.....Developing a High Performance Strategy

Competing to Win

Overview of Strategy

• Learn the meaning and critical elements of strategy.
• Understand two orientations to strategy and determine where you are on this continuum.
• Explore three approaches to strategy.
• Assess the current strategy of your organization.
• Assess the current results of your organization.
• Learn the strategic design sequence you will follow in clarifying your strategy.
  

Analyzing the Business Environment

• Review current market conditions and key competitors.
• Identify key customers, key stakeholders, and their expectations.
• Identify key suppliers and rate your relationship with them.
• Identify external factors influencing your organization.
• Evaluate current market conditions affecting your organization.
• Review the strengths and weaknesses of key competitors.
  

Forecasting the Future

• Identify assumptions about the future environment of the organization.
• Reduce this list into the big hitters, that define your future business situation.
• Evaluate the impact of the big hitters on your organization.
• Determine how your organization might respond to each of these assumptions.
• Identify alternative future business situations.
• Conduct a SWOT analysis to prepare to effectively manage the future business situation.
  

Creating Core Ideology

• Understand the role of a core ideology in your organization’s success.
• Learn about the ideologies of some of the most successful companies.
• Explore the legacy of your organization.
• Define your organization’s mission.
• Analyze the beliefs that have created your culture.
• Reach consensus on your guiding principles.
  

Defining Your Strategic Direction

• Understand the primary questions that must be answered to establish strategic direction.
• Clarify a vision of your organization five years in the future.
• Identify the characteristics of your current customers and the deliverables you provide them.
• Describe your future customers and how your deliverables and products or services may change to meet their needs.
• Explore your organization’s core competencies and define the competencies you will need in order to compete in the future.
  

Defining Your Competitive Advantage

• Understand customers’ perception of value as the foundation of differentiation.
• Create a long-term business focus.
• Identify competitive differentiators within your industry.
• Do a competitive analysis against the competitive differentiators.
• Select competitive anchors that distinguish you from your competitors and competitive necessities that define in which area you must keep up.
• Develop a value position.
  
  

Setting Goals

• Understand the importance of setting goals and tracking performance.
• Learn the building blocks of goal-setting.
• Identify your organization’s key result areas.
• Establish metrics in each of your key result areas.
• Assess your current performance.
• Set goals in each of your key result areas.
• Evaluate your feedback system.
  
  

Creating a Master Plan

• Understand the importance of an integrated master plan for managing your organization.
• Select a number of critical success factors for your organization.
• Identify major performance initiatives to implement your ideal vision.
• Fill out a performance initiatives matrix showing the relationship between your critical success factors and performance initiatives.
• Learn how to create a project charter to guide the implementation of each initiative.
• Know how to commission project teams for each initiative.
• Understand the basics for project management and how to use a project implementation worksheet.

Click here for Developing a High-Performance Strategy, Part One.

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