How to facilitate a strategy session
How to Prepare for a Strategic Planning Meeting
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hi there ladies and gentlemen my name is
anthony taylor i'm the managing partner
at SME strategy and today i'm gonna
share with you how you can prepare for
your strategy meeting i'm gonna share
three things today in this video so
number one is this training for you are
you in the right place number two i'm
gonna share with you the steps for
getting ready for your strategic
planning meeting if you're coming to a
semi strategy you're probably getting
ready to create your strategic plan and
i want to support you in being as
prepared as possible and number three
gonna give you some bonus training but
the next steps that you can take after
your strategy meeting so a little bit
about me i'm the managing partner at SME
strategy so at SME strategy we work with
businesses not-for-profits and
government organizations and we helped
them create and fulfill on their
strategic plans and i'm actually the
author of two books as well so i wrote a
book on entrepreneurship called I wish I
knew and a book called alignment how to
get your people strategy and culture on
the same page so in the context of this
presentation is really around the
opportunity you have to get everybody
moving forward in your organization and
that's really the benefit of strategic
planning so is this training for you are
you in the right place watching this
video right now so are you a senior
leader a CEO executive director board
member or manager of a team are you
planning a strategy meeting in the next
couple of months so three to six months
anywhere between there or are you
responsible for creating and leading the
strategy within your organization if so
you're in the right place so I'm really
happy to share with you today so next
step how can you prepare for your
strategy meeting you're looking you got
to get ready with your team so what are
the steps that you can take in order to
move forward successfully on your plans
so at SME strategy we work with senior
leaders to support them in that and
today I'm gonna help you
so step number one what is the objective
of your meeting the first step to
setting the strategy and the strategy
for your own strategy meeting is to be
clear on the objective of the meeting so
the top five meeting objectives that
we've seen in our work facilitating
these two
so number one creating a clear vision of
the future and an action plan to get
there number two
getting prioritization and focus around
what you want to accomplish moving
forward in your plan number three is to
discuss core objectives
core issues affecting your organization
so whether that scenario planning
whether that's competition whether
that's changing trends in your
environment all of those things can be
discussed in a strategic plan and some
people do those meetings specifically to
talk about those things
number four is just to get the team
realigned how can we get everybody
focused and moving towards the same
place and number five is supporting
culture transformation a great thing
about doing strategic planning sessions
is that you can accomplish all of those
objectives in one strategy meeting but I
do encourage you to focus on having one
key objective walking in there and then
building your plan from there so next
question how many participants do you
want to have do you want to do a small
meeting with five or eight people do you
want to do a mid-sized meeting where
someone or somewhere around twenty to
thirty or there's some strategy meetings
and stakeholder meetings that are as
many as two hundred people or more so
the key part is looking at the scope of
the kind of meeting that you want to
accomplish after you've figured out your
goals and objectives third pick the
participants in the meeting who are you
going to invite and how are you gonna
fulfill on the objectives for you
meeting so are you going to invite your
board of directors are you gonna invite
key members of your leadership team so
if you're the CEO your VPS and directors
and your staff are you gonna invite key
staff maybe people in the second line of
leadership or other people that are on
the front lines that you want to
contribute as part of your strategic
planning session or that you think are
going to incorporate valuable insights
to the planning external stakeholders do
you want to invite your customers do you
want to invite partners and really you
have the opportunity to invite all of
them to get them into a room and to pick
the direction that you want to go with
your organization ultimately it's about
what you want and what you want to
accomplish out of your strategic
planning section
so number four pick the location either
on site so at your location or off-site
at a different location at a resort at a
hotel
wherever works for you our
recommendation is always off site when
doing large strategic planning sessions
the reason is it allows people to be in
a different headspace without the
distractions of the day-to-day if you
can afford it it's worth the investment
to go off-site they get the focus and
the attention and to create something
special in addition to the meeting
people get a few days away from the
database and it really makes a big
difference in their creativity and their
focus number five create the agenda so a
lot of people come to us at SME strategy
looking for either a one day or two day
planning agenda we have seen strategy
sessions that go longer than that and it
really depends on what your objectives
are how much time you have the
participants in your meeting and the
depth at which you want to have
conversations so just a high-level
overview if you're looking at a one-day
meeting which we recognize a lot of
organizations only have time for one day
meeting it's perfect for small
organizations it's great to refresh your
strategy so once you know where you're
going you can use that every year every
six months to get refocused and
realigned and we found in our experience
it gives you time to have three or four
really in-depth conversations where you
can dig deep into what's important and
have important discussions around it
again we have our one-day agenda on our
website two days or more is our
preferred for complex organizations and
any organization with over 20 employees
the reason is you want to look inside
the organization as well as outside the
organization before you even start
thinking about strategic priorities and
initiatives from there you can look at
vision and strategic priorities an
action plan but it really does take time
to build that up and set the foundation
for the process and you have about time
to do a tour so in depth conversations
looking at competition trends action
planning values mission and all the rest
so one day meeting for a smaller
organization two days or more for a
larger organization and then if you want
to get into action
and stakeholder analysis you may even
need three or four days
so moving on finding a facilitator and
we always say at SME strategy if you
don't have a facilitator you are the
facilitator an external facilitator like
us can range from three thousand to five
thousand dollars per day whether you use
one internally or externally rather or
you are the facilitator they really do
produce a lot of benefits and have a lot
of expectations attached to them so what
is the role of a facilitator now that
you have your participants now that you
have your location now that you have
your agenda now you need the meeting to
run and flow smoothly so the facilitator
has a few responsibilities that really
make or break the success of the meeting
so number one they lead the process to
fulfill on the objective of a day you
know what you want to accomplish
now the facilitators job is to help you
get there it's to communicate what
participants are saying and equally what
they aren't saying because sometimes you
communicate something but you don't
always have the full truth or there's
something underneath that statement that
doesn't get pulled out so effective
facilitator can really understand where
that person is trying to say as well as
what they're communicating so that
everybody is at the same level of
communication number three to keep the
meeting focused I don't know if you've
ever had those type of meetings where
somebody will go down a rabbit hole or
multiple rabbit holes and then at the
end of the meeting say well we didn't
really get a chance to cover anything so
it keeps the meeting focused and it
keeps the meeting on time if you have a
day you got to make sure that you
accomplish everything you set out to do
in that day and it's not to say that the
facilitator will guarantee that but it
really increases your likelihood of
being successful and accomplishing what
you want to accomplish next about asking
relevant and provoking questions because
we can ask a question gets to the
surface but really in complex
organizations and dealing with complex
issues and complex change you want to
understand the reasoning and get deeper
and deeper and deeper and have really
meaningful discussions and a facilitator
can pass those probing questions and ask
the right questions to get to the heart
of the issues it's to be unbiased
as a facilitator you don't want to have
an objective or the other in the meeting
it's really to have the participants
have a valuable conversation and the
conversation will go where it goes it's
also a facilitators roles to keep the
energy up being in a room for several
hours and with no energy or no light it
really can weigh on you especially when
tough conversations happen it can really
drain and put a damper on the meeting
what you need is a good facilitator who
can keep the energy up get people
excited and keep the movie meeting
moving forward um it's to make sure that
you get the ROI of your meeting it costs
money to rent a room it costs money to
have ten people outside of their daily
work so you want to make sure that your
meaning and your planning session is a
valuable use of time and money and
finally it keeps you accountable at the
end of the meeting the facilitator can
make sure that you are left with action
items and it's not like you have a plan
that sits on the shelf it's something
that gets executed on and you move
forward on it ultimately a facilitator
job is to make sure the meeting gets
started flows and ends successfully and
then keeps the momentum up moving after
the meeting is completed so if you don't
want to facilitate here are
recommendations use a trained
facilitator that specializes in
strategic planning there's a lot of
different types of facilitators and
coaches out there but you want somebody
who understands the process of strategy
so you create a strategic plan that is
successful there's a specific process to
creating a plan and if you don't know it
you might end up in a bunch of
directions without the objectives that
you want fulfilled number two if you
don't want to facilitate and you have
another facilitator that means you can
participate as a facilitator your job is
to be unbiased and to ask the right
questions and it's almost impossible to
contribute while you're facilitating
because your role is to be unbiased as a
facilitator so that means that if you
have a facilitator you don't have to
facilitate which means you can
participate number three you save time
with creating the surveys ahead of time
doing all of the research and the report
writing there's a lot that goes into
planning a meeting and a facilitator can
take
was off your plate so that you can focus
on what you do best and finally a good
facilitator may be able to bring
external perspectives from wood their
work with other organizations and in
their industry and may be able to
support with the execution so that again
you can focus on what you do best and
they can support you with your strategy
number seven prepping for you meeting so
the meeting itself is way more than
showing up and if you're going to lead
your meeting yourself there is a lot of
preparation that needs to be done so you
got to learn the process for creating a
strategic plan which is hopefully what
brought you tests any strategy in the
first place there are a lot of steps
that build and build and build on each
other and a clear structure so that your
plan gets fulfilled on successfully you
may have to interview meeting
participants to get a clear
understanding of what they want to
accomplish what some of their concerns
are and really to give their
perspectives so that when you meet all
of the concepts aren't new to the people
around the table number three create
pre-meeting questions get in the heads
of the participants so that when you're
in the room you can maximize the time
it's also building on the process asking
the right questions are you gonna get
you the right answers if you ask the
wrong questions they're gonna get either
wrong answers so asking the correct
questions that build on your strategic
plan will make or break your planning
session number four creating a package
for participants again you want to make
sure that your participants are prepared
understand all of the key issues have
had key considerations before walking
into the meeting otherwise you're gonna
spend the first few hours in the meeting
just catching everybody up and you're
gonna miss out on the objectives that
you have set out for the day number five
and the final is to create strategic
plan documentation so take all of the
notes from the meeting and take it into
an actionable plan and to prepare the
recap to present after the fact a plan
itself makes no difference without the
action and once you're complete the
meeting you need to have the
documentation in place so having those
that documentation and the project plan
ready to go will allow you to hit the
ground running after the
is complete so are you leading the
process yourself if you are you may be
interested in our course on how to
create a strategic plan because we
facilitate planning sessions across
North America we realized that there's a
lot of there's a need for people who
want to learn the process who want to be
able to have the documentation and who
want to increase the likelihood of their
success so really we wanted to create
something that supports you as a manager
in fulfilling on your objectives for the
meeting you're gonna spend tons of time
tons of money in this meeting and you
want to make sure it's a success so
here's what we put together for you so
it's a course on everything you need to
lead the strategy meeting yourself the
step-by-step walkthroughs of each part
of the planning process it's all the
templates workbooks and agendas you need
to document your strategy and to keep
all those ideas in place on top of that
I share best practices that I found with
leading organizations and getting
projects moving forward successfully how
to engage your stakeholders and how to
get buy-in ultimately it's about how you
structure the plan in the meeting so
that when you leave the meeting it's
clear easy to act upon and easy to
execute on so we do step by step
guidance so there's 7 modules as part of
the course first of all it's key
understanding the strategic planning
process so you can understand it so you
can teach it to your group the next part
is understanding each individual aspect
of the strategic planning agenda and
understanding why it's a critical
component of the process the questions
to ask how much time you should take and
the process flow for each step number
three how to do all the pre work how to
get started how to make sure that all of
your prep is done so that when you walk
through and into the meeting you're
prepared and you feel confident in
leading the process number four this is
one of the biggest objectives for people
and when they do their strategic plans
is getting your vision mission and
strategic priorities so we included a
section specifically on that so when you
create a clear vision your team knows
where they're going other strategic
priorities or the mission will help you
get there and the strategic priorities
will help you
prioritize and break out your plan into
easy manageable chunks not just for you
but for your staff and for your team
number five
managing your risk because we can create
a plan that's optimistic but we also
need to make it realistic so when you
manage your risk it ensures you plan and
prepare for things around your
organization so as you start moving in
your plan there's much less disruption
and you're more likely to hit your
targets on time
number six implementation how do you get
that 30,000 foot view to on-the-ground
execution so we walk you through the
entire process of creating a vision and
then leaving the meeting completing the
meeting with an action plan number seven
is bonuses and best practices it's all
about engaging people creating culture
risk to avoid in the meeting and much
more we're always adding new content and
it's all designed to help you create and
fulfill on your strategic plan for us
it's about you getting value and being
the most successful as possible in your
job in your role that's it
so next what's also included are the
tools and templates so we have sample
agendas balanced scorecard template
scenario planning template plumage to
visualize your strategic plan an
implementation plan to walk you through
the process a strategic plan template
and a map template and the reason we
