SMC06: Breakthrough Strategic Thinking
Recommended for
Managers at any level who feel caught in day-to-day tactical detail and wish to take a more strategic view. Managers who have or will have present or future involvement in strategic planning and implementation.
Course Overview
Really successful strategies result in major business breakthroughs leading to accelerated growth and performance. In these turbulent times, past experience is no longer a useful predicator of the future. As Gary Hamel and C K Prahalad put it:
‘To create the future, a company must first be capable of imagining it.’
This course is an exciting expedition into how you can learn from the future. It enables you to construct a set of alternative futures so you can explore the crucial decisions facing your organisation and the significant opportunities different futures might afford.
Course Benefits
By the end of this course you would be able to:
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Expand mental models for better strategic thinking and generating new opportunities.
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Build a ‘simulator’ for testing and evaluating key strategic decisions.
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Apply leading edge tools that are essential for strategic survival and changing the way you think.
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Craft, evaluate and implement better strategies.
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Learn how to stand back from the tactical issues you face and address the strategic issues.
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Recognise the greatest areas of uncertainty.
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Identify which future is emerging in order to respond at the best time and in the best way.
Course Content
Day 1
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What is strategic thinking – thinking from the outside in!
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Strategic thinking versus strategic planning
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Organisational sense making
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Mental models and cognitive processes
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Scanning at the periphery
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Hypothesis driven approaches
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Uncertainty risk analysis
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Scenario design and development
Day 2
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Translating strategies into plans.
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Scenario diagramming techniques
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Customer, Industry, Competitor scenarios
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Strategy making
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Integrating the strategic thinking process with the strategic planning process
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Aligning strategic thinking and strategic planning models
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The strategic plan
