall, ask the group to organize them into a rough org chart. This needs only to be an imprecise draft.
  • With the sticky note draft org chart as your guide, create a cleaner version of the org using a whiteboard and dry-erase markers. Ask for a scribe to map the organisation top to bottom. When the scope is quite big (for example, you are mapping a large enterprise), map the parts of the org structure that are less relevant to the analysis with less detail, and vice versa.
  • To help with navigation, label all stakeholders.
  • Denote future parts of the organizations (ones that are missing at the moment but are important to be considered for potential impact).
  • Draw a border around the areas that are affected by the change/initiative or are in the focus of the analysis.
  • Your whiteboard map could now look something like these:

Drawing considerations:

  • Avoid using prepared artifacts like your company’s official org chart. Create on-the-go with full engagement of the group.
  • Draw people. Draw a person as a circle and the upside down letter ‘U’. A group of people could be just three persons put close to each other; avoid drawing departments and teams as boxes.
  • Many organizations are matrices of different kinds. Introducing an extra dimension might create visual clutter. Try to avoid that by either using a different style of a line (dotted or dashed lines) or a different color for a weaker organizational component.

Step 2: Add insight

  • Begin a group discussion with the goal of mapping stakeholder disposition and level of support regarding your initiative.
  • Disposition towards the initiative: are they for, neutral or against? To what degree? Why?
  • Level of impact: how much influence will this stakeholder have? High, medium or low?
  • Relationship strength between stakeholders: who do they influence? who influences them? To what degree?
  • Participation energy level: high, medium or low?
  • If you are having difficulty dispositioning a particular stakeholder, move to the next one. Additional conversation may help you get unstuck and you can circle back to the troublemaker.
  • A green smiley face for a supportive stakeholder
  • A battery with one out of three bars charged for a low-energy stakeholder
  • A cloud overhead signals a confused stakeholder

Strategy Org charts are quite unambiguous and offer little room for opinion. This exercise’s value comes from mapping less obvious things like stakeholder influence, disposition and decision making power in relation to the initiative. Defined structures are rarely challenged but a necessary foundation. What is interesting is something that lies beyond the official org chart – people’s attitude to the topic of discussion, their real power and influence. Players will share their opinions openly — and surprisingly!–in a safe, structured and collaborative setting.

Complementary Games You understand who your stakeholders are and the org design dynamics facing your project, now what?

  • Who do – identify what you need from each of your stakeholders
  • Empathy Map – get inside their heads to understand their pains and gains
  • Understanding Chain – create the story your stakeholders need to hear to contribute to your success!

Activity developed by Yuri Malishenko – visual thinker, agile coach, product owner

Activity titled by Stefan Wolpers – agile coach and ScrumMaster.

Navigate your market opportunities

strategic plan workshop activities

Any innovation or technological invention can be applied to serve different types of customers. Understanding your set of market opportunities increases your chances of success: It not only allows you to focus on the most promising market, but also helps you to avoid a fatal lock-in. The Market Opportunity Navigator, developed by Dr. Sharon Tal & Prof. Marc Gruber  in their book  Where To Play,  is a tool that helps you to map out your market opportunities and adopt a broad view of your options, so you can set your strategic focus smartly.

Object of play Unleash the power of new market opportunities by stepping back from your current product and customer assumptions. The Market Opportunity Navigator offers a structured process for identifying, evaluating and prioritizing potential markets for innovation; examine and rethink your strategic focus or plan your future roadmap. This game provides a shared language to discuss, debate and brainstorm with your team and stakeholders.

Number of players 1-6 players (depending on objective).

You can work individually to sketch out your initial perceptions, but a diverse team is recommended if you want to broaden your view and map out your landscape of opportunities more accurately.

Duration of play Anywhere between two hours (for a ‘quick and dirty’ process), to two days (for a thorough discussion). In general, the game includes three steps:

Step 1 – Identify Market Opportunity Set Step 2 – Evaluate Opportunity Attractiveness Step 3 – Depict Your Agile Focus Dartboard

strategic plan workshop activities

  • A large print of the Market Opportunity Navigator, preferably on A0 size . A1 – A3 will do the job. Downloadable here
  • If you can’t make large prints of the worksheets, it’s OK! You can easily reproduce all the worksheets on flip charts.
  • The facilitator of the game can learn more about the process at: www.wheretoplay.co

How to Play Room Setup: Place the A0-sized Market Opportunity Navigator somewhere in the room. If you don’t have an A0, draw the templates on individual flip charts and hang.

Step 1: Identify a Market Opportunity Set

strategic plan workshop activities

  • Begin the game with a clear definition of what a Market Opportunity means. Write on the board: A market opportunity is any application of your abilities for a specific set of customers.
  • Inform the players we will now explore each.
  • Ask the players to take five minutes for an individual brainstorm to describe and characterize the core technological elements or unique abilities of the firm in their own right, detached from any current or envisioned application. Write one element or ability per sticky note.
  • Once the brainstorm is done, have the players to put their notes on the wall. Ask for volunteers to sort the notes into meaningful categories (see Affinity Map ). Once finished, ask the sorters to describe their process.
  • Summarize the unique abilities of the firm and list their functions and properties on the upper part of worksheet 1.
  • Repeat this process to brainstorm customer problems that can be addressed with these unique abilities. Ask the players to take five minutes for an individual brainstorm and describe customer problems, one per sticky. To broaden their horizon, ask them to think about who else beyond the current customer set might have these problems. What other problems might they have? Encourage players to think wide and broad. There are no ‘wrong ideas’ at this stage.
  • Once the brainstorm is done, ask the players to put their notes on the wall. Ask for volunteers to sort the notes into meaningful categories (see Affinity Map ). Discuss what these categories might mean for your company and products.

strategic plan workshop activities

  • At the end of the brainstorm, pick few market opportunities that seem interesting for further consideration. ask the players to briefly describe their idea as they place it on the Market Opportunity section of the Navigator. Use colored sticky notes to represent each of these market opportunities, and place them on the market Opportunity Set section of the Navigator.
  • Your Market Opportunity Set is now ready.

Step 2: Evaluate Opportunity Attractiveness

strategic plan workshop activities

At this step, players will assess the potential and the challenge of each opportunity in their set, to compare and prioritize options. Market opportunities are not born equal- some are more attractive than others.

