An intensive professional development training course on
Implementing your Strategic Vision
through Practical Planning
The Structure
This comprehensive training course consists of two modules which can be booked as a 10-Day Training event, or as individual, 5-Day training courses.
Module 1 - Practical Business Planning
Module 2 - Leadership & Strategic Impact
The Course Content
Module 1: Practical Business Planning
Day One: Introduction and Background
- Introduction – planning as leadership
- Business Planning as a cross-business process – “Train hard, fight easy!”
- Bottom-up and Top-down planning approaches
- Resources and facilities required for successful planning
- Financial Planning and Business Planning
- The importance of practical delivery – “where the rubber meets the road!”
Day Two: The Planning Workshop – Walk-through of the “Fishbone”© Method
- Using the Fishbone© approach to shape the problem for an imaginary client described in student case study material
- Appraisal of the plan start point
- Formulation of the desired end-state
- Analysis of the “terrain of travel”
- Planning for Effectiveness
- Planning for Efficiency
Day Three: Using the Planner’s Toolkit
- Porter’s Five Forces analysis
- SWOT and Force-field analysis
- The Boston Matrix
- The Ansoff Matrix
- The Communications Matrix©
- The Balanced Scorecard
Day Four: Plan Delivery through Projects
- PRINCE2 programme/project management
- Plan delivery and governance
- Engaging and motivating the organization’s resources
- Business Planning as part of Total Quality Management and “Lean”
- Measurement and Display
- Building a planning culture
Day Five: From Concept to Practical Reality
- Communicating the plan to stakeholders
- Stepping stones, trip-ups and milestones
- Resourcing the projects
- Monitoring and celebrating success
- Continuous improvement of the process
- The “proof of the pudding”
Module 2: Leadership & Strategic Impact
Day Six: Strategic Challenges Faced by Leaders
- Strategy Development and Strategic Planning
- Understanding Stakeholder Interests – A Compromise
- Life cycles: business, product, market
- Achieving business sustainability, the value chain
- Popular strategy tools - understanding their limits
- Understanding the business environment
Day Seven: New Approaches to Strategy Development
- Strategizing is a process
- Strategy Tools: imagining possible futures
- Examples: how CEO’s use strategy tools
- Zoom in, zoon out – information needed for emergent, agile strategies
- Red & Blue Ocean strategies – role of competitors
- Innovation: Attitudes to failure
Day Eight: Strategic Leaders: Influence and Communication
- Vision, Mission and Values – just words?
- Elements of strategic management
- Globalisation and its impact on Strategy Formulation
- Tactics for securing and keeping customers
- Communicating priorities and objectives
- Using influence to achieve outcomes
Day Nine: What you Measure is What you Get
- Using the Balanced Scorecard as a strategic measurement tool
- Strategy mapping
- Developing KPI’s to deliver corporate objectives
- Measuring past performance, predicting future results
- Business processes, management reviews and improvement opportunities
- People plus data, leads to understanding, knowledge and tactics
Day Ten: Personal Challenge - Plan to Act
- Planning, the key to better outcomes
- Addressing barriers to action
- Gaining commitment
- Leading teams
- Team exercise – making decisions, taking action
- Reflections on learning, personal development plans