outline all of these in this video is
because these are the types of documents
that you're going to need to create in
your planning session no matter what so
we've put them all together in one place
to save you time money and energy so
whether you use us or not please do
consider putting all of these together
as part of your pre material prep
finally this is what the course looks
like it's a lot like me talking to you
right now
different walkthroughs of different
concepts they're gonna whiteboard a lot
of the different processes and it's
really around the same process I grow
through in teaching the course is much
like you will do with your meeting
participants like right now today
imagine sitting here with ten people
around the room looking for you to guide
them through a strategic planning
process and that's exactly what I'll
show you how to
in these videos so really you could
picture yourself in the place leading
the session and it's so you're as
prepared as possible and you move your
plan easily and effortlessly so some of
our participants that have taken the
course again that really appreciate our
service the fact that we support them
and making the course easy to understand
it's about taking complex concepts and
making them simple and easy to execute
on and ultimately one of the biggest
things we could say is that you'll walk
into your planning session prepared
ready to go and ready to bring energy
and confidence to the process that will
then go to your participants and it'll
help you get feedback from them which
ultimately leads right into your
strategic plan so finally if you would
like to enroll in the course today
really make the most of your strategic
planning meeting it'll save you a lot of
money compared to using a facilitator
and it'll help you maximize the ROI time
money investment and effort and your
strategic plan so visit SME strategy
dotnet slash course if you'd like to
register in the course now I told you
that I would show you a little bit more
about what to do after the meeting and
now I'm gonna do that so after the
meeting itself there's a few things you
need to do so one create your strategic
plan document you want to make sure you
take all of the concepts that you got
from the meeting all the notes and put
it in one easy to manage place you have
the structure of the work plan and the
budget so take all the individual items
that you've prioritized on and then you
want to put timelines and budget on it
to see if the vision you've created is
going to help you execute on the plan
itself and other there's not enough time
not enough money or not enough resources
or you've planned accurately to move it
all forward and then after you've done
all that you want to create a structure
to manage your project to manage
milestones and execute on the plan
successfully now I recommend that every
three to six months you review your plan
and track progress with your team and on
top of that I actually recommend that
you and your management team meet every
week every two weeks or every month to
really keep your finger on the pawl
to make sure that your plan moves
forward successfully every three to six
months I recommend you look at your
entire plan get realigned with your team
refocused on the vision and the
objectives that you've set out and again
to make sure everything is on track and
then update your strategic priorities
and your action plan the strategic plan
is a living document and you can update
it periodically as your business changes
as you begin hitting your goals and as
your competition and technology around
you changes as we record this there's
never been a faster time of change and
technology growth and the same thing is
going to affect your organization so
make sure that your plan is living
document and all of the documentation
you put in place allows that you can
update it and edit it as you need so
finally this is the process that we use
with our clients when working with SME
strategy you know we have an
introductory conversation to create an
agenda so all of the things that we
talked about before the meeting we do we
create the agenda and then as part of
our client onboarding we do all of the
pre work we do interviews with the team
and then we create a survey so that way
we get a bunch of information ahead of
the planning session so then we actually
get into the session itself we can
maximize our outcomes in the day in
maximize the time we have together we
start with a two-day strategy session
really building the strong foundation
for future growth and then like I had
alluded to earlier we do quarterly
reviews we do a one-day planning session
every six months and then every year we
go through the two-day planning process
what that'll lead you to is culture
change organizational transformation and
performance management create the
organization that you want get the
people on board and start hitting your
goals and hitting your targets and using
that as an on building the momentum to
move it forward successfully so finally
just want to wish you happy planning I
really hope that this helps you create
your strategic plan helps get your team
bought in and it helps everyone be
aligned as you move forward so that you
make the most of the time money
investment and people you've put into
your planning session so you can reach
us at SME strategy and find
we enroll in the course on how to create
a strategic plan you can visit WWE
enroll in the course today I promise
it'll make a huge difference in your
success of your strategic plan and the
outcome of your organizational goals
moving forward
so in conclusion my name is anthony
taylor i'm the managing partner at SME
strategy thank you so much for being
with me today and i really hope you
enjoyed today's presentation be care
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