Thinking strategically
Strategic analysis, models and choice under uncertainty.
A half day on strategic analysis and choice: reading the operating environment, competitive position, positioning models and deciding what to commit to under uncertainty.
- Level
- Explore
- Learning time
- 4 hours
- Where
- Strategic Thinking
- Price
- £129
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Public service leaders responsible for setting strategic direction
Overview
Thinking strategically is a half-day dive into strategic analysis and choice for public service leaders. It begins by separating strategy from planning, with Horwath's three disciplines and the Kodak and Fujifilm case, then reads the operating environment through VUCA, Cynefin and wicked problems. It translates Porter's Five Forces into public service and moves into positioning and choice with Blue Ocean Strategy, Rumelt's kernel and the Seven S model. The later modules structure messy choices through the Strategic Choice Approach, robustness analysis and cognitive mapping, and close by matching decision tools to certainty, risk and deep uncertainty.
Aims
This programme aims to develop leaders who think before they plan: reading context accurately, choosing frameworks that fit the problem, framing coherent strategic choices, and deciding what to commit to now and what to keep deliberately open when the future is uncertain.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Diagnose your organisation's operating environment and competitive position using Cynefin, wicked problems and Porter's Five Forces.
- Apply Blue Ocean, Rumelt's kernel and the Strategic Choice Approach to frame coherent options and test them for robustness.
- Match decision tools to conditions of certainty, risk, uncertainty and ambiguity when making strategic commitments in your organisation.
What you'll develop
Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:
- Distinguish strategic thinking from strategic planning, strategic management and strategic leadership, and apply the test of value and real choice to a strategy document.
- Distinguish the five Cynefin domains and describe the decision-making approach each one calls for.
- Distinguish operational effectiveness from strategic positioning and apply that distinction to your own improvement programme.
- Apply the eliminate, reduce, raise and create moves to a service you lead, explaining how the first two fund the second two.
- Describe the four modes of the Strategic Choice Approach and identify which mode a discussion is actually in.
- Distinguish certainty, risk, uncertainty and ambiguity, and use four questions to place a live decision on that spectrum.
Built from 3 parts.
4 hours of learning.
- 01Seeing the bigger pictureStrategic thinking and environmental scanningBitesize2 modules
- 02Knowing where you standStrategic analysis: context, position and choiceBitesize2 modules
- 03Choices under uncertaintyStrategic choice models and decisions under riskBitesize2 modules
Keep going.
Part of the Strategic Thinking topic, also sold whole as The strategic mind.
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereExplore, 4 hours, £129
- The whole topicImmerse, The strategic mind, 7 hours 30 minutes, £249. Already own the Explore? You pay £120.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms