THE FUNDAMENTALS
OF STRATEGIC
PLANNING

Description

Henry Mintzberg, a professor at McGill University and one of the most highly regarded authorities on all matters strategy, remarked that strategic planning often spoils good strategic decision making, causing managers to confuse real vision with the manipulation of numbers. A Strategic Plan must be more than a roll-up of tactics with some hopeful objectives. A Strategic Plan must chart the course for the organization.

This course will provide the fundamentals to build clear, compelling and useful strategic plans.

Details

You’ll learn how to create a strategic vision (not a vision statement) and work backwards to build your strategy, identifying key strategic bets your organization/division will need to make.

Along the way, useful planning tools will be shared, including:

• SWOT – the useful version, not the perfunctory version

• Strategic Options Analysis

• Strategy Canvas

• Porters Five Forces and 3 generic strategies

• Making the leap from “what we know is possible” to “what we don’t know how to do yet”.

All strategy is a change process. You’ll learn how to create a Strategic Plan that prepares your team and your organization for the change that the plan inspires. Otherwise, you will be stuck with a nice document and no progress.

You’ll also learn how to give a plan a strong narrative structure that ensures the strategy is obviously the right thing to do – even if it is a bold departure from the status quo.

Who is this for?

Managers and Directors who want to move beyond a tactical approach to planning and be better able to set a strategic direction for their division or organization.

Outcomes

Write better Strategic Plans with less effort. And by better, we mean plans that are clear, compelling and useful. 

Instructor

Philip has written strategic plans for 11 different sectors from financial services, to health care, to tourism, to complex social issues. Some plans were more effective, and some were less. He brings these experiences to your planning. Learn from his mistakes. And from his wins – there are a lot more of these, or he would be a horrid choice to run this program.