Strategic planning workshops

The new CEO of a national organisation run along not-for-profit lines wanted to make significant changes to the management and strategic direction. The organisation had been expanding in both staff numbers and areas of new activity, resulting in an increase in costs. This was becoming a concern for the major stakeholders, who were represented at board level.
 
Zurich initially introduced a risk management process to identify and profile risks, creating value by enabling the identification of action plans to optimise risk and resource allocation. Experience of this consensus-based workshop approach led the CEO to ask Zurich consultants for further assistance in developing the strategic plan.
 
A strategic planning process was developed for the senior management team. This comprised a period of pre-workshop planning and participant work preparation, followed by a one-day planning workshop to develop a draft strategic plan. The aims of the workshop were to agree:

• the organisation’s vision, mission and core values
• strategic goals for the next 1 to 3 years
• key success areas
• gap analyses
• outline plans and accountabilities for closing these gaps

The one-day workshop was based on Zurich’s own strategic planning process (Roadmap) covering the development of a strategic foundation, and then the development of business strategy and action plans. The strategic foundation was developed through a number of modules, combining pre-work with facilitated discussions, and including both internal and external analyses of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). These were drawn together to define the organisation’s strategic direction and goals.
 
A facilitated brainstorming process enabled gap analyses to be performed for six pre-defined key success areas and action plans to be developed. Measurable goals, actions, and objectives were developed and accountability assigned to members of the management team. The output of this process was captured in an outline report of the draft strategic plan. This formed the basis for more detailed plans subsequently developed by the participants.
 
As a result of the strategic planning workshop process the organisation developed a new vision and action plans, with a change of emphasis from expansion to efficiency. New short- to medium-term goals were developed to deliver this vision through process improvements. In addition the facilitated, consensus-based approach enabled the new CEO to assess the performance of individuals in his new management team, and to achieve the initial steps in building a new team approach.