  • To begin the evaluation process, explain first what an attractive option is. Write on the board: An attractive option is onethat offers high potential for value creation, and limited challenge in capturing this value.
  • Divide the group into small teams, and assign 1-2 market opportunities to each team.
  • For each opportunity, ask the teams to assess the overall potential and overall challenge of each option, using the criteria described in Worksheet 2. If you do not have an A1 sized worksheet, recreate the template on a flip chart or use smaller prints.

strategic plan workshop activities

Step 3: Depict Your Agile Focus Dartboard

strategic plan workshop activities

Having multiple options at hand is important for maintaining your agility. In the last step of the game, you can design your Agile Focus strategy.

  • Begin with a clear explanation, write on the board: An Agile Focus strategy clearly defines your primary focus, the opportunities that you will keep open for backup or future growth, and those that you put aside for now. It will help you balance the ongoing tension between focus and flexibility.
  • Players should pick attractive opportunities from step 2, and assess their relatedness to the currently pursued market(s),using Worksheet 3. If you do not have an A1 sized print, recreate the template on a flip chart or use smaller prints.
  • Discuss and pick at least one backup option and one growth option that you want to keep open. Depict your decision (using colored sticky notes) in the right part of the Market Opportunity Navigator. Your Agile Focus Dartboard is now ready.

strategic plan workshop activities

Strategy This thought process is extremely powerful for companies seeking to understand and leverage their landscape of opportunities. The ‘big picture’ that it provides is especially valuable for:

  • Startups seeking their initial strategic path
  • Companies in need for pivot
  • Companies searching for new growth engines
  • Companies wishing to leverage existing IP

You can play this game to advance solid strategic decisions, but also to nourish and nurture the cognitive flexibility of your team, or simply to develop a culture that is more flexible and receptive to adaptations.

If you use this tool as a structured decision-making process, more time is required for market validation. In this case, you can map out your opportunities, state your assumptions while doing so, and get out of the building to support or refute them. You can then update the Market Opportunity Navigator and reflect on your learning.

Complementary Games Finally, use the Navigator in combination with other great tools to set a promising strategic path:

  • the Empathy Map will help you to more deeply understand your stakeholders; play this game before exploring new opportunities
  • A quick ride on the Carousel will put players in a brainstorming mindset before exploring
  • Use the Business Model Canvas to further and more managerially flesh out the viability, feasibility and desirability of your newly discovered Market Opportunities

Variations You can use each step of the Market Opportunity Navigator as a separate game, depending on your objectives. For example:

  • Use step 1 as a game to uncover different applications and target markets
  • Use step 2 as a game to assess the attractiveness of a specific business opportunity that you have in mind, and check out if it’s worth betting on.
  • Use step 3 as a game to develop possible roadmaps for your venture

Source Prof. Marc Gruber and Dr. Sharon Tal created The Market Opportunity Navigator in their book, Where to Play: 3 Steps to Discovering Your Most Valuable Market Opportunities

Mapping Organizational Culture

strategic plan workshop activities

Are you struggling to break down organizational silos, increase creativity, engagement and collaboration? Do you feel like the people in your company are resisting change? Is your company’s culture holding you back?

Nobody denies the critical importance of culture to a company’s success. And yet, although everyone agrees that culture is of vital importance, culture still seems fuzzy, vague and difficult to grasp. Culture change initiatives are often well-meaning, but end up as a series of feel-good exercises. They create a feeling that progress is being made, but ultimately fail to deliver results.

Objective of Play Assess, map and transform organizational culture via deep reflection. As a leader or manager in a large organization, you probably have a sense of the culture and people challenges facing you, but at the same time, you must also manage not only down but up and across the organization.

Culture Mapping gives you the intelligent information you require to make a business case for the interventions, executive support, and budget you will need to minimize risk and maximize the chances of success for your change initiative.

Number of Players Use the culture map individually or with a group.

For group use, gather 5 – 6 people from the same function (IT, HR, finance, et al) who work together and know each other well. The goal of the session is candid and constructive criticism; the boss cannot come.

Duration of Play Anywhere between 15 minutes for individual play (napkin sketch of a Culture Map) to 90 minutes for a group.

Material Required Culture Mapping works best when players work on a poster on the wall. To run a good session you will need:

  • Alternatively, recreate the canvas on a large whiteboard.
  • Tons of sticky notes (i.e. post-it® notes) of different colors
  • Flip chart markers
  • Camera to capture results
  • The facilitator of the game might want to read an outline of the Culture Map.

How to Play There are several games and variations you can play with the Culture Map. Here we describe the most basic game, which is the mapping of an organization’s existing culture. The game can easily be adapted to the objectives of the players (eg, map your desired culture or that of another organization).

  • The outcomes in your culture are the fruits. These are the things you want your culture to achieve, or what you want to “harvest” from your garden.
  • The behaviors are the heart of your culture. They’re the positive or negative actions people perform everyday that will result in a good or bad harvest.
  • The enablers and blockers are the elements that allow your garden to flourish or fail. For example, weeds, pests, bad weather, or lack of knowledge might be hindering your garden. Where as fertilizer, expertise in gardening specific crops, or good land might be helping your garden to grow.
  • Start with Behavior , it tends to be the easiest to discuss. These are the things we see everyday, the things we talk about when we ask someone if they “want to grab a coffee?” Use the guide questions to prompt ideas. Write a single behavior on a sticky note, put it on the map. Before moving to the next step, group similar behaviors and remove duplicates. Recommendation: be as specific as possible, use stories to elicit detail and specificity; avoid the tendency to be generic in describing these behaviors. Ask the players: how would you describe this behavior as a scene in a movie?
  • Move to Outcomes. Go behavior-by-behavior and use the guide questions to prompt ideas, the most important being: What happens to the business because of the behaviors? Write a single outcome on a sticky note, put it on the map near its related behavior. Use a marker to draw a line between a behavior and its direct outcome.
  • Move to Enablers and Blockers . Go behavior-by-behavior and use the guide questions to prompt ideas. Enablers and blockers describe why we behave the way we do: a listing of organizational incentives. Write a single enabler or blocker on a sticky note and place it near it’s related behavior. Use a marker to draw a line between an enabler or blocker and its resulting behavior.
  • Once you have taken a pass at each section, examine the map and discuss with the group. Do the relationships make sense? Are the behaviors as detailed as they could be? Has your discussion sparked any other thoughts? If so, add them to the map. Recommendation: Keep relationships as direct as possible. For example, a behavior should have only one outcome and one enabler or blocker. It is likely this will not happen without discussion, editing and refinement. For clarity and communication, keep the relationships as simple as possible, for example:

strategic plan workshop activities

Strategy Depending on who you ask, 60–70 percent of change initiatives fail to meet their stated objectives, and the primary source of that failure, according to a Deloitte study, is resistance to change. So if you’re embarking on a change initiative, the last things you want to skimp on are risk-awareness and risk management.

