Strategic Planning & Management Training Course

Introduction

This seminar is designed to provide leaders and professionals with transformational tools and techniques to help them maximize their and their team’s creative potential in a strategic context. Its starting point is self-discovery: participants in the strategic planning and management training course will work on the inside first and then focus outwards to impact the business world.

The first week of this strategic planning and management course will focus on thinking differently. The participants of the strategic planning and management course should be prepared to move out of their comfort zones and experiment with new ways of creating and communicating an inspiring leadership vision.

The second week of this strategic planning and management course helps demystify the frequently misunderstood concept of ‘strategy.’ While focusing on the analytical disciplines on which a successful strategy is based, it centers on strategic planning as a value-adding process that harnesses the leader’s and the team’s ability to combine analysis with creative thinking and enables ideas and plans to be nurtured to reality.

Targeted Groups

• Top and mid-level managers.
• Supervisors and team leaders.
• Strategic planning department.
• Project managers.
• Human resources department.
• Employees who want to gain critical skills to improve their careers.

Course Objectives

At the end of this strategic planning and management course, the participants will be able to:

• Understand the linkage between operational and strategic management.
• Demonstrate innovative methods for harnessing others’ creative potential.
• Align their responsibilities and objectives with the strategy of their organization.
• Communicate their vision in refreshing and engaging ways
• Define the concepts of ‘strategy’ and ‘strategic plans.’
• Understand and explain visionary thinking as part of the strategic process and apply strategic planning to their management issues.
• Place their part of the organization within the overall context of corporate strategy.
• Gain confidence in managing their contribution to strategic implementation.
• Increase career flexibility (vertically and horizontally).
• Accelerate thinking speed and problem resolution for dilemmas.
• Improve understanding of the impact of operational specialization on corporate strategy.
• To improve team working capabilities in analyzing and solving strategic problems creatively.
• Improve skills in ensuring the most effective impact of individual specializations.

Targeted Competencies

• Leadership and management skills.
• Strategic thinking.
• Strategic planning.
• Problem-solving.
• Communication skills.

Course Content

Unit 1: Creative Problem-Solving

• Leadership reality assessment.
• Leadership vs. Management.
• Understanding our brain function.
• Myths of creativity.
• The limitations of the rational.
• Divergent approaches to problem-solving.
• Letting go of logic.
• Analogous thinking modes.
• Convergent and divergent modes.

Unit 2: Overcoming Personal Blockers to Creativity

• Sigmoid curve - lifecycle model.
• Continuous improvement.
• Breakthrough step change.
• Self-awareness and the nature of the ego.
• Personal goal alignment.
• Adaption and innovation: personal preferences for creating meaning.
• Exploring attitudes to risk.
• Left- and right-brain thinking.

Unit 3: Developing the Vision Creatively

• Six thinking hats.
• Using differing thinking styles.
• JOHARI window.
• The business plan process creates a vision.
• Harnessing the power of the team.
• Organizational culture and its influence on innovation.
• Letting go of the ego.
• Working with different creative preferences.

Unit 4: Communicating the Vision Creatively

• The 7 Steps creative process.
• Models of communication.
• Viral visioning.
• Authenticity and trust.
• Creativity tools, techniques, and strategy management.
• Letting go of the vision.
• Leading without directing.
• Possible leadership beliefs.

Unit 5: From Ideas to Action: Creativity and Change

• Motivation - hierarchy of needs.
• Overcoming organizational barriers to creativity and change.
• Nurturing a learning environment.
• Is Money a motivator?
• Personality profiling.
• Building a creative consensus.
• To Engage stakeholders creatively.
• Influencing and motivating through change.

Unit 6: Strategic Thinking and Business Analysis

• What are strategy and strategic planning?
• Why are strategy and strategic planning important?
• What are the main conceptual frameworks?
• External analysis - understanding and analyzing business attractiveness - macro-environmental factors, growth drivers, competitive forces, and market dynamics.
• Benchmarking your own strategic position/competitor analysis.
• Analyzing customers.
• “Thinking backward from the customer.”
• Mini-case on the importance of external analysis.

Unit 7: Internal Analysis and Fusion of Analyses into Strategic Options

• The interface of external and internal analysis.
• Internal analysis is financial.
• Internal analysis is non-financial.
• The concept and practicalities of the “balanced scorecard.”
• Diagnosing strategic problems and opportunities.
• Fusion of analyses into strategic choices - SWOT and the strategy matrix.
• Case examples of strategic choice.
• Mini-case on the importance of internal analysis.

Unit 8: Strategic Plans and the Relevance of Alliances and Joint Ventures

• Review of the tools used so far.
• The content of a strategy: avoiding “paralysis by analysis.”
• Putting a strategic plan together – the 5-page framework.
• A real-life example of a business strategy/strategic plan.
• Strategies for alliances and joint ventures.
• Example of best practice in alliances and joint ventures.

Unit 9: Global Strategy, Teambuilding, and the Management of Internal Communication

• The essence of globalization and global strategy.
• Globalization – the strategic dimension.
• Globalization – the organizational dimension.
• Globalization – the human dimension.
• How to build and manage a strategic planning team.
• Communicating strategy through the organization.
• Gaining your team’s commitment and buy-in to the strategy.

Unit 10: Strategic Implementation and Getting the Value Out of Strategy

• Effective execution - converting strategic analysis and planning into action.
• Linking strategy with operational objectives.
• Implementation – getting practical things done.
• Strategic planning of your career.
• Creating tomorrow’s organization out of today’s organization.

Enhancing Strategic Planning and Management Capabilities

Gaining a certification in strategic planning adds significant value to professional skills. Through this strategic planning training course, participants will develop an advanced understanding of training and development, gain the best strategic planning certification, and foster a comprehensive business planning course approach.

This planning training course integrates a sample strategic plan for training and development mechanisms. It equips professionals with the knowledge needed to excel in strategic management training and the broader context of strategic thinking course outline applications.