Setting future strategy for any organisation or initiative is a complex task. Workshops provide an effective way of bringing together staff teams, board members and other stakeholders to reflect on an organisation’s performance, consider drivers of change, explore potential futures scenarios, define ambition and map out an organisation’s future actions.
The workshop format encourages co-ownership of strategy development achieving early buy-in to future plans – a factor which has a huge bearing on the ultimate effectiveness of strategy implementation in every organisation.
I use a variety of different tools and methods when running strategy workshops, these are carefully choreographed into a strategy sprint process which may take several days, weeks or months depending on the scale of engagement needed with staff teams and the need to gather data to inform the strategy development process.
Outlined below are some examples of Strategy Sprints that I have designed and facilitated.
For more information about Strategy Workshops contact tom@cofink.co.uk
Offshore Renewables Institute Workshops: University of Dundee & University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Dundee & Edinburgh
This series of five workshops systematically mapped out opportunities for development of an Offshore Renewables Research Institute to help support growing UK and International interest in offshore renewables technologies. To develop an effective Institute it was clear that academic disciplines would need to work together in new ways with industry and policy makers. The sessions explored the potential roles and contribution of the new Institute from the perspective of different stakeholder groups, including, Academia, Industry, NGOs and Regulatory Bodies. The workshops helped identify the key opportunities for the future institute, possible income streams and an organisational structure. This information helped frame a business case for the Institute.
National Design Research Forum (NDRF) Strategy Workshop. UK Design Council, London.
This one-day workshop was designed to help the UK Design Council understand the positive and negative perceptions of establishing a National Design Research Forum. 40 participants with an interest in design, policy and research worked through activities that explored the roles a National Forum might perform
Outcomes from the workshop were developed into a report and future development strategy for the Design Council. The workshop identified stakeholder interest in: policy leverage, brokerage & collaboration, gathering an evidence base, developing design researchers, defining design research and communicating the value of research.
Scottish Renewables Strategy Away Day. Glasgow
This half day workshop for members of the Board of Scottish Renewables and key members of the executive team provided an opportunity to look at the future strategic direction of this membership organisation. Structured workshop activities allowed future plans to be developed and scrutinised from both an operational and governance perspective.
University Strategy Workshops. Numerous
Setting strategy for universities is a complex process requiring a clear understanding of changes in the external landscape, cognisance of institutional values and consideration of competition and future positioning. Staff, students and stakeholders all have a valuable contribution to make to the strategy setting process. Tom Inns has used a workshop format to develop strategy in many different Higher Education Institutions. A wide variety of methods and approaches can be used to structure thinking and capture feedback.