Culture Mapping surfaces information that, as far as we know, cannot be collected any other way. It gives the C-suite access to frontline culture in a way that they could never get through their own efforts, because the water-cooler conversation always shuts down, or significantly shifts, when the CEO or senior leader walks by.

Variation Map the Culture of industry competitors or an aspirational company

The Culture Map was developed by Dave Gray and Strategyzer AG .

Mapping Design Operations

Today, companies in every industry seek to better their design capabilities: from products to services to experiences. Fueling the growing design function in large organizations is a new discipline called Design Ops, charged with scaling design and design thinking up, down, and across the organization.

Does your organization have a Design Ops function? If not, let’s design it!

strategic plan workshop activities

Object of Play Build shared understanding of how Design Ops operates within the larger organizational context. If a current Design Ops function exists, to visually map it. If it does not yet exist, to design it.

Number of Players 1-6 (depending on the objective).

As an individual, use the Design Ops canvas to quickly sketch out and think through a Design Ops organizational model or an interesting model portrayed in the press.

To map an organization’s existing and/or future model you should work in groups. Include partner organizations (e.g. project management) and stakeholders (e.g. clients). The more diverse the group of players, the more accurate the picture of the Design Ops function will be.

Duration of Play Anywhere between 15 minutes for individual play (napkin sketch of a Design Ops model), half a day (to map an organization’s current Design Ops model), and up to two days (to develop a future Design Ops model, including vision, mission and metrics).

Material Required Mapping works best when players work on a poster on the wall. To run a good session you will need:

  • The facilitator of the game might want to read an outline of the Design Operations Canvas

How to Play There are several games and variations you can play with the Design Ops Canvas Poster. Here we describe the most basic game, which is the mapping of an organization’s existing Design Ops org (steps 1-3), it’s assessment (step 4), and the formulation of improved or potential new org designs (step 5). The game can easily be adapted to the objectives of the players.

  • Start with the Stakeholders in the Who are we? circle. Use different color sticky notes on the Canvas Poster for each type of stakeholder (e.g. external vendors, internal support functions, clients). Complete this section.
  • Subsequently, move to the What do we do? section and map out the value propositions your organization offers each stakeholder. Players should use the same color sticky notes for value propositions and stakeholder segments that go together. If a value proposition targets two very different stakeholder segments, the sticky note colors of both segments should be used.
  • Map out all the remaining building blocks of your organization’s Design Ops model with sticky notes. Try to use the colors of the related stakeholder segment. Recommendation: once you complete the Stakeholders section, work around the canvas clockwise, beginning with the upper left section; leave the What Constrains Us? section last.
  • Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your Design Ops model by putting up green (strength) and red (weakness) sticky notes alongside the strong and weak elements of the mapped model. Alternatively, sticky notes marked with a “+” and “-” can be used rather than colors.
  • Try to improve the existing model or generate totally new models. You can use one or several additional Design Ops Model Posters to map out improved org models or new alternatives.

Strategy This powerful game opens up channels of dialogue about a new, lesser-known but vitally important design function. Use this game as an opportunity to not only create a thoughtfully designed and productive organization, but to introduce and educate the rest of the company about what design can do and how to plug in. Players not familiar with design may stay silent at first, but their participation will increase understanding and alignment, benefits with payoff into the future. Keep them engaged. Beyond including outside stakeholders in the game, use a completed Design Ops canvas as a conversation starter in evangelizing Design’s value to your company.

  • map out the Design Ops org of industry competitors or an aspirational company

Complementary Games

  • The Empathy Map will help you to more deeply understand your stakeholders; play this game before Mapping your Design Ops org.
  • The Business Model Canvas will provide a more technical (managerial?) understanding of how your Design Ops org functions; complete the Business Model canvas after mapping your Design Ops org. In the event you are looking to improve upon your current state, the Business Model Canvas will prove especially useful.

Empathy Map

strategic plan workshop activities

Empathy map , originally uploaded by dgray_xplane .

The empathy map, one of Gamestorming’s methods for understanding audiences, including users, customers, and other players in any business ecosystem, has gotten some press lately because it was featured in Alex Osterwalder ‘s excellent book, Business Model Generation as a tool for discovering insights about customers.

Here’s how it works:

GOAL: The goal of the game is to gain a deeper level of understanding of a stakeholder in your business ecosystem, which may be a client, prospect, partner, etc., within a given context, such as a buying decision or an experience using a product or service. The exercise can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. You should be able to make a rough empathy map in about 20 minutes, provided you have a decent understanding of the person and context you want to map. Even if you don’t understand the stakeholder very well, the empathy-mapping exercise can help you identify gaps in your understanding and help you gain a deeper understanding of the things you don’t yet know.

1. Start by drawing a circle to represent the person and give the circle a name and some identifying information such as a job title. It helps if you can think of a real person who roughly fits the profile, so you can keep them in mind as you proceed. In keeping with the idea of a “profile” think of the circle as the profile of a person’s head and fill in some details. You might want to add eyes, mouth, nose, ears, and maybe glasses if appropriate or a hairstyle to differentiate the person from other profiles you might want to create. These simple details are not a frivolous addition — they will help you project yourself into the experience of that person, which is the point of the exercise.

2. Determine a question you have for that stakeholder. If you had a question you would want to ask them, or a situation in their life you want to understand, what would that be? You might want to understand a certain kind of buying decision, for example, in which case your question might be “Why should I buy X?”

3. Divide the circle into sections that represent aspects of that person’s sensory experience. What are they thinking, feeling, saying, doing, hearing? Label the appropriate sections on the image.

4. Now it’s time for you to practice the “empathy” portion of the exercise. As best you can, try to project yourself into that person’s experience and understand the context you want to explore. Then start to fill in the diagram with real, tangible, sensory experiences. If you are filling in the “hearing” section, for example, try to think of what the person might hear, and how they would hear it. In the “saying” section, try to write their thoughts as they would express them. Don’t put your words into their mouth — the point is to truly understand and empathize with their situation so you can design a better product, service or whatever.

5. Check yourself: Ask others to review your map, make suggestions, and add details or context. The more the person can identify with the actual stakeholder the better. Over time you will hone your ability to understand and empathize with others in your business ecosystem, which will help you improve your relationships and your results.

strategic plan workshop activities

Click here for photos of empathy-mapping in action.

Squiggle Birds

Squiggle birds is a quick exercise that you can use to get people stretching their visual thinking muscles. It takes about five minutes and quickly, clearly demonstrates how little effort is really required to make meaningful, easy-to-read images. The main point of the demonstration is that our minds are already pattern-making machines, and very little drawing is actually required to convey an idea. The mind will fill in the rest.

I learned this exercise from my friend Chris Glynn , a fine teacher who teaches fine things.

Building partnerships

Object of play:  The partnership canvas is a tool that enables visualization of current and/or future partnerships. It can also be used for early testing of the value creating potential of a partnership between two partnership candidates. The tool’s purpose is to define your business priority for partnering, and empathize with your partner to explore whether there is potentially a match. The partnership canvas can be used as a stand-alone tool, but comes to full strategizing value when it is jointly used with the business model canvas, also available on this site .

strategic plan workshop activities

Number of players:  This can be done by yourself, but preferably with 2 teams of max 5 people representing each side of the partnership. Alternatively, make multiple pairs if there are more people.

Duration of play:  (60-90 min):

– Step 1- Define intent (15 min)

–Step 2- Design partnership (15 min/sketch)

–Step 3- Bring teams to the negotiating table (15 min)

–Step 4- Evaluate the negotiation results and define next steps (20 min)

How to play

1. Define intent a)    Describe the aim or goal of the partnership for your business b)    List what would be ideal partners to work with and why. Organize a post up. Select a top partnership candidate, or multiple candidates. c)    Create (multiples of) 2 teams; 1 representing your business, 1 for a potential partner’s business.

2. Design partnership a)    Each team identifies their desired assets in their respective partner’s business model b)    Teams sketches out a partnership canvas from their own team’s perspective using stickie notes to define each building block

3. Bring teams to the negotiating table a)   Each team presents their partnership canvas b)   Compare the two partnership canvasses by mirroring the partnership perspectives. Compare between  value offers of one team, to desired value of the other team, and whether there is mutual understanding of the transfer activities. Check for a clear fit. c)   Create agreement on the created value for each partner. Adapt partnership canvas and iterate step 3 if required.

4. Evaluate the negotiation results and define next steps a)   Do the elements of created value provide clear added value to each partner’s business? b)   Define next steps to effectuate the partnership

Mirroring partnership perspectives

Strategy:  The partnership canvas can be used to explore the idea of engaging in a partnership. A team can use the canvas to prepare for an upcoming conversation with a potential partner. Alternatively the session can be conducted jointly with a potential partner if there is already a mutual interest to explore partnering possibilities. The tool can firstly be used to determine whether there is a technical fit between two businesses. By working in teams and negotiating certain rivalry is always invoked, and teams can also get a sense of cultural fit between two partnering businesses.

In order to obtain full strategizing value from use of the canvas, it is advised to integrally work with the business model canvas. In the end, the partnership discussion is a key step in business model innovation

Interaction Partnership Canvas  Business Model Canvas

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VUCAC Blog

Best Strategic Planning Activities for Your Organization

Strategic planning is the process of developing a long-term vision for an organization and creating a plan to achieve that vision.

It involves analyzing the organization’s current situation, including its internal and external environment, identifying its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and setting goals and objectives that will help it achieve its vision. Strategic planning is important because it helps organizations adapt to change, stay competitive, and achieve long-term success.

In order to make effective strategic planning, it is important to break it down into different stages of activities that are well structured and then build an iterative process.

Basic Activities of Strategic Planning

First of all, the strategic planning process typically involves four basic activities:

Strategic analysis

This involves analyzing the organization’s current situation, including its internal and external environment. This might involve conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, gathering market research, and reviewing financial data. The goal of this activity is to understand the organization’s current position and identify any potential challenges or opportunities that may impact its ability to achieve its vision.

Setting strategic direction

This involves using the information gathered during the strategic analysis to set goals and objectives that will help the organization achieve its vision. It might also involve identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) that will be used to measure progress towards those goals. The goal of this activity is to create a clear roadmap for the organization to follow as it works towards its vision.

Action planning

This involves developing a plan to achieve the goals and objectives that were set during the strategic direction-setting activity. This might involve creating a roadmap with specific action steps, assigning tasks and responsibilities, and setting timelines. The goal of this activity is to create a concrete plan of action that will help the organization achieve its goals.

Strategy evaluation

This involves regularly reviewing and evaluating the progress of the organization towards its goals and making adjustments as needed. This might involve collecting and analyzing data, conducting stakeholder interviews, and reviewing feedback. The goal of this activity is to ensure that the organization is on track to achieve its goals and to make any necessary adjustments to the plan as needed.

Strategy evaluation

Fun Strategic Planning Activities

As we can see, strategic planning can be a complex and challenging process, so it is important to keep it engaging and enjoyable for all participants. Some fun activities that can be incorporated into a strategic planning process include:

  • Creative brainstorming sessions: These can involve using techniques like free writing, mind mapping, or problem-solving games to generate ideas and think creatively about the organization’s future.
  • Team building exercises: Activities like trust falls, problem-solving puzzles, or team sports can help build trust and improve communication within the team. These activities can be customized to fit the needs and goals of the organization.
  • Vision boarding workshops: These activities involve creating a visual representation of the organization’s vision and goals. Participants can use images, quotes, and other creative elements to create a visual representation of what they want the organization to become. This can be a fun and interactive way to involve all team members in the strategic planning process.
  • Gamification: Using games or other interactive activities to make strategic planning more fun can help engage and motivate participants. Gamification can involve creating a game or quiz to teach participants about the strategic planning process, or using games as a way to brainstorm and generate ideas.

