inquiry1

What is Strategy Search?

A real time strategic planning event involving from 40 to 104 people over an evening and a full day.
Most strategic planning processes are limited to senior management teams of up to eight people.
Allows ñthe whole systemî to participate in planning a desired future, creating commitment and ownership at point of participation.

How does it work?

People work at tables with eight team members.
During an evening session, participants review the past and focus on the present, identifying the key issues and trends.
During the full day, teams create future scenarios for a desired state.
Each team presents their scenario to the other tables.
After presentations, each team translate their scenario into a concise vision of one sentence.
Participants vote for the vision they feel most comfortable with and represents the most desirable future state.
The agreed vision is broken down into constituent parts and teams adopt a part to create strategies and actions.
Strategies and actions are presented.
Participants vote for the most attractive and effective strategies and actions.
Volunteers are sought to join a steering group to implement the adopted vision, strategies and actions.

What are the Business Applications?

Allows any discrete operating unit to plan in real time by involving the whole system or representatives of the whole system.
Enables large numbers of people to contribute to the future direction, strategies and actions.
Permits external stakeholders to participate in the planning process, such as customers and suppliers.

What are the Benefits?

Participation leads to commitment and ownership, avoiding the need to sell the plan to others in the organisation.
Better input means a better plan.
Participation takes a long step towards implementation, because people get excited about a future in which they participate.
Flexibility to involve key outsiders.