Developing and Delivering Effective Strategy

Dates:

• 17 - 21 March 2025 - London (£2,850)
• 9 - 13 June 2025 - London (£2,850)
• 15 - 19 September 2025 - London (£2,850)

Course Outline

The aim of this course is to equip executives, board members and senior managers with the knowledge and skills required to lead or contribute to the development and implementation of effective strategy in complex and ever-changing environments. The course comprises a mix of presentations, small group exercises, seminars and whole group plenary discussions.

Most strategies fail, particularly in the public sector. This course explores why this is the case and introduces delegates to the tools, techniques and frameworks they can apply to increase the likelihood that their strategies will succeed, even in the most volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) of environments.

Learning Objectives

On completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Explain what strategy is and describe the relationship between policy, strategy and planning
• Understand why developing effective strategy is so challenging and why most strategies fail
• Describe the characteristics of the most effective strategies
• Differentiate between a strategy that is likely to fail and one that is likely to succeed.
• Apply different tools, techniques and frameworks to help develop effective strategy
• Understand how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help develop more effective strategy
• Lead or contribute to the development and delivery of successful strategy in their own organisation

Topics covered include:

• Different descriptions of strategy

• Critical thinking and the role of constructive challenge
• The nature of ‘wicked’, ’adaptive’ and ‘gnarly’ problems
• Developing different options that exploit opportunities to achieve strategic objectives
• Performance metrics, and strategy review
• Leading the development and implementation of strategy.
• Stakeholder mapping to identify opportunities and threats.
• Deconstructing a vision into realistic and achievable strategic objectives