Fun Strategic Planning Activities

Virtual Strategic Planning Activities

With the current COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations have moved to virtual strategic planning activities, and here is some guidance on how to conduct effective online visual strategic planning:

  • Virtual brainstorming sessions: We can use a variety of online collaboration tools to organize an efficient brainstorming workshop, like Google Docs or the VUCAC Whiteboard. These tools allow team members to collaborate in real time and share ideas, even if they are not physically in the same location.
  • Virtual team building exercises: There are many online resources available that offer virtual team building activities, such as virtual escape rooms or virtual trivia games. These activities can be conducted using video conferencing tools like Zoom or Google Meet and can help build trust and improve communication within the team.
  • Virtual vision boarding: We highly recommend you build vision boards with a digital whiteboard. For example, the VUCAC Whiteboard allows team members to create and share digital vision boards in real-time based on pre-built professional templates. You can turn this session into a fun and interactive experience to involve everyone in the whole strategic planning process.
  • Virtual gamification: There are many online tools and platforms that can be used to gamify the strategic planning process, such as Kahoot. These tools can help engage and motivate team members and can be customized to fit the needs and goals of the organization.

VUCAC Template

Virtual strategic planning activities have several advantages, including the ability to involve team members from different locations, the convenience of not having to physically meet, and the ability to save time and resources.

However, it is important to ensure that virtual activities are designed and facilitated effectively in order to maximize participation and engagement. This might involve providing clear instructions and guidelines, setting clear expectations for participation, and using tools and platforms that are easy to use and accessible to all team members.

Strategic Planning Activities Examples

Here are a few examples of strategic planning activities that organizations might consider incorporating into their process:

  • Customer segmentation: This activity involves dividing the organization’s customers into different groups based on their needs, preferences, or other characteristics. This can help the organization tailor its products or services to better meet the needs of each customer segment.
  • Competitive analysis: This activity involves analyzing the organization’s competitors and understanding their strengths and weaknesses. This can help the organization identify areas where it can differentiate itself from its competitors and develop a competitive advantage.
  • Market analysis: This activity involves analyzing the organization’s target market and understanding the needs and preferences of its customers. This can help the organization develop marketing strategies that will be effective in reaching and engaging its target market.
  • Resource allocation: This activity involves determining how the organization’s resources (such as money, time, and personnel) will be used to achieve its goals and objectives. This might involve creating a budget, allocating staff to specific tasks, or identifying outside resources that will be needed to achieve the organization’s goals.

Strategic planning is an important process that helps organizations develop a long-term vision and create a plan to achieve it. It involves analyzing the organization’s current situation, setting goals and objectives, developing an action plan, and evaluating progress.

There are many different activities that can be incorporated into the strategic planning process, including basic activities like strategic analysis and setting strategic direction, fun activities like brainstorming sessions and team building exercises, virtual activities like virtual brainstorming sessions and virtual vision boarding, and specific activities like customer segmentation and competitive analysis.

It is important for organizations to choose the strategic planning activities that best fit their needs and goals in order to ensure a successful strategic planning process.

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strategic plan workshop activities

Growth Tactics

Growth Tactics

Future-Proof Your Mindset: 20 Strategic Thinking Exercises

20 Essential Strategic Thinking Exercises for Maximum Impact

Last Updated on September 14, 2023 by Milton Campbell

Strategic thinking is a crucial skill for business leaders, managers, and employees in today’s fast-paced, competitive world. It involves generating long-term goals, anticipating trends, and making informed decisions to gain a competitive advantage. In this article, we will explore various strategic thinking exercises that can help you and your team think more strategically, strengthen your strategic thinking skills, and become a strategic thinker.

The Importance of Strategic Thinking Exercises

Strategic thinking is essential for leadership, creativity, and achieving an organization’s goals and objectives. It allows business leaders to analyze their company’s position, envision new ideas, and develop a strategic plan to execute those ideas. By encouraging strategic thinking, managers can foster an environment where employees are continually seeking new ways to improve the organization and achieve positive outcomes.

strategic thinking exercises.Chess board with a black and white knight facing each other.

Exercises to Enhance Strategic Thinking Skills

In this article section, we will explore 20 exercises specifically designed to enhance your strategic thinking skills. Strategic thinking techniques are essential for leaders to navigate complex challenges, make informed decisions, and drive organizational success.

These exercises will help you sharpen your strategic thinking abilities, expand your perspectives, and unleash your creativity. By engaging in these exercises, you will cultivate a strategic mindset and develop the skills necessary to tackle the ever-evolving business landscape. Get ready to strengthen your strategic thinking muscles as we dive into these 20 exercises!

1. Scenario Planning

Scenario planning is an exercise that encourages participants to envision various future scenarios for their organization. By brainstorming potential situations, team members can anticipate potential challenges, develop new ideas, and create actionable plans to tackle those challenges. This exercise helps to improve strategic thinking skills by allowing participants to analyze trends, evaluate the possible outcomes, and customize their approach based on the insights gained.

2. Brainzooming

Brainzooming is a team-building exercise that promotes strategic thinking by challenging participants to generate new ideas and solve problems creatively. In this exercise, team members are encouraged to think outside the box and explore new perspectives. By combining creativity with strategic thinking, participants can develop innovative solutions that deliver a competitive advantage.

3. SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that helps individuals and organizations identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This exercise allows participants to evaluate their current situation, anticipate future trends, and develop strategies to address potential challenges. By understanding their organization’s position, participants can make informed decisions and execute plans that align with their goals.

4. Objective Setting

Setting clear objectives is a critical step in strategic thinking. This exercise involves establishing specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for your organization. By focusing on your goals and objectives, you can ensure that your strategic thinking efforts are aligned with your organization’s priorities and desired outcomes.

5. Competitive Analysis

Understanding your competitors is essential to strategic thinking. In this exercise, participants are encouraged to analyze their competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. By evaluating the competitive landscape, team members can develop strategies to differentiate themselves from their competitors and gain a competitive advantage.

6. Trend Analysis

Trend analysis is an exercise that focuses on identifying emerging trends and understanding their potential impact on your organization. By staying informed about industry trends, participants can anticipate changes, adapt their strategies, and capitalize on new opportunities.

7. Communication Skills Development

Effective communication is vital for strategic thinking. In this exercise, participants are encouraged to practice their communication skills by presenting their ideas, engaging in discussions, and collaborating with others. By improving their communication skills, team members can better articulate their strategic vision and gain buy-in from others.

8. Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a visual tool that helps individuals and teams organize their thoughts, ideas, and information. By creating a visual representation of your ideas, you can better understand the relationships between different concepts and identify new connections. This tool can be particularly useful for brainstorming, problem-solving, and strategic planning sessions.

