Strategic workshops are one of the most effective ways a company can analyze and optimize itself toward changing markets. 

They are adaptable to the shifting sands of economic changes and have evolved to become much more creative than the traditional strategizing you might have come to expect. By keeping the meeting room open to creative input from everyone, strategy merges with creativity, yielding unexpected results.

Today we’ll break down what they offer to a company, and look at how to set one up through our take on the 5-elements of strategy. Be sure to keep an open mind and carry one out for yourself to rise to the challenge of business strategy.

What does a good strategy workshop do for your company?

Strategic workshops have traditionally included C-level representatives (CEOs, CFOs, and COOs) to formulate ideas for overall business strategy. Newer approaches to workshop strategizing however have shown their effectiveness at the department and team level.

Strategic workshops are a dedicated forum to take staff away from day-to-day operations and focus solely on the strategic moves the company should make. They make the most of honest reflection. In the game of football, the manager takes the lessons learned from the first half to consider what’s going well and what needs working on. The principles in business are the same.

A good strategic workshop combines strategic thinking with execution planning. It aligns the company’s mission with market realities, and when carried out well, gives actionable tasks to staff. Timelines and milestones become measurable, and clear metrics of success can be set up. We really sing the praises of strategic workshops and know how effective they can be when they’re carried out in steps. Let’s get into our strategic workshop guide to advance your business.

A 5-step guide to setting up a strategic workshop

Let’s look at a step-by-step guide to creating a workshop that will have your teams strategizing like chess grandmasters in the game of business. We’ll use the 5 key areas of strategy: Outcomes, Research, Ideation, Prioritization, and Vetting. 

1. Define your outcomes

Before going headfirst into the complex world of strategy workshops, you need to first nail down what to aim for. The first step of creating effective workshops is essential as it sets the tone for everything that follows, and by defining exactly what your outcomes need to be, your strategy flows with purpose. 

To get the most accurately measured outcomes, it’s crucial to remember that they should depend on the size and scope of your company or project. Let’s create an example to illustrate. Take a medium-sized tech company getting its strategy workshop set up. There’ll be a mix of stakeholders attending, from employees and customers to investors and community members.

Each group has its own set of expectations and priorities. Employees might be eyeing career growth and stability, while customers are hungry for innovation and top-notch service. Shareholders are likely focused on the bottom line of financial returns and profitability.

The outcomes need to be as closely connected as possible to both the company's mission and shareholder needs. The mission might be boosting the company's bottom line, like increasing sales by 20% in a year or doubling monthly subscriptions. Stakeholder needs might have the company focused on employee engagement, creating an actionable goal of improving employee satisfaction survey results. Customer needs might mean the company should bump its Net Promoter Score (NPS) by five points.

These examples highlight why defining outcomes of a considerably wide net of stakeholders is important. Be as specific as possible when defining outcomes for the most efficient strategy. 

2. Research and diagnose

Now that your sights are set on where you need to go, the next step helps you size up the playing field to inform your strategic moves. This essential step is to help make sure you’re completely informed and aligned with what’s needed in your market.

The most tried-and-tested technique for strategizing is by using SWOT analysis. For a basic breakdown, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and is shaped as a 2 by 2 matrix. Onto this window-shaped graph, a company might decide to place things like its competitors, or the things the company has that make it stand out. The strength of this method is in separating internal and external business factors, like your company assets and market conditions.

Let’s consider an example retail company who have performed a SWOT analysis for the research and diagnosis step. They’ve spent some time with board members giving honest reflections on the company, and they’ve discovered:

Their (internal) strengths are that their reputation in the market is solid, and their customers love their loyalty programs. Their (internal) weaknesses are that they’re not quite keeping up with online competitors, and their inventory management needs some tightening up. Their (external) opportunities show a growing appetite for sustainable products, especially in online sales. Their (external) threat analysis illustrates there’s market uncertainty in the upcoming year, and that there could be a rise in operational costs.

The knowledge gained from this research step helps them understand exactly where you stand, and from this, they can sketch out their strategic moves. Time could be spent aimed at improving online presence or shifting company focus to sustainability practices.  Effectively gather as much intel as possible, boil it down to industry insight, and use that to chart your course forward.

3. Ideation 

In the ideation phase of a strategy workshop, the energy shifts from analysis to creativity. The insights gained in the research stage are used as a stepping stone to formulate strategic ideas.

The most important aspect of this stage is to be unrestrained in creative suggestions. There’s nothing worse than ignoring an idea you’re unsure of in the forming stage, only to have that feeling of ‘what could have been’ gnaw at you later. 

