Lots of companies and leaders find the development of a strategy to be a daunting and complicated process, whereas it should be one of the most motivating, exciting and even social parts of any leadership role.
To help get you started, I asked our new Associate, Chris Kerwin to draw on his extensive experience of developing effective strategies and driving digital innovation within major media groups.
Here are Chris’ 7 top tips for developing compelling business strategies with your team
- Information Gathering
Your aim is to understand where you are now. Look at your sales, your customers, your market and your competitors. You’ll have more data than you think!
- Team
Use your team to shortcut the process. A couple of days of structured facilitation with the experts in your team will move you forward much faster than weeks of desk work.
- Template it!
Choose a template to follow to give structure to your thinking and to facilitate discussion. Our favourite is the ‘Strategy House’ template above, but there are loads you can follow.
- Work on your Vision and Mission.
This is hard and will take a lot of discussion and iteration, again ideally with your team. Getting these right will pay huge dividends for the plan.
- Initiatives and Ownership.
This is the exciting bit! Identify the key initiatives that can drive your business forward. Express them succinctly, try not to have more than five, give them clear KPIs and identify a specific owner for each. Think about the team you need to deliver and the financial resources to back you up.
- Action Planning.
This is about turning the strategy into action. Develop detailed plans by quarter for each initiative, break down the KPIs into smaller measurables and develop a RACE so ownership is even more clear.
- Team (again).
Spend the time making sure your team understands the strategy and associated initiatives and plans. Again, a facilitated workshop or series of workshops can make this process more effective and more fun.
If you need support in bringing your teams together, developing leaders or change initiatives contact us at: info@nuatraining.co.uk
About Chris Kerwin
Chris has had a 25-year career in media, and is a strategic and operational business leader, with significant digital transformation experience, within TV, print publishing and specialist digital organisations. He’s led a host of well known brands for the BBC, Channel 5, Future and Immediate Media, including; BBC Good Food, Country Life, Decanter, BBC Gardeners’ World, and T3.
Chris is now working with Nua, and is an experienced facilitator, who has a specialism in driving change at pace to deliver solid business outcomes, whilst gaining buy-in from the teams involved.