9. PESTLE Analysis

PESTLE analysis is a strategic tool that examines the external factors affecting an organization. It stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental factors. By assessing these factors, you can identify potential opportunities and threats in the external environment and develop strategies to address them. This analysis helps to broaden your perspective and consider various external influences on your organization.

10. Gap Analysis

Gap analysis is a tool that helps you identify the difference between your organization’s current state and its desired future state. By understanding the gaps in performance, resources, or capabilities, you can develop targeted strategies to bridge those gaps and achieve your goals. This tool can be useful for strategic planning, resource allocation, and performance improvement initiatives.

11. Game Theory

Game theory is a strategic tool that examines decision-making and interactions between different players in a competitive environment. By using game theory, you can understand the potential outcomes of various strategic decisions and develop optimal strategies based on the behavior of other players. This tool can be particularly helpful for understanding competitive dynamics and developing strategies to outperform your competitors.

strategic plan workshop activities

12. Balanced Scorecard

The balanced scorecard is a strategic management tool that helps organizations track their performance across multiple dimensions, including financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth perspectives. By monitoring performance across these dimensions, you can ensure that your strategic initiatives are balanced and aligned with your organization’s overall objectives. This tool can be useful for performance measurement, strategic planning, and decision-making.

13. Porter’s Five Forces

Porter’s Five Forces is a strategic analysis tool that helps organizations understand the competitive forces within their industry. The five forces include the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of suppliers, the bargaining power of buyers, the threat of substitute products or services, and the intensity of competitive rivalry. By analyzing these forces, you can develop strategies to enhance your competitive position and achieve long-term success.

14. Reverse Brainstorming

Reverse brainstorming is a creative problem-solving exercise that involves identifying potential problems instead of solutions. By focusing on potential issues, participants can gain a deeper understanding of the challenges they face and develop strategies to prevent or mitigate them. This exercise encourages strategic thinking by requiring participants to anticipate potential obstacles and develop proactive solutions.

15. The Six Thinking Hats

The Six Thinking Hats exercise, developed by Edward de Bono, is a technique that encourages participants to approach problems and decisions from different perspectives. The six hats represent different modes of thinking: white (facts and information), red (emotions and feelings), black (critical judgment), yellow (positive aspects), green (creativity and new ideas), and blue (process and organization). By switching between these different modes of thinking, participants can develop a more comprehensive understanding of the situation and develop well-rounded strategies.

16. Role Playing

Role-playing exercises require participants to assume different roles within a hypothetical scenario. By stepping into the shoes of others, participants can gain a better understanding of different perspectives, anticipate potential reactions, and develop strategies that consider the needs and motivations of various stakeholders. This exercise enhances strategic thinking skills by encouraging empathy and a broader understanding of the situation.

17. The Five Whys

The Five Whys exercise is a technique used to identify the root cause of a problem by asking “why” five times. By continually asking why a problem exists, participants can uncover the underlying issues and develop targeted strategies to address them. This exercise encourages strategic thinking by requiring participants to analyze problems deeply and develop long-term solutions.

18. Pre-Mortem Analysis

A pre-mortem analysis is an exercise that involves imagining that a project or initiative has failed and then identifying the reasons for the failure. By anticipating potential pitfalls and challenges, participants can develop strategies to prevent or mitigate those issues before they occur. This exercise promotes strategic thinking by encouraging participants to think critically about potential risks and develop proactive solutions.

19. Blue Ocean Strategy

The Blue Ocean Strategy exercise encourages participants to identify untapped market spaces and create new demand by developing innovative products or services. By focusing on differentiation and low cost, participants can create a competitive advantage and achieve long-term success. This exercise enhances strategic thinking skills by encouraging innovation and the exploration of new opportunities.

20. The Four Quadrant Matrix

The Four Quadrant Matrix is a strategic decision-making tool that helps participants prioritize tasks or initiatives based on their importance and urgency. By categorizing tasks into four quadrants (urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and neither urgent nor important), participants can allocate their resources and time more effectively. This exercise encourages strategic thinking by requiring participants to evaluate priorities and make informed decisions.

Encouraging Strategic Thinking in Your Organization

To encourage strategic thinking within your organization, consider implementing workshops, team-building exercises, and brain training activities that focus on strategic thinking skills. Providing employees with the tools and resources to think strategically can lead to increased innovation, improved decision-making, and a more successful organization.

In conclusion, strategic thinking exercises are essential for developing the skills necessary to become a strategic thinker. By practicing these exercises regularly, individuals and teams can improve their ability to anticipate trends, evaluate potential challenges, and develop innovative solutions to achieve their goals. Take the time to invest in your strategic thinking skills and watch your organization thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

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Future-Proof Your Mindset: 20 Strategic Thinking Exercises

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12 Strategic Planning Exercises to Help You Get Amazing Results Next Year

by Greg Head | Dec 28, 2016

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If you are like most early-stage entrepreneurs, you set aggressive goals. You probably got a lot done this year, but you still came up short on achieving everything on your plan. Now it’s time to assess how you did this year and determine what needs to happen next year.

When you fell short, did you under-execute or did you set your goals too high? It was probably a little of both.

Great execution requires serious planning, especially as your team grows. Making clear strategic decisions and aligning everyone to the same goals are powerful “force multipliers” for your business. Strategy is simply the answer to the bigger questions, and what your execution depends on.

If you’re not taking time every quarter to ask deep questions and create goals for your company, you’re in a state of MSU (“Making Sh#% Up”). MSU creates misalignment, confusion, frustration, and the bad habit of missed commitments. This problem multiplies as your business grows.

Here are 12 powerful strategy exercises to help you think differently, set strategic priorities, align your plans, and get better results.

Strategic Planning Basics

These are the simple, time-tested strategic planning questions that are widely used in goal-setting, prioritization, and execution:

  • Strategic Planning – What’s the current situation? What are we trying to accomplish? What do we need to do to get there from here in the next quarter, year, or 3 years? (see Strategic Planning for Dummies)
  • SWOT Analysis – What are our internal Strengths and Weaknesses?  What are our external Opportunities and Threats? ( SWOT  explained)
  • Continuous Improvement – What is working? What’s not working and needs to be improved? What lessons have we learned? ( Continuous Improvement  explained)
  • People & Organization – Do we have the right people in the right roles? (Jim Collins calls this “A-players in key seats.”) Are all the major functions and priorities of the business “owned” by responsible leaders? How does our organization, staff, and culture need to change to accomplish our goals?