Create a brainstorming session, and prepare your list of creative ideas beforehand to bring to the sessions. After all, the leader should carry the torch as a shining example, shouldn’t they? With your outcomes and research already laid out, why not bring in your early-stage suggestions to see how they go down with the group? This phase thrives on the belief that the most innovative solutions can emerge from the most unexpected places.

If you’re running a retail business, perhaps you have a great new idea for augmented reality or interactive touch-screens in the store fitting rooms, or a roughly sketched loyalty program tailored to reward eco-friendly shopping habits.

Create an arena of openness in your strategy workshop, and encourage all participants to put forward their ideas. While it might sound simple in practice, the truth is that there’s a lot of thought and analysis that goes in to effective workshop facilitation. The beauty of ideation lies in its embrace of diversity, so by keeping your pool of workshop attendees large and varied, diverse ideas are encouraged to flourish.

4. Prioritize 

As ideation is the step to allow creativity to flourish, the following step is the prioritization of those ideas, as in, putting them in order. That could be in order of importance, size, feasibility, or any other factor you can organize. This step requires you to be more analytical and is the pivotal moment where the raw creativity of ideation transforms into structured action.

During the previous ideation stage, there can often be an overspill of ideas. The best way to combat the jumble of free-form ideation is to create your own scoring system. Remember this step relies on being as analytical as possible. You might want to set up scores of 1, 2 and 3 for the idea’s expected impact. It can help to apply respective finances to this score, for example if the desired outcome of the strategy is to make 1 million dollars, a high-impact score of 3 for an idea should be thought of as at least 700,000 dollars. A lower impact score suggests lower financial potential, respectively.

Let’s consider a marketing team that has finished brainstorming some strategies to boost brand visibility. Among these ideas were launching a social media campaign and sponsoring a local charity event. The social media campaign scores highest for impact, while the sponsorship is given a medium score. In this scoring system, the social media campaign is given priority. 

By only using one measurement in prioritizing, it might be the case that the campaign isn’t cost-effective. This point goes to illustrate that when prioritizing, the only limit is the amount of time and resources you’re able to dedicate, and being more analytical is almost guaranteed to give more effective results.

5. Vetting and implementing

At the final stage of your strategic workshop, your carefully crafted actionable tasks need to be vetted with all C-level employees. One of the best ways to carry this out is to get everything into one Strategic Statement. This gets presented to the highest-ups as a complete package, and once given the green light from the board, it’s all systems go. 

Once it’s been through the executives, then comes the implementation. Get your cross-functional teams collaborating to carry out your strategies for each target market. Use as much local expertise as you can for cultural insights and market regulations.

An example of a global tech company illustrates this in action. After the creative brainstorming and prioritizing of actions, it’s decided that emerging markets are the best external opportunity to aim at. In the vetting stage, C-level executives scrutinize the expansion plan from every angle. There’s a lot for them to consider, like regulations, investment needs and potential partnerships. With their final input on prioritized list of actions, your teams can fine-tune their approach 

As your expansion plan comes into action, the benefits of the vetting and implementation process become clear. Actions are carried out in sync with goals and decisions are made with confidence.

The "vetting and implementing" phase of strategy workshops is where theory meets reality. It's a collaborative effort, finalized by those at the top, that sets the company up for success in the ever-changing business landscape.

Get the absolute most out of a strategic workshop in a new location. Try out one of our team retreats!

Strategic workshops work best when they’re made up of team players, and team-building retreats are a fabulous way to motivate staff. 

So why not consider a team retreat with us? Imagine the usual confines of your office settings melting away on a sandy beach or taking the time to appreciate nature on a countryside retreat. A quick change of environment can be as revitalizing as a complete office overhaul. Your team will have one another’s backs and be full of harmony, ready to tackle workplace microaggressions together.

Like this idea but not sure how to put it all together? No problem, this is where Surf Office comes in.

We've had the pleasure of organizing over 700+ retreat experiences, including remote teams, for many different companies. Here’s how what we offer:

• Stress-free transfers? We got you! ✅
• Quality-assured accommodations? Check! ✅
• Engaging team-building activities? Our speciality ✅
• Restaurant reservations? That's on us! ✅
• Expert retreat planning assistance? Of course, we have this covered! ✅
• Onsite support, tailored to your needs? Absolutely ✅

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Not only this but we also have access to 160+ locations around Europe, APAC, the US, Latin America and Africa, meaning the sky is your limit when it comes to choosing the right location for you and your team.

Your staff will be able to strategize and align with the company mission most effectively on a team retreat. Allow us to sort out the tricky logistics! Book now, spaces are limited!