AMA2009: Facilitating an Effective Strategic Planning Session

1. Defining facilitation and examples of how it applies to a strategic planning process

2. Clarifying your specific role in the process

3. Planning for strategic planning by contracting and getting buy-in from executive leadership

4. Defining the scope, goals, and specific results that will be achieved

5. Deciding who will be involved in the process and to what extent

6. Finding your Strategic Planning Champions and defining accountabilities

7. The crucial importance of chief influencers at multiple levels

8. Exploring style: the behaviors, priorities, decisions and symbolic aspects of an organization's culture

9. Today's most commonly used strategic planning processes/approaches/models

10. Designing your session: creating the storyboard/process flow

11. What tools/models/activities can be included in the strategic planning session

12. Techniques for enabling creativity and innovative thinking

13. Determining what information/data will be critical to discussions

14. Producing the expected results of the planning process

15. Managing the logistics before, during, and after the session

16. Facilitating the actual session: drawing people out, generating ideas and running the sessions efficiently

17. Establishing next steps and moving towards the execution phase

18. Conducting regular review sessions to check progress towards milestones

• What role the "facilitator" plays in the process
• Discussions and decisions that should occur prior to the strategic-planning session
• Who should be involved and to what extent
• How to acquire chief influencers in leading roles at multiple levels on your team
• Using and customizing the best strategic planning approach/process
• Create a committee of influencers
• Develop the right agenda, establish realistic meeting guidelines, and garner agreement
• Various scenarios and possible approaches to handling them
• Clarity and agreement of expected results
• Metrics and meetings for assessing milestones and progress towards goals

• Experienced executives, directors of OD, senior HR leaders, division leaders, strategic planners
• Others who must manage the strategic planning process for a department or organization, as well as those who would like to become an internal or independent strategic planning facilitator