Effective Strategic Planning: Communication, Measurement & Implementation in the Public Sector

Course Overview:

Effective strategic tools and skills are highly prized by corporate leaders. Forward-looking strategy formulation can make the difference between a profitable business and one that stagnates. This course explains how strategy allows an Organisation, whether public or private all at the same time to rapidly deploy a coherent strategy, be totally customer-focused, develop world-class people, and continuously improve business processes/systems.

This course is designed to enhance participants’ ability to develop business strategies, such as strategic thinking or vision (which positions the future of the organization), then strategy development (what framework do we use to get there?) and then strategy implementation (take the organization from plan to action and to rethink on short notice) sets true leaders apart from their peers.

This course combines proven-by-practice methods with new insights and ideas from a wide range of current strategic thinking. Strategic planning places the emphasis on leadership as Leadership becomes key not who is the leader, leadership simply means influence. Leadership is one’s level of influence not their level of authority. The use of lateral thinking, KPI/performance measurement and how to prepare organizational culture also feature After all strategic leadership means getting people moving and heading for a positive future with vision. This course explains step by step how to achieve this.

In organisations whether public or private, the probability of accomplishing your goal increases substantially when you plan it strategically rather than just start doing it. Planning is even more critical during challenging economic times or when multiple people and groups need to coordinate their actions to accomplish the primary goals, as is true of almost all organizational goals.

In today’s challenging economic world, organizational planning has become even more critical, not only to survive but to succeed in archiving goals and objectives. Most business executives will agree, intellectually, with the preceding statement, but agreement is not enough.

Course Objectives:

At the end of this course, the participants will be able to:

Understand the concepts and the differences between strategy, planning, goals, and tactics
Demonstrate how the operating unit’s strategic plan contributes to the organization’s strategic plan
Master the steps in building a useful strategic plan
Recognize and review their options during the process to optimize their results
Create clear, simple communication tools
Build a solid strategic plan that is unique to their organization
Develop a realistic implementation plan
Measure their results to make sure the organization is achieving its objectives
Obtain “Best practice” planning tools
Plan process effectively leading to more accurate measurement of success
Make better decisions on more choices
Improve efficiency in the planning and implementation process reducing wasted time.

Course Coverage:

Topic 1: Introduction to Strategy

What is it and how to effectively create it?
Major international concepts on what it is AND is not
Developing and using Strategic Thinking
Vision, Mission, and Strategy: the relationships between & how to create the natural flow between them
The steps involved in developing a strategy: a checklist
Understanding your Unique Competitive Advantage & how to state it
Formulating strategy and managing change
Creating a corporate culture of consistent strategic development
The Essence of Globalization and global strategy

Topic 2: Planning Process:

Building and managing a strategic planning team
The framework of a strategy: avoiding 'paralysis by analysis
Using effective tools such as the “new” SWOT, Porter’s 5 Forces, GE, etc.
Strategy Matrix: understanding options and analyzing business attractiveness
External analysis: using the PESTLE tool to gain insight & Market analysis
Determining the right strategies for the organization
Goals & Objectives: the specifics are critical
Short-term
Medium-term
Long-term
Contingency planning
Documenting the plan

Topic 3: Communicating Effectively:

How do we communicate the plan?
Using multiple channels to get the message across
Leveraging people’s learning styles to communicate more effectively
Communicating strategy through the organization
Using Your Emotional Intelligence
Dealing with resistance effectively
Setting up a Rewards system
Celebrating success – but not stopping the momentum

Topic 4: Strategic Implementation:

Effective implementation - converting planning into action
Planning the implementation: Using a project management tool
Setting expectations: benchmarks, hurdles, milestones
Team task management
fostering accountability in the workplace
Using the Deming model: Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDCA)to increase success
Guide to developing an action plan
Documenting & Doing

Topic 5: Measurement for Success:

Developing the accuracy, relevance, and precision of measurement systems
Separating KPIs from other Metrics
Blending the financial and non-financial measurements - the balanced scorecard concept
Organizational performance review as a baseline
The Balanced Scorecard as a measure of driving performance
Linking the BSC to the strategic (flexible) budget
Using variances analysis to manage the plan

Targeted Participants:

Managers, Supervisors, and Team Leaders
Strategic Planning Department
Human Resources Staff
Employees who want to get important skills to improve their career