Check out Verne Harnish’s One-Page Strategic Plan and checklist for some simple tools to guide your discussion and final result.

Getting the Big Things Right

These questions will keep you out of the weeds and focus you on the real reasons you are in business:

  • Serving Stakeholders  How well did we serve our stakeholders–employees, customers, partners, owners/investors, and our community? Which of these did we serve best and worst? How can we improve? (see  Shareholders First? ,  Harvard Business Review)
  • Purpose and Values – Did we stay true to our stated Purpose (our larger cause)? Did we live up to (or fall short of) our stated Values? Are we hiring and firing to our Purpose and Values?
  • The Dan Sullivan Question – If we were having this discussion 3 years from today, and we were looking back over those 3 years, what has to have happened for us to feel happy with our progress? ( The Dan Sullivan Question, Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach)
  • Hedgehog Concept – Three questions: 1) What are we deeply passionate about? 2) What can we be the best at?  3) What drives our economic or resource engine? Where do these three intersect (our hedgehog focus)? ( Hedgehog Concept , in “Good to Great,” by Jim Collins)

New Thinking Creates Different Results

These questions will help you expand your thinking and see things differently. You can make room for more productive actions when you let go of bad habits, unproductive beliefs, and outdated processes:

  • New Possibilities – What would we do if we could not fail? What would we do if we had no fear and no excuses? What would be possible if we had no limits on our resources, staff, or time?
  • Stop Doing List – What thoughts, beliefs, and habits are no longer useful and should be left in the past? What types of customers and employees should we stop pursuing/hiring? Which initiatives should be stopped so we can use the resources more productively?
  • Fire Your Old Self – If you fired yourself and hired the best candidate in the world to replace you, what would they do differently to get better results? How can you start doing that immediately? Who do you need to be to create the results you want?
  • The One Thing – What’s the ONE Thing we can do right now, and by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary? (see Gary Keller’s “ The One Thing”)

Even disciplined entrepreneurs who take planning seriously don’t accomplish all of their big goals. They face unexpected internal challenges, external forces they can’t control, and massive “learning opportunities.” No problem, just keep moving and start again.

The growth game is won by the leaders and teams who keep their eyes on the big goals and continually adjust to make progress. Keep moving forward.

Strategic Planning Process - Creating a Workshop to Develop Strategy

Strategy , Tools , Fun Strategic Planning , Strategic Planning , Strategic Thinking , Collaboration

Suppose you are on the hook to put together a team meeting or workshop to develop a strategy . Maybe you have done something similar before, or maybe you have never led a strategic planning process. Is there something or some place you can go to get ideas on how to develop a strategy workshop?

Since this was a recent search topic here, we are sharing our recommendations for ideas on coordinating a strategic planning process workshop.

This list of articles from our blog contains ideas for:

  • Selecting a location
  • Providing solid facilitation
  • Using structure, exercises, and strategic thinking questions effectively
  • Engaging participants
  • Following up the ideas and results

Strategic Planning Process - Ideas for a Workshop to Develop Strategy

  • 12 Reasons Why Hotel Meeting Rooms Suck for Collaboration 
  • 11 Examples of Strategic Thinking without an Offsite Meeting

Facilitators

  • Who Should Facilitate Strategy Planning? 10 Vital Characteristics
  • Strategic Thinking Exercises – 11 Things Running through a Facilitator’s Head

Structure, Exercises, and Strategic Thinking Questions

  • 6 Guidelines for a Great Strategic Thinking Workshop
  • Strategic Planning Exercises – Two Types of Structure, One Works
  • Asking Questions People Can Answer
  • Free Strategic Planning Exercises – 5 Warnings to Know
  • Strategic Planning Tools – 600 Powerful Strategic Thinking Questions eBook

Engaging a Team to Develop Strategy

  • Strategic Thinking Success – 3 Critical Thinking Perspectives
  • 9 Ideas on How to Involve a Team in Group Strategy Exercises
  • Fun Strategic Planning Exercises – 6 Last-Minute Ideas

Following Up a Strategic Planning Process

  • 6 Ways to Organize Lists of Ideas
  • 9 Strategic Thinking Questions – Helping Teams Execute Strategy

This overview will get you started thinking about new ways to most effectively lead a workshop to develop strategy for your department or organization. If you want to go even deeper here into strategic planning, you can .

Finally, if you would like outside help to maximize the speed and engagement of your planning, contact us . Let's talk about customizing a strategy planning approach for your needs . - Mike Brown

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If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free brainzooming blog email updates., you might also like:.

113 Ideas for Strategic Planning Process Improvement

113 Ideas for Strategic Planning Process Improvement

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Strategic Planning – 10 Keys to Collaborative Strategy

Strategic Planning – 10 Keys to Collaborative Strategy

Date published: 01/31/17

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IMAGES

  1. Sample Strategic Planning Agenda: 2 days In-Person

    strategic plan workshop activities

  2. Strategic Planning Workshop

    strategic plan workshop activities

  3. Cooperative Strategic Planning Workshop

    strategic plan workshop activities

  4. strategic-planning-workshop

    strategic plan workshop activities

  5. Best Practices for Strategic Planning (Full Workshop)

    strategic plan workshop activities

  6. 5 Useful Strategy Workshop Exercises

    strategic plan workshop activities

COMMENTS

  1. Team Building Exercises

    Strategic Thinking and Planning Exercises Use the exercises below to strengthen your team's strategic thinking and planning skills. The activities should also help to improve communication and collaboration skills. You can use them in various ways, for example with a group of new managers, or to refresh the skills of senior leaders.

  2. PDF One day strategic planning workshop

    Workshop purpose: Clarify our strategic direction and ensure we're all clear on how we're going to succeed as a team. Item1. Start time. 1. Introduction and overview. Create alignment amongst the team on the purpose of the workshop, the process (i.e. agenda) and the day's outputs. 2.

  3. The 6 Types of Strategic Planning Activities for a Workshop

    These six types of activities include: Interacting - Meeting, networking and connecting with one another to build or enhance the sense of team among participants. Informing - Providing background data and context so everyone has the same backdrop for strategic thinking. These activities often happen before a group convenes.

  4. How to Prepare for Strategy Planning Workshops

    1. Decide the time horizon for the strategy This is the period over which the strategic objectives are set to be achieved. They typically span from three to five years. It's crucial for the CEO to establish this timeframe, as it sets the playing field for determining the strategy. Without it, there is no sense of scale or timing, which are crucial.

  5. Strategy Workshop Best Practices by a McKinsey Alum

    I collaborate with my clients to understand the decisions and solutions they seek in a workshop, develop the necessary pre-workshop materials, facilitate a productive, engaging, and insightful workshop, synthesize the results and follow-up action items, and ensure the team realizes the impact.

  6. 5 Useful Strategy Workshop Exercises

    1. The Solution Board For this exercise, you need a whiteboard and a single topic. Here's what you do. Write down the topic or challenge the business is facing on the whiteboard. Then, you give everybody five minutes or so to call out a solution to the problem.

  7. 7 Key Activities for a Strategic Planning Facilitator

    7 Essential Tasks for a Strategic Planning Facilitator Written by Michael Wilkinson | Edited by johntalaguit Last updated on Sep 27, 2023 As the strategy leader, you have seven activities to which I recommend you pay close attention to build a strong strategy that has full buy-in and commitment. Gain your team's commitment and buy-in to the process

  8. The 10 Most Effective Strategic Planning Activities

    Investment Analysis Sessions: Determine the best areas for investment based on strategic goals. Efficiency Audits: Identify ways to use resources more efficiently. Capacity Planning: Plan for the resources needed to meet future demand. Talent Allocation: Ensure that talent is allocated to strategic priority areas.

  9. How to Facilitate a Business Strategy Workshop

    A lightning talk is designed to really spark creativity, insights and ideas. It's fast and punchy, but it's packed with value. The purpose is to get ideas sparking and delegates really thinking through the lens of their customers. I ask customers at this stage to share their thoughts, experiences and future priorities.

  10. How to Run Strategy Workshops in 5 Steps

    How to Run Strategy Workshops in 5 Steps Kut Akdogan Leaders all agree that strategy is critical to success, but are sometimes unclear on the how to bring stakeholders together to create one through a series of strategy workshop.

  11. How to Facilitate a Strategic Planning Session [2024 Strategic Planning

    Strategic Planning Facilitation Step 1: THINK Through the Purpose and Outcome of the Meeting Stephen Covey advises us to "begin with the end in mind." What is the purpose of this meeting? What do we hope to accomplish? Who should attend? What are our strategic objectives for this workshop?

  12. How to hold a strategic planning meeting

    Strategy planning is all about brainstorming and collaboration. This way, you can develop solutions to tangible problems in your organization and set the tone and strategic direction for your team. Who needs to be included? The best way to ensure that you get all of the most relevant voices in the room is to create an invite list.

  13. How To Prepare For Facilitating A Strategy Workshop

    Draft workshop agenda along strategy process. Select strategy workshop tools and discussion starters. Design meeting location, venue, and meeting room arrangement. Plan meeting logistics such as venue, food & beverage options, and materials needed. Consider if you need break-out rooms or space for individual and team work.

  14. How to run a strategy workshop

    The aim is to keep energy and focus high and to encourage discussion and innovation without meandering away from the agenda. Without this expert steer, it is all too easy for a strategic workshop to simply run out of time (typically 4-6 hours per morning session) before all objectives have been fulfilled. We recommend you use a facilitation ...

  15. Games for vision and strategy meetings

    How to Play Step 1: Become aware Tell the players that we're going to explore states-of-being or actions that appear to be opposites of one another. Ask the players to take a few minutes and silently brainstorm perceived states-of-being or actions, and their opposites.

  16. What Is A Typical Strategy Workshop Agenda?

    A strategy workshop can be a powerful tool for getting a plan for growth hammered out with your team. However, if you've never been involved with a business planning process or never led a strategy workshop before, what really goes into one? Don't panic - I'll talk you through the typical agenda and structure I use with my clients.

  17. 80 Fun Strategic Planning Activities and Ideas!

    7 Types of Strategy Planning Fun 11 Fun Strategic Planning Approaches that Are Not Stuffy for Work 7 Ways Groups Can Collaborate on Fun Strategic Planning New Ways to Productively Translate Fun Strategic Planning Activities into Virtual and Hybrid Meetings

  18. How a Strategic Planning Workshop Can Increase Growth

    Step 2: Craft Workshop Agenda and Activities. The other key element is agenda setting. I'd recommend that you craft your agenda in 30-minute or 60-minute increments. ... Each step in your strategic planning workshop, from identifying challenges to following up post-event, is a cog in the wheel of project management. Workshops, if done right ...

  19. Best Strategic Planning Activities for Your Organization

    Some fun activities that can be incorporated into a strategic planning process include: Creative brainstorming sessions: These can involve using techniques like free writing, mind mapping, or problem-solving games to generate ideas and think creatively about the organization's future. Team building exercises: Activities like trust falls ...

  20. 20 Essential Strategic Thinking Exercises for Maximum Impact

    1. Scenario Planning Scenario planning is an exercise that encourages participants to envision various future scenarios for their organization. By brainstorming potential situations, team members can anticipate potential challenges, develop new ideas, and create actionable plans to tackle those challenges.

  21. Team Strategy Workshop Activities

    19 Use Method Save time and effort designing your workshops Drag, drop and reuse content. Calculate time automatically. Collaborate in real-time. Create a session in minutes (not hours) with SessionLab. Try SessionLab for free Hundreds of group facilitation activities for workshops, meetings and training sessions.

  22. 12 Strategic Planning Exercises to Help You Get Amazing Results Next

    Here are 12 powerful strategy exercises to help you think differently, set strategic priorities, align your plans, and get better results. Strategic Planning Basics These are the simple, time-tested strategic planning questions that are widely used in goal-setting, prioritization, and execution: Strategic Planning - What's the current situation?

  23. Creating a Workshop to Develop Strategy

    Since this was a recent search topic here, we are sharing our recommendations for ideas on coordinating a strategic planning process workshop. This list of articles from our blog contains ideas for: Selecting a location. Providing solid facilitation. Using structure, exercises, and strategic thinking questions effectively. Engaging participants.

  24. B'nai B'rith Israel approves strategic plan for overseas activities

    The international activity of B'nai B'rith Israel will focus on the one hand on exposing the organization's activities to B'nai B'rith organizations and bureaus around the world and on the other hand to work to raise funds from donor bodies around the world for the purposes of B'nai B'rith Israel, including the possibility of establishing a B'nai B'rith Israel home, the old people's home in ...