Strategic Planning Training

The Better Business Workshop: Strategic Planning for Organizational Success

Course Outcomes

This strategic planning course will:

Offer tools and processes for evaluating the current state.
Assist a group in articulating a clear direction.
Provide a process for determining short-term and long-term goals.
Help organizations identify quick wins.
Suggest tools for avoiding tunnel vision.

Course Overview

This workshop offers a framework for deciding a strategic direction and identifying short-term and long-term goals. The program begins with an assessment of the organization’s current state and continues with a discussion about the data points by which performance can be monitored and measured. Next, the course looks at the organization’s current mission, vision, and values and the extent to which each is relevant to the daily work of most employees. Following that exercise, the group will make any necessary modifications to its mission, vision, and values, in order to ensure a clear line of sight between daily tasks and the organization’s strategic direction.

The program continues with an exploration of strengths and opportunities. It also challenges participants to surface liabilities and potential threats. Next, the group will work through a range of exercises to identify actions that would positively impact the business, quick wins, and short-term and long-term goals. The course concludes with a discussion around nine steps for successfully executing a strategic plan.

This workshop is offered in both a one-day and two-day format. The recommended course length depends on the strength of a group’s current plan and the team’s goals and objectives.

Program Objectives

At this program’s conclusion, participants should be able to:

Explain current business conditions.
Discuss a range of measures they can use to evaluate a plan’s progress.
Establish a clear line of sight between their organization’s mission, vision, and values and employees’ daily work.
Set short-term and long-term business goals.
Create a plan for executing those objectives.
Consider a range of scenarios.
Describe the process of generating employee buy-in.
Follow nine steps for ensuring a strategic plan’s effective execution.

The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of the participant materials prior to the session(s).

Workshop Outline

Assessing the Present: Understanding Current Conditions

If you don’t know where you are, it is difficult to plan a course of action to get somewhere else. For that reason, this workshop opens with an assessment of the current state. Working together, participants will evaluate ten statements and determine the extent to which their organization is strategically positioned. Next, the group will highlight goals for the session and confirm the workshop’s agenda.

Taking Measures: Data Points and Choosing What’s Important to Monitor

Before deciding a direction, it’s worthwhile to consider measures and tools the organization can use to evaluate a plan’s progress. This seminar segment discusses the importance of a performance scorecard. During this part of the program, participants will look at a range of common measures: net sales, gross profit margin, employee turnover, customer satisfaction scores, market share, and others. They will then discuss what each measure can reveal about the state of the business.

Confirming Mission, Vision, and Values: Deciding True North

In the next part of the program, we will look at the organization’s mission, vision, and values. We will discuss the extent to which they are relevant to the organization’s daily operations. Depending on what we discover during this process, the group may choose to modify those elements. Following our review, we will assess the extent to which people have bought into the current direction and can explain how their work relates to the organization’s stated goals and objectives.

From Here to There: Creating the Plan

Once the team has confirmed its direction, we will explore the answers to a range of questions for the purpose of articulating short-term and long-term goals. First, participants will work in teams to look at their strengths and opportunities. Next, they will discuss current liabilities and areas where they are vulnerable to future threats. With an understanding of the landscape, the group will then identify the actions that could have the biggest impact on their business and the criteria by which they will measure that impact. They will then consider ease of implementation along with timing and return and rank each item accordingly.

What If?: Scenario Planning

To avoid falling victim to overconfidence and tunnel vision, good strategic planners address a range of possible scenarios that could affect the plan’s execution. In this seminar segment, we will explore scenario planning as a tool for looking at a range of possibilities and managing internal and external uncertainties.

What’s Next: Confirming the Plan and Ensuring Effective Execution

This final part of the workshop reviews nine steps for ensuring a strategic plan’s effective execution. Working together, the team will make a range of choices and generate a list of action items and questions for further consideration related to leadership, change management, processes and procedures, communication, staffing, training, and measures.

By the conclusion of this strategic planning course, participants should have an understanding of the strategic-planning process and a draft of a strategic plan. They should also know the steps that must happen for a plan’s successful execution and the systems available to monitor progress.

Available Formats

Full-Day Training Course
Multi-Day Training Course

Onsite Training Course Reminders

Our instructor-led training courses are available to private groups. These workshops are not offered in a public seminar format. Please contact us to speak with a facilitator about your needs and bringing training to your organization.

We offer training in the District of Columbia and the following US states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We also travel to Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Asia, Canada, Central America, Continental Europe, the Middle East, and the United Kingdom.

Please contact us about your location.

For information about pricing, please see our fee schedule.
For instructor-led webinars, take a look at our virtual classroom programs.
For information about self-paced courses available to anyone, see online courses catalog.
For free resources, check out